Sunday, December 22, 2013

Creating Spin From None

Most Town Board meetings see Mr Feiner try to brag about something he did within the Town under his constant campaigning theme. He continually touts that Greenburgh is the 80th ranked Best Place to live based on a flawed magazine article. Ever the opportunist, the truth doesn’t really matter and he knows it. He also touts the Town’s Triple-A Bond rating. If he says (and prints) it enough times, it will be perceived as the truth by Greenburgh’s willfully ignorant voters as opposed to taxpayers. By the way, the Triple-A Bond rating may finally mean something as the Town will need to borrow millions of dollars to pay off the $6.5 million Fortress Bible Discrimination lawsuit’s guilty verdict, which he, Ms Juettner and others are imposing upon Unincorporated Greenburgh taxpayers!

In his most recent campaign mailing, he regurgitates information we perceive as a “fluff piece” from SafeWise, a Rye, NY-based home and community security company, that states Greenburgh is one of the safest places to live. Actually, we’re 38th out of 50. Not a very impressive location on the list. Floral Park is #1 and Bedford is #2. That’s impressive for those communities. Less impressive is our placing.

If you’re not sure who SafeWise is, neither are we. It appears to be a company that is a clearing house for home security systems, comparing features and services from the top five security monitoring companies. They don’t appear to monitor security systems themselves or represent any of the security companies that do or that they write about. You can find out more of what they offer, but not necessarily more about what they do by going to this link: http://www.safewise.com. If you’d like to see more about their article/list about the safest cities, you can go to: http://www.safewise.com/blog/50-safest-cities-new-york/

We found that SafeWise utilizes outdated statistics from the FBI’s 2011 Crime Statistics in their U.S. Report with “our (their) own thorough investigation” and created a comprehensive list of the top 50 safest cities in New York, with 15,000 residents or more as of 2011. Greenburgh has about 90,000 residents, easily qualifying to be on this list of cities. Yet throughout the entire list, there is rarely a mention of crime. It seems more like a tourist information listing for planning your vacation and little to do with safety. Greenburgh is at #38 on the list. Then they also tout Yonkers, as number 46 on the list, above New Windsor (47) and Cortland (50). While statistics prove that Yonkers’ murder rate and general thefts fell in 2011, all other serious crime is up! In fact, statistics paint quite a different picture than the blurb from the list:

Yonkers, NY* is compared to nearest cities:
(Note: Higher means more crime)
Yonkers:
236.2
389.2
46.3
88.4
16.3
105.7
254.5
89.9
67.2
Violent crime rate in 2011
Yonkers:
284.2
U.S. Average:
213.6

Violent crime rate in 2010
Yonkers:
254.7
U.S. Average:
223.2

Violent crime rate in 2009
Yonkers:
270.6
U.S. Average:
238.0

Violent crime rate in 2008
Yonkers:
262.9
U.S. Average:
252.4

Violent crime rate in 2007
Yonkers:
256.6
U.S. Average:
259.7

Violent crime rate in 2006
Yonkers:
280.0
U.S. Average:
264.1

Violent crime rate in 2005
Yonkers:
275.3
U.S. Average:
258.9

Violent crime rate in 2004
Yonkers:
272.6
U.S. Average:
256.0



















































Because the City of Yonkers is framed in this list as a safe place to be, and we all know what the reality can really be, we took a look at Greenburgh statistics as provided by a different source, our own Greenburgh Police:

Part 1 AND Selected Part 2 Offenses
PART 1 OFFENSE2010
IBR
2011
IBR
% +/-
Homicide01
Rape4775%
Robbery2610-62%
Felony Assault29317%
Burglary79824%
MV Theft2322-4%
Larceny5696158%
TOTAL7307685%

PART 2 OFFENSE2010
IBR
2011
IBR
% +/-
Simple Assault5349-8%
DWI127117-8%
Sex Offenses (EXCEPT RAPE)1411-21%
Drug11915732%
Criminal Mischief21524112%
Fraud/Forgery16418915%
Public Order33039219%
Theft Offenses435016%
TOTAL1065120613%

OTHER SELECTED STATISTICS
Arrest Statistics

2010

2011% +/-
Felony238201-16
Misdemeanor867106122
Violation9818690
Warrant14018029
Juvenile81475
TOTAL1225148721

Miscellaneous Statistics

2010

2011% +/-
CALLS FOR SERVICE4243742232- .5
Reportable M.V.A’s13011235-5
Injuries (Reportable MVA’s)287262-9
Impounded Vehicles32138219
Animal Control Total2124237012
Alarm Responses424843091

Traffic Tickets

2010

2011% +/-
 UTT’s Issued – Total65276299-3

Parking Tickets

2010

2011% +/-
Total Issued by Patrols48054668-3
Snow Parking24382110-13
Handicapped206193-6
Fire Zones & Hydrants504427-15

As expected, Greenburgh residents and guests live in a much safer environment than Yonkers although there isn’t much of s spread between numbers 38 and 46. We also wondered how bad things could be in New Windsor, NY, since they are number 49 on this list (we had difficulty with Cortland’s statistics):


New Windsor seems to be a fairly safe place, certainly experiencing less crime than Yonkers and yet it placed at 49. Hmm. The information Mr Feiner relied upon in his campaign piece was (mis)construed for his own campaign purposes. This is not unusual for him. But how many of these campaign letters were printed at 50¢ each( 2-sided print)? We chose this figure as the Town charges resident owners 25¢ per printed page – even though our tax dollars pay for the copier, toner, paper and electricity. Then, there’s postage for 46¢ per mailed envelope. So, for 96¢, Mr Feiner wasted our tax money, employee time and Town resources to campaign on his behalf with skewed information. It’s ridiculous and needs to end. Only then will we get A Better Greenburgh.
* Yonkers crime data was taken from http://www.city-data.com/

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