Feiner’s Bid-Rigging Finale Prevails

In a surprising announcement late on Friday afternoon when most residents are leaving work, thinking of their weekend plans, our Town Supervisor quietly slipped the announcement out through his blog that he and his Town Board awarded the sale of 715 Dobbs Ferry Road, the former Frank’s Nursery property to the “paper” corporation, GameOn 365, for $3M! No details of the contract were available as of this posting. Not-so-stunning was the amount of time Mr Feiner had to keep the opponents at bay while GameOn 365 struggled to find financing through outside investors. He has been stalling the sale of the property for over two years now, assisting with GameOn 365’s search for investors by contriving an illegal referendum to justify his illegal actions.

ABG has predicted all along that Mr. Feiner and his Board would disregard the more lucrative offer from the established and profitable House of Sports’ parent company, Elm Street Sports, or any others for that matter, and pretend to show interest in all offers and ultimately, painstakingly, and hesitantly accept the “best offer for the Town in his estimation” from GameOn 365. We cannot prove collusion but can certainly acknowledge facts about this transaction don’t sit well with most people. ABG believes this warrants an A.G. investigation but knows that probably won’t happen.

Months before the Town acquired the former Frank’s Nursery property through foreclosure, representatives from GameOn 365 met with Mr. Feiner regarding the property. Unbeknownst to most residents and Town employees, Mr. Feiner and crew continued to craft a deal with them. Having apparently promised the property to GameOn 365, Mr Feiner struggled to find a way to make this deal happen quickly and without much resistance. He offered to lease the property to GameOn 365 in what can only be described as a major sweetheart deal.

The original offer from GameOn 365 was a promised $5M to the Town over 15 years. Thinking residents are clueless, Mr. Feiner issued press release after press release touting the deal. The press was negligent in doing their duty and didn’t scrutinize the legality of what Mr. Feiner was proposing. But a community backed lawsuit put a stop to the lease. What to do? GameOn 365 was nervous – their too-good-to-be-true deal with Mr. Feiner was vaporizing before them. Mr Feiner, a shrewd and clever non-practicing lawyer finally got the answer from the lawsuit itself. The Town is required to sell any property acquired through foreclosure and it could be a private sale without an RFP. He would do just that.

Yet, Elm Street Sports still wanted in. They had the cash in hand and could make the purchase immediately as they are already operating a successful sports facility in Ardsley. GameOn 365 is a couple of stockbrokers with little or no cash at all. To consummate this sale quickly, Mr Feiner would need to step up his game (no pun intended) to keep them out. Elm Street Sports offered $3.5M and full coverage for remediation of the site. There were no strings attached with their offer. They only asked what would be required of them? Mr Feiner never responded to their queries knowing he never had any intention of selling to them. The deal with GameOn 365, found them offering to put up a percentage of the down payment and claimed to pay for some remediation with a total sale price of $1.2M that included rent reimbursements from the Town as well as the option to terminate the deal at any time. After residents hounded Mr Feiner that he was giving the highly valued property away for “a song”, Mr Feiner had an assessor come and look at the property for a valuation. The assessor returned an estimated value at, wait for it, $1.2M! Then, the Town put that same assessor on retainer for the Town!

Mr. Feiner’s latest accusations toward concerned residents at the last Town Board meeting were that they were bid-rigging. Now, Mr. Feiner announced a lease for the property between the Town and GameOn 365 without ever doing any real “due diligence” because he knew he was always going to give GameOn 365 the property. In the interim, Elm Street Sports doubled the original GameOn 365 sale price offer to $3.5M. Everyone spoke clearly and with conviction and said take the highest offer. Mr Sheehan insisted he didn’t believe the Elm Street Sports offer was sincere. One of the Elm Street Sports representatives said at a Town Board meeting, “When it comes to money, especially millions of dollars, I am always sincere.” Too bad our Town Board isn’t.

The Town Board has the ability to make this sale whether the public endorses it or not. The public asked for an RFP but was ignored. The public asked for answers and got none. The devil is always in the details and while no details were exposed for this new deal with GameOn 365, we’ll keep you posted as this story promises more dark roads ahead.