Sunday, October 20, 2013

Silence of the Lambs

Sheep following the proverbial herd. Unanimous voting decisions 98% of the time. Kumbayah moments. Presentations and accolades are hoisted upon convicted felons appointed to Deputy positions. The remaining 2% of the votes, not to be confused with the phony tax cap that Mr Feiner disingenuously insists we adhere to, may possibly find, on occasion, one nay vote out of five. Sadly, the resultant outcomes for residents are all but guaranteed. Most decisions are habitually skewed, tax-laden, poor and/or costly decisions, culminating in undesirable execution. These decisions result in greater expense for both homeowner and business residents alike. Can this Town Board, previously referred to here as the “Stepfords”, ever break away and lead the Town in a better direction? ABG sincerely doubts it. It’s almost the silence of the lambs!

Democratic Primary
In the Democratic Primary campaign, Mr Feiner repeatedly stated that he welcomed the competition and this was democracy in action. While stating that from one side of his mouth, out of the other side he was quietly challenging Supervisor Candidate Bob Bernstein’s ballot petition signatures to get him thrown off the ballot! Concurrently, Mr Feiner challenged his fellow Town Board Councilman Francis Sheehan, who previously rode shotgun for most Mr Feiner’s wishes, voting through a wide range of issues brought before the Town Board. Occasionally, Mr Sheehan would find it necessary to appear to be an independent thinker. Knowing the rest of the Board would be supporting the Feiner mandate, ABG believes he (or another) would get Mr Feiner’s blessing to object publicly and vote against the proposal, purporting the appearance of independent thinking and voting. Ms Juettner, a co-defendant in the Fortress Bible Church guilty verdict with Mr Feiner, will often do the same.

Now that Mr Sheehan has been “thrown under the bus” by Mr Feiner with the intentional efforts to discredit him, we’ve witnessed a small glint of independence from Mr Sheehan, who portends to be more openly critical of Mr Feiner’s machinations. Still a bit gun-shy to go after Mr Feiner, he’s now offering some resistance, just not a full court press. After all, he doesn’t want to be “Sonya’d”*! Speaking of press, while all of this was going on behind the scenes between Messrs. Feiner, Bernstein and Sheehan, Mr Feiner kept telling the lamestream media that he welcomed the competition, that this was the American way and this is (was) democracy in action. These statements were nothing more than lies.

To be attacked and dismissed from the “Feiner Team” as was done to former Councilwoman Sonya Brown when she publicly attacked Mr Feiner.

We have a few more examples to share for the uninitiated and/or willfully ignorant. Read on...

Westhab
Sometime twenty years ago, Mr Feiner met with the Fulton Park neighborhood as residents continued protesting the additional homeless and transitional (from jail) people being placed in what was then known as the King’s Inn Motel. Earlier, Mr Feiner told the neighborhood residents he would support a senior living facility there if the County were to ever close the motel or cease using it for the homeless. Then, some sixteen years and nine or so elections later, he reneged on that promise and claimed he never said that. Another Feiner lie. When challenged, he insisted the residents produce the letter showing that he had said that. He subsequently sat down with neighborhood leaders, claiming he never said that but suggested to Councilman Morgan, “We may have to move this to another location.” When that statement was made, the leaders believed he would find another location for the subsidized housing. They soon learned it was another lie as Mr Feiner often does when confronted by facts. Mr Morgan repeatedly promised that no decision had been made with the project and “they haven’t voted on anything.” They believed him as well, only to learn that it too was a lie.

The Town Board quickly became the lead agency, offering Westhab “carte blanche”, approving everything that was requested for their 7-story apartment building to be built on .7 acres of land. Residents painfully learned Mr Feiner would lie about various aspects and features of the project, the residents would investigate his claim and through the residents’ due diligence, instead of just saying they would do due diligence as Mr Feiner has typically drones on about, they proved he was lying. Ultimately, Westhab utilized Mr Feiner’s bias against the neighborhood and the Town’s outdated and faulty zoning maps to push the project forward even after they twice lost their funding. Any homeowner and/or taxpayer would never have gotten this kind of consideration!

