Each series of meetings finds new catch phrases germinating
from our Supervisor. ABG believes Mr Feiner hopes that others on the Board will
grab them and use them in tandem with him, providing an appearance of faux-diligence.
But since throwing Mr Sheehan under the bus by challenging his ballot petition
signatures, challenging his character, and accusing him of lying about where he
resides, the Board members appeared a bit chilly toward him at the first work
session after the Democratic Primary election. It was at that Work Session that
his newest catch phrase was concocted, “I just want to move this forward.” and,
“I just want to appear to be moving forward.”
Even though his latest challenger for Town Supervisor lost
the Democratic Primary election, Bob Bernstein appears to have damaged Mr
Feiner’s thought-to-be-bulletproof armor, showing how many missteps, screw-ups
and mistakes Mr Feiner has made while the two were out campaigning. Mr Feiner
made multiple character attacks against Mr Bernstein that were out and out lies.
Conversely, Mr Bernstein cited project after project and the illegal actions Mr
Feiner perpetrated against the Town and the media let it lie dormant because
they are “in the tank” for their fellow progressive.
Previous catch phrases from Mr Feiner that would be cast
about were ones such as, “This is nothing more than bid rigging.” And, “We want
to do our due diligence.” Or how
about, “ Um, you know, this is just my opinion, it’s only my personal opinion.”
As ABG has stated previously, Mr Feiner is always the Supervisor and when he
sits on the Town dais it is as the Supervisor. He should never state that any
of his comments are a “personal” one. By saying its his
personal opinion and believing that that absolves him of responsibility as Supervisor is ludicrous. This behavior simply reinforces why term limits would be a
good thing. ABG knows it will never happen, but Mr Feiner and this Board should offer a
referendum for term limits.
Another interesting issue that arose at this meeting is that
Mr Harris of Group MRH (we don’t believe there really is a “group”) was at this
same work session requesting to renegotiate their/his contract with the Town, which
has still yet to be signed, because of increased costs that weren’t anticipated
by them in their original bid. At roughly the 47:00 minute-point of the
meeting, Mr Feiner’s handpicked, questionably chosen, inexperienced choice and
favored bidder for the WestHelp property management, bemoaned his plight of
staying within the bid. Mr Feiner responded, “I understand you didn’t
anticipate these additional costs during the bidding”. Really? He understands? How
nice. He caused the problems and created the deal with Group MRH. Now, bidders
benefitting from Mr Feiner’s bid
rigging, similar in nature to the GameOn 365 sweetheart deal are saying they
cannot adhere to the bid because they didn’t really know how bad the property
was. Perhaps they should have toured the property with the Journal News’ Dave
McKay Wilson – oh, wait a minute, he was denied access to the site.
The other bidders all bid more realistic amounts because
they have the experience necessary to participate in these types of projects.
Group MRH does not. What should happen now is the Town should dismiss Group MRH
as the high bidder for the property management and award the bid to the next
highest bidder on the list. But this is “Bizarro” Greenburgh where bad deals
just get swept under the carpet. The whole idea of a bid is to get the lowest
fixed price for a set amount of money and work, designed to eliminate any
collusion between the parties (bid rigging). It’s one of the glaring things
wrong with this administration. We’re reminded of Mr Feiner’s repeated
statement that the Town must, “Do our due diligence.” Apparently, Group MRH and
he should have done a bit more due diligence.
Now that the Democratic Primary election is over and Mr
Feiner is the official “candidate” even though he is running unopposed and no
longer a “real” candidate, he again got caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
About three weeks ago, a resident found paperwork left in the Town Hall
auditorium that indicated the Town has approximately $22M dollars outstanding
in unpaid taxes. When ABG first learned of the revelation, we asked if we could
get a copy but were unable to do so. At the September 17th Work
Session, several outside accountants were presenting a report on the Town’s
financial condition. Mr Feiner asked about tax amnesty and what was their experience in doing a tax amnesty program? They told him they had none. When Mr
Feiner pushed them to find out if he could do a tax amnesty program, they
refused to offer an opinion. Smart move as Mr Feiner must have realized the
slip up.
Mr Feiner has stated he’s willing to give up the interest in
exchange for the cold cash that would come in by the time the amnesty program ends
on Dec. 31. That’s assuming people have the money to pay the back taxes
regardless of amnesty or not. The problem with an amnesty program is that it’s
a crapshoot and if people haven’t paid their taxes it’s mostly because they
cannot. As Mr Feiner brags about the Town’s AAA Bond rating, he neglects to
discuss the $22M outstanding, unpaid, owed back taxes throughout the Town that
has been increasing yearly under his administration!
Another issue slowly percolating because of the back tax
issue is that the Town stands to acquire a windfall of properties through
foreclosure. We’ve witnessed for the last two years how incapable this
administration is with one property
they acquired through foreclosure, the former Frank’s Nursery at 715 Dobbs
Ferry Road. Mr Feiner and his Board tried to illegally lease the property to
another upstart, GameOn 365. When the neighbors intervened with a lawsuit, he
proposed an ill-conceived Referendum in the last election. That
easily passed with a majority of the voters who voted, but was left
languishing, as the Democratic nominations for the upcoming elections got
nearer and nearer and his opponent, Bob Bernstein, was slowly pulling the
curtain back, exposing more and more of Mr Feiner’s dirty closet.
At the same time, details of Mr Feiner’s “gift” to GameOn
365, along with the property’s contamination and a surprise offer by Ardsley’s
House of Sports for double the amount threw a monkey wrench into Mr Feiner’s
schemes. Now instead of doing their, “Due diligence,” Mr Feiner accused the
public of, “Bid rigging the process to where nobody will want to bid on Town
projects.” ABG doesn’t believe it’s possible for the public to rig the bid,
only the elected officials and participants of the bids can do that. If people
choose to not bid on Greenburgh projects, they would do well to look elsewhere
unless their has been a pre-anointed “nod” from Mr Feiner.
So while Mr Feiner has said, “It’s more important for us to
get as much money in the bank,” he said. “We’ll be better off financially if we
are able to collect back taxes.” He’s right. We have roughly the same amount of
money being lost for the Town by Mr Feiner with bad decisions, cronyism, lost
lawsuits and guilty verdicts. Greenburgh’s house of cards can no longer be
sustained with his “Aw-shucks” demeanor. 400 Greenburgh property owners are
delinquent on their taxes. The foreclosure process will begin for those
property owners who haven’t paid their property taxes. It is estimated that at
least 320 property owners will receive foreclosure notices. Can we really
afford to go through 320 Frank’s Nursery scenarios?
Greenburgh needs help. ABG believes its why Bob Bernstein
brought up hiring an outside Town Administrator who is not beholden to
political paybacks, the politics of Mr Feiner and his complicit Board and a
willfully ignorant populace. A Town Administrator is the right thing now that
there is little hope for any change at Town Hall. Greenburgh residents and
businesses deserve more. We deserve a better Greenburgh.