Semantics or Another Lie?

Last Friday ABG as well as others in the media fell for Mr Feiner’s classic use of words reporting that the Town Board voted in favor of selling the former Frank’s Nursery property at 715 Dobbs Ferry Road to GameOn 365. You’ll recall that Mr Feiner violated his much-touted open government policy as he secretly met with GameOn 365 principals to close a deal even before the Town acquired the property through foreclosure. The they met to work up a lease for the property since GameOn 365 could not afford to purchase it outright. As Mr Feiner craftily tried to slip the lease through the Town Board’s well-greased approval process, an alert and vigilant G10 slammed on the brakes!

It turns Supervisor Paul Feiner said Friday afternoon the town had “decided” to sell the property to Game On 365 for $3 million. Mea culpa – we should have known better. Mr Feiner added that the developer would pay for the site’s environmental remediation, a sticking point with residents who originally fought the proposed illegal lease with a lawsuit. At a press conference to be held at 2:15PM today (real start time is 2:45PM based on past experience), Mr Feiner and his Board plan to account for the supposed 3 to 2 standing with the Board in favor of selling to GameOn 365. It’s not always good to be correct, but ABG predicted this outcome for quite some time now. Still, there never was a public vote to sell to GameOn 365!

At the mid-afternoon press conference to be held at 715 Dobbs Ferry Road, Mr Feiner and crew intend to explain their rationale to accept a $3 million bid from Game On 365, bypassing a $3.5 million offer from Elm Street Sports Group, who operates a sports training facility in Ardsley. Here’s a sampling of what ABG predicts will be said to some degree or another, “The Town Board wrestled with which offer to accept for the property. Or, we did our due diligence and tried to get as much money as we possibly could for the land. Or, we had a fiduciary responsibility to the Town and were able to get more money from GameOn 365. Or, GameOn 365 has always be our company of choice because (and here is where excuses won’t matter) they offered to develop the land when no one else would; or, they have a terrific track record with their smaller facilities; or, I see this area being developed as a sports oriented area and as soon as we can drive out the other nurseries and driving range, we will spot zone the property for any developer who stays with a sports theme. Or, we, uh, I mean GameOn 365 will pay for all remediation and we haven’t decided if we’ll give them rental credits for doing so. Or, we have nothing against House of Sports; or, House of Sports is a fine company, but we needed to let someone else have a shot; or, we weren’t sure House of Sports was serious with their offer and Francis said that publicly numerous times; or, I made this decision years ago and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let anyone stop me!” Choose whatever line works the best for you.

So at this afternoon’s meeting, ABG hopes that the press will truly question the motivations by those leaders in the Town, why they are ignoring the better offer, and what other elements of this deal will be costing the residents and for how much? Whatever it is, it will surely have a proctological outcome for the Unincorporated Greenburgh residents. Why is everyone ignoring them?.