Deli Delicious
After watching the Westhab developer’s train scream through the station, Deli Delicious’ owner, Ernie Tartaglione petitioned the Town to create a drive-through window added to his small deli building. His claim was that he was losing $4K a month as his competitors flourished (without drive through windows). His plan then was being pushed by Irvington contractor Chuck Pateman, Sr. Fulton Park protested after they got wind of Tartaglione’s plans because it promised to congest their already over-crowded local street and one exit from their neighborhood. Earlier, Tartaglione had tried to make a deal with Westhab to purchase his property but they refused. Then he tried purchasing and distributing outdoor plants and shrubbery to several Fulton Park residents who protested his proposal to win them over. That ploy also didn’t work.

He enlisted Mr Feiner to reach out to all his media-friendly outlets and touted this construction renovation as vital to local business. Mr Feiner did just that, intentionally berating and abandoning the Fulton Park neighborhood taxpayers and residents. Nobody believed Mr Feiner because he cries wolf so often. That strategy simply didn’t work. Soon after, Tartaglione boarded up the windows and entry doors and put up illegal signage as well as spray painting in red paint the words “closed”. He continues to use the building and the basement office today, sells Christmas..., oops, “Holiday” trees during the winter.

Now Tartaglione is back again trying to build a drive-through window so he can flip the building and have the drive-through “grandfathered” to the new owner. While the previous Zoning Board of Appeals turned down his request, we’re not sure this will happen a second time as Mr Feiner has been appointing more “Feiner friendly” board members. If the zoning change were to not carry over or be “grandfathered” to the next tenant Mr Tartaglione sells the property to, ABG believes if won’t be easily flipped. Since this is a project Mr Feiner wants, ABG predicts it will go through even though there are more holes in this proposal than a pound of the deli’s Swiss cheese.

Stop and Shop
The Stop and Shop grocery chain decided to close their longtime location at Tarrytown Rd and Rt 9. It has had several iterations as a supermarket. It was a First National, then Finast and finally Stop and Shop supermarket. A somewhat small store by today’s comparison, it was considered a mega-store in it’s day. The new store was planned at the location of the old Premier Theatre location on Rt 119, opposite Benedict Avenue. The Glenville neighborhood complained to the Town that the already high volume of traffic on Rt 199 would be exacerbated with more construction. There would be more noise, truck idling at all hours of the day and night, flooding and a degradation of the quality of life for the residents there. Mr Feiner didn’t care. He told of laws that prevent truck idling, noise control and so on. They were never enforced by the police – even when complaints were made. More of Mr Feiner’s lies.

Dromore Road
S&R Developer Estates purchased property at 1 Dromore Road in 2006 for $1.4 million, and proposed building apartment buildings at that location. The property had a single-family home on it and S&R proposed to build a four-story, multi-family (37 unit) apartment complex. The developers believed the parcel of land was located in a multi-family CA-1 zone. The zoning maps showed the land to be zoned multi-family. The following year the Town informed S&R that there had been an error on the zoning map and the land was actually located in an R-20 single-family zone. More faulty and outdated Town zoning maps! The town corrected this zoning map to show that the property was situated in an R-20 zone, which is zoning for single-family residences on a minimum of a half-acre lot. Court actions took place and finally covenants requiring permission to build were discovered and have brought much of this to a temporary halt. Now, 7 years later, S&R knows all too well what homeowners go through for much simpler projects and renovations. The property is no closer to fruition with any kind of plans and the Town has been in court and dragging its feet for the entire period of time.

GameOn 365
This debacle is currently one of the fiasco du jour as Mr Feiner connives creative new ways to “gift” the property at 715 Dobbs Ferry Road to a startup venture named GameOn 365. The property is the former Frank’s Nursery site which has contamination throughout and was foreclosed upon, is how the Town acquired the property. ABG has often stated that if there’s a law Mr Feiner doesn’t like he ignores it. Such was the case with GameOn 365 when Mr Feiner tried to lease the property to the corporation instead of doing a sale as required by County and State law. When a neighborhood lawsuit and concerted effort was made by HelpBurstTheBubble.com and the Worthington Woodlands Civic Association, threatening Mr Feiner with another court visit, he capitulated and said their would be a sale.

