Flooding The Town

The intentional title could be about the flood of emails slowly picking up from a nervous Mr Feiner whose monarchy is being threatened. It could be from the water cascading down the 9A and Bronx River corridors like a spring thaw in upstate NY’s Ausable Chasm. It could be from the soon-to-be-normal campaign blitz to re-elect the current and failed Town administration. Indirectly, its about all of them. ABG was begun and has flourished because of issues facing our Town and caused internally. It is because of this that we felt this post is warranted.

Every election cycle seems to find every politician promising the world and delivering only invoices. There are two candidates embroiled in the race for the Democratic endorsement for Town Supervisor in this election cycle. Those two people are the well-honed, incumbent Paul Feiner and his opponent Robert Bernstein. The similarities and differences offered voters is a starkly wide one based on the issues needed to be discerned. This will only further muddy the decision making choices one must make if they plan to vote in the Democratic primary. On the one hand, Mr Feiner has cultivated the appearance of “problem solver” to the unknowing and uninformed public. Mr Bernstein has pointed out that the “problems”, beyond filling a pot hole or trimming a tree, are usually created by Mr Feiner so he can “solve” them.

Incumbents Diana Juettner and Francis Sheehan, also seeking re-election, continue to try to distance themselves from Mr Feiner’s unscrupulous dealings with GameOn 365. Yet, they can’t stray too far from Mr Feiner’s campaign war chest lest they be forced to pay for their campaign themselves. Mr Feiner has always financially sponsored candidates seeking office with him. Since he must run every two years, its that leash that allows him to easily “pull their strings”. Go against him, as Sonya Brown quickly learned, and be jettisoned with a new puppet on his knee. In this post, we won’t even get into the Fortress Bible Church debacle.

Here’s just a few points that can help distinguish the differences and similarities between the candidates. First, the similarities. Please keep in mind that these are not meant to be disrespectful, insulting or accusatory. Both men are near in age, white, Jewish, lawyers–one practicing, one non-practicing, live in upscale homes, are married with children and have been involved with various social issues in different capacities.

Now a few of the differences.

Mr Feiner illegally paid the Valhalla School District millions of dollars as a payoff for accepting WestHelp’s 108 affordable housing units while offering nothing to other Villages or neighborhoods. Mr Bernstein (with retired Justice Herb Rosenberg) recouped some of that money for the Town residents proving in court that Mr Feiner’s actions were illegal.

Mr Feiner chose to let the WestHelp apartments decay in hopes of tearing them down. Mr Bernstein worked independently as well as in concert with the local NAACP to thwart Mr Feiner’s efforts, halting the ruination of these apartments while the County turned a blind eye. That saga is still unfolding.

Mr Feiner insisted the Town Board do their “due diligence” in choosing a management team to oversee the former WestHelp property. Their choice was a non-experienced, new entrant into the mix, Group MRH, ignoring other qualified applicants simply because he promised a higher monthly fee. After doing his own substantive research and “due diligence”, Mr Bernstein conclusively proved that the Feiner-blessed choice, Group MRH, had misrepresented themselves and essentially lied to gain the contract. Mr Bernstein has repeatedly asked the Town Board to disqualify this firm.

Probably the most important aspect of the entire WestHelp debacle is that Mr Feiner arbitrarily took it upon himself to allow the largest income-producing, non-tax revenue funding and allowed it to expire! The County had “gifted” Greenburgh a most lucrative $1.2M per year lease for the WestHelp facility and Mr Feiner chose to allow it to lapse. Mr Bernstein has often stated that this was one of the largest and most costly blunders of this administration affecting the finances of the Town.

Mr Feiner’s most recent tax that he and his Board imposed was onto existing gas stations on the Central Avenue corridor. Mr Bernstein pleaded with Mr Feiner and the Board not to initiate the fee but they would not heed the advice of Mr Bernstein and proceeded anyway. At the last Town Board meeting several service station owners attended the Town Board meeting and lashed out at the Board and Mr Feiner for hurting their businesses while he catered to Cumberland Farms and a few other stations of choice.

Mr Feiner has focused on non-Town issues, such as turning the Tappan Zee Bridge into a park, similar to NYC’s “High-line Park” created from an old elevated train line. Mr Bernstein may be interested in the Tappan Zee project, but it doesn’t affect the Town. Mr Feiner should be focusing on Town issues, such as lowering taxes, reducing waste, and sitting down with the employees of the Town and working out a contract he let go unratified for 4 years. Mr Bernstein remained focused on Town issues. But since Mr Bernstein is not the Town Supervisor, he can focus on whatever he pleases. Focus seems to be an issue with Mr Feiner. Don’t believe us? Ask him a question and see if you get an answer.

Mr Feiner has a grand plan to overdevelop the Rt 119 and 9A corridors with larger, more “city-like” buildings. Mr Feiner’s Board goes along with everything proffered by job-security-seeking Town Planning Commissioner Thomas Madden. There is currently a move on Central Avenue to build a dance studio that was a little bit of everything: business on the bottom, offices on the top and possibly apartments as well. The push was for a 4 to 6-story building. This would be on one of the corners on Central Avenue near the 7-11 and Hess gas station. Mr Bernstein believes in development within reason and adhering to existing zoning. This project is simply too large for the location. But this is the vision Mr Feiner and Mr Madden have for our Town.

Mr Feiner’s administration has perfected their own “cloaking devices”. One such device is the intentionally curtailed development and lethargic implementation of a Town Comprehensive Plan. A town-wide comprehensive plan would severely restrict Mr Feiner and his Board’s ability to spot-zone properties for developers. While spot zoning is illegal, Mr Feiner has perfected the ability to not be held back by zoning laws. Mr Feiner has had 22 years to appoint members of the Planning and Zoning (among others) Boards, virtually assuring agreement and passage of any plan that comes for review. Mr Bernstein may want to consider removing zoning capabilities from the Town Board.

Finally (for now anyway), Mr Feiner has never worked in the private sector. As such, he has no management experience and terms such as Return On Investment (ROI), evaluation metrics, and performance reviews are abstracts to him. Most unqualified people in a significant position would invariably learn while on the job. Yet reviewing numerous projects throughout the Town, morale of our workers (our greatest asset), flooding throughout, spot-zoning, illegal leases, illegal referendums, over-saturation of group homes, developer-centric decisions, over-sized buildings throughout the unincorporated Town, WestHelp, GameOn 365, out-of-control Board members (“Sit down! Sit the F*** down”) keeping the public from speaking and more has proven this is not the case with Mr Feiner. Mr Bernstein brings management experience to the Town and a level-headed sense of what is in the best interest of the Town. Mr Feiner abandoned this quite some time ago. Mr Bernstein has also suggested he would investigate the benefits of hiring a Town Manager/Administrator as that seems to have worked well for the Villages.

There is clearly a difference between the candidates and we look forward to hearing them at several forums prior to the Primary election.