Questionable Ties?

It has been proven that GameOn 365 had furtive meetings with Mr Feiner about the property at 715 Dobbs Ferry Road before the Town acquired it through foreclosure. Why secret meetings were taking place prior to any Town ownership remains another of the Town’s great mysteries? Why a genuine RFP was not offered for the property as opposed to an illegal lease remains unanswered? Only Mr Feiner knows for sure. As the faux-proponent of “open government”, the clandestine operations by Mr Feiner and a sullied Town Board must end, whether by voters proving they’ve had enough or by a non-partisan investigations.

ABG received an email from a concerned resident (name withheld upon request) via their civic association questioning if GameOn 365 could have ties to the Colombian government? This would normally not be of concern except that the entire GameOn 365 proposal sees like just a scheme initiated or at least carried out by Mr Feiner behind close doors. This makes every component of this deal suspect. Here’s why we believe this email raised concern for the citizen taxpayers of Greenburgh.

The contract for the sale with GameOn 365 appears to be written by the GameOn 365 law firm. When asked by several residents during the last Town Board meeting as to who the creator was of the contract between the Town of Greenburgh and GameOn 365, Town Attorney Tim Lewis stated that he, “...had a major role in it.” Retired Court Justice Herb Rosenberg pointed out the initials ‘C & F: 2143796.2’ at the lower right-hand corner of the contract. He explained it is where the law firm creating the document places their ownership identifier when they craft a legal document. We expected Mr Lewis to invoke the ever-popular “answers-at-the-end-of-meeting” coined response. Rather, there was simply no reply from Mr Lewis.

In the Town’s contract with GameOn 365, under Executive Counterpart, there are references on page 7(b)/(iii), that indicate it is a violation of the law if the “Purchaser is not a person or entity with whom United States persons or entities are restricted or prohibited from doing business under regulations of the Office of Foreign Asset Control (“OFAC”) of the Department of the Treasury (including those named on OFAC’s specially designated and blocked persons list) or under any statute, executive order (including the September 24, 2001, Executive Order Blocking Property and Prohibiting Transactions With Persons Who Commit, Threaten to Commit, or Support Terrorism), or other governmental action and is not and will not engage in any dealings or transactions or be otherwise associated with such persons or entities.” 

An email from the Westchester Field House, the parent organization of Game On 365, dated May 22, 2013, to an “asandoval@colombiaun.org” stated that, “We are excited to announce that the Greenburgh Town Board has agreed to authorize the sale of the former Frank’s Nursery site to GameOn 365 LLC.” The rest of the email goes on to espouse their plans for the contaminated site. We went online to see what “colombiaun.org” was and we were taken to the Colombian United Nations web site. Further investigation failed to locate any person named Sandoval on that site, although we realize not every employee for the Colombian government would necessarily be listed. The interesting question posed by the resident is the relationship between GameOn 365 and the Colombian government, if any?

ABG is not saying there is anything illegal being done here between GameOn 365 and the Colombian Consulate and the purchase of Town property. Certainly, since much, if not all of this proposal began under the cover of darkness and has remained shrouded in secret deals scripted behind closed doors, it would make sense that all parties “come clean”and disclose any and all relationships. ABG is not trying to sound like conspiracy theorists, but hopes to finally get some honest, if not full, disclosure. We know not to trust Mr Feiner based on his previous actions and and so too are suspect of GameOn 365 as they were both were apparently willing to collude a covert deal outside the normal channels.

Greenburgh Town Supervisor candidate Mr Robert Bernstein suggested several ways for the Town Board to get out from under this debacle. This property sprouts more questions than Jack’s infamous beanstalk each time it gets discussed. And throughout the Town we witness more projects being green-lighted by this same Board with reckless abandon. A Town Board laden with non-practicing and practicing attorneys without any business experience seems to struggle at every juncture as to how to do the right thing for the taxpayers. The former Councilwoman and Honorable Sonya Brown, referred to the residents as the Board’s employers during her time at the podium. This Board has forgotten this crucial point of information. Back room deals, purchaser-gifted contracts, 13-year unsecured loans with below-market interest rates and the like continues to grow. In financial advertisements we’ve all heard, that, “Past performance is no indicator of future results,” the indicators in Greenburgh are starkly and disappointingly different!

Is this really what we want in our Town? You decide.