At about that time, Ardsley-based House of Sports doubled the offer for the property and said they would remediate the contamination with no conditions as long as the Town would detail the zoning that would be applied to the property. Since the nursery’s abandonment and the foreclosure, the property reverts to its original residential zoning. This was a monkey wrench in Mr Feiner’s scheme forcing Mr Feiner into Feiner Deflection Mode and said the House Of Sports offer was not legitimate. Following suit, the Town Board picked up on the phrase and began postulating their own versions of with ever-so-slight personalizations. Not gaining the traction for which he had hoped, Mr Feiner did what he always does and simply made up his own “facts” about House of Sports and their offer. Mr Bernstein publicized the House of Sports offer and constantly urged Mr Feiner to accept the offer and that would show how legitimate it was. Mr Feiner countered that Mr Bernstein and others were “bid-rigging” and trying to sabotage the deal. He even spouted the same lies at the Hastings-on-Hudson debate between himself and Mr Bernstein!

Mr Feiner was in quite the quandary. He was now running against Bob Bernstein for the Democratic endorsement for the Town Supervisor position and he didn’t need Bernstein and his pesky facts getting in the way now that he was so close with getting this latest fraud over on the public. But Bernstein kept pushing. With push coming to shove, Mr Feiner begrudgingly took the advice of one of his G10 arch rival’s, Mr Hal Samis and announced the Town would offer an auction for the property and the bidding would start at $3.5M. Mr Samis is retired from the real estate industry and often suggests to Mr Feiner and the Board how to go about proceeding with various projects involving real estate. Unfortunately, they rarely take his advice insisting on distancing themselves from him. Consequently, they continue to bungle project after project without the best outcome for the Town or its taxpayers.

Now that the Democratic Primary election has concluded and Mr Feiner is the winner, Mr Feiner has decided not to do a real auction and to go back to a sealed bid – but still call it an auction. Ironically, while an auction would be the way to go and offer the most transparency, it could cost Mr Feiner and his GameOn 365 friends the property because Mr Feiner would not be able to control the outcome of an auction. Doing an auction could actually shut GameOn 365 out of the process! They simply cannot compete against the House of Sports’ cash resources or another offer from another bidder for more. Mr Feiner claims two other companies have expressed interest in the property but refuses to say who they might be openly. ABG believes there are currently no other bidders at this point for the property.

Auction, RFP, sealed guess, it really doesn’t matter. At the last Town Board Work Session meeting, the 715 Dobbs Ferry Road property was brought up again as Mr Morgan struggled to find wording to offer a motion for Mr Feiner’s folly. Since Mr Feiner threw Mr Sheehan under the proverbial Primary Bus, Mr Sheehan has been questioning Mr Feiner’s deals in modicum amounts. It seems a little too little, too late. Since no one is running against this goresome-foursome (Feiner, Juettner, Sheehan, Beville) and Paul has thrown Mr Sheehan under the bus, we hope Mr Sheehan will begin using his conscience a little bit more and not just continuing to go along to get along.

Brightview Assisted Living
ABG supports assisted living in Greenburgh. That said, the problem that always seems to be at issue is the over-sized nature of these proposals. In the Glenview section of the Town, roughly where Benedict Avenue meets Rt 119 across from the Marriott Hotel, is the Brightview Assisted Living center that Mr Feiner has mandated his Board to bless whatever the variances and conditions requested. It is to be built at the top of a hill in a small neighborhood overlooking the area on a ridiculously small parcel of land. To build it “to be cost effective” for the developer, they claimed they needed 90 units. They would also need zoning changes and variances to pull this off. Our Town Board agreed to the condition that Medicare patients would not be eligible to live there. Why? They are the low end of the financial spectrum and unable to afford the rents charged in facilities like this. Because they do not offer profitability for a company such as Brightview, they want to exclude them – a form of segregation and discrimination that is condoned by our Town Board. This falls in line and is borne out with our Town’s previous racist actions against the Fortress Bible Church and the subsequent guilty verdict rendered by the courts.

The issue of size for this facility is controversial. When the neighborhood complained about the size and the fact that the building was within 10-feet of the neighboring properties, the developer turned the building to change the encroachment to other areas. Still not happy, Brightview “squished” the building in and forcing it to go up another story. But specific zoning for Assisted Living didn’t exist. What did exist is zoning for Nursing Homes. While playing semantics, Brightview cried foul and requested an assisted living zoning change specific to Assisted Living facilities. Our Town’s legal department seems capable enough but never sticks their head even near the chopping block and stepped back into the shadows on this one. What happened was that Brightview’s legal team wrote the zoning change, with benefits for the developer more than the Town. Even with the requisite public hearings and many points of contention brought up by Glenview residents and the G10, Mr Feiner’s “zoning change train” was racing into the station, never slowed down and his Board passed the Town-wide change, indelibly affecting all Greenburgh neighborhoods with small pieces of property with four story buildings simply called Assisted Living Facilities.

Fortress Bible Church
Many years ago, long before ABG existed, a Mount Vernon, NY church purchased property near the intersection of the Sprain Brook Parkway and Dobbs Ferry Road. The proposed neighborhood where the Fortress Bible Church planned to build is residential. One well-known resident was then County Legislator and now State Assemblyman Thomas Abinanti. His friend and cohort, Supervisor Paul Feiner, frantically worked to keep the church from proceeding with the property’s development in Mr Abinanti’s back yard. Abinanti is an attorney by trade who can afford to move just about anywhere he wants, leaving behind residents that cannot and are stuck when these same representatives decide to assault their neighborhoods with unwanted and non-conforming projects. Abinanti hightailed it out of the neighborhood once Feiner was brought to court and found guilty of seven counts, including discrimination and violation of the Church’s Constitutional rights. The average citizen is powerless to act upon transgressions like these. Ultimately, most taxpayers are stuck with these developments as they witness their largest investment dwindle. Now, as the Fortress Bible Church decision and subsequent appeal upheld the guilty verdicts, the Unincorporated portions of the Town will be forced to pay the guilty verdict fines and attorney’s fees to the tune of about $8 million! Mr Feiner insists our insurance will cover the expense. According to Mr Bernstein when he was debating Mr Feiner, this is not true.
So, we pay in court fees, loss of tax revenue, guilty verdicts and they will be able to build with the Town’s money.

Flooding
Hurricanes, tropical storms, 100-Year Storms, 200-Year Storms, Armageddon, Locust, lions and tigers and bears - oh my! It seems as everything continues to degrade along with our infrastructure, and yet the only thing Mr Feiner and his Town Board want to address is our AAA Bond Rating! We’ve discussed this before and will just say having a AAA Bond Rating is nice but doesn’t help us if we don’t take advantage of it. Mr Feiner seems fixated on the rating but that’s as far as he intends to go with that.

Each time it rains, residential and business taxpayers cringe in anticipation of the subsequent flooding they know will take place. The two well known locations are the Saw Mill River and Bronx River sides of Town along the 9A corridor and the Bronx River Parkway corridors. During the Hurricane Irene assault, both sides were literally underwater. Mr Feiner and other politicians took every opportunity to get all the media coverage they could garner but offered no solutions or spent any more time doing anything but talk about it. Mr Feiner took initiative and began to point to every other politician and say they should do something to help their constituents. He didn’t say help our or my constituents. Why not? Probably because he doesn’t really care about the people he claims to represent.
When then-Elmsford Trustee William Zimkin organized a Saw Mill River cleanup, spurred by the 9A business community, Mr Feiner was there for the media-fest and then “poof!”, he was gone.

This past year has been a relatively dry season, and all the politicos could have been dredging both rivers, cleaning out the debris, improving the surrounding areas for all the residents, they’ve done nothing – led by Mr Feiner. It’s time to change the politicians who do nothing but pander for real leaders. The change will give us A Better Greenburgh!

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