Sustainable Westchester Executive Director Out

In 2014, a town resident, filed a Freedom Of Information Law (FOIL) request for the Town’s GBList. The GBList is the Town of Greenburgh’s E-Mail list that Mr Feiner and his Board use at their discretion for whatever they deem appropriate. The resident’s argument, made in court and agreed to by the courts with their verdict, found that the request to be able to tell “the other side” of the story that Mr Feiner was telling was a reasonable one. However, even after being told to turn over the coveted email list, he refused. The legal department scrambled and filed an appeal at the eleventh hour. So, now the resident is forced to wait even longer.

Mr Feiner has posted jobs that he learns about on a private site he maintains. Another way to garner email addresses is for those out of work people to sign up. He doesn’t screen the positions, he doesn’t get paid for sending candidates, qualified or not, and he doesn’t guarantee your success. What he does guarantee is the growth of his contact list, including email addresses! His real fear with releasing the GBList is that he will be called out when he says something that is not true - which at times is often.

In a recent “post” for a position, really a self-promotion campaign for name recognition, he sent out the position of Executive Director for Sustainable Westchester. Below is the opening portion of the blurb that goes with the job description. We’re not posting it because we don’t want your email information, and have no ulterior motive. If you think you are executive director material and the position may be for you, click on the link below and get the entire picture. 

Executive Director

Sustainable Westchester

Sustainable Westchester, a not-for-profit organization, is a membership-based consortium of municipalities that addresses critical sustainability concerns within Westchester County. Formed from the merger of the Northern and Southern Westchester Energy Action consortia in 2014, Sustainable Westchester’s membership has rapidly expanded to include the membership of virtually every municipality in Westchester County and now serves more than 900,000 residents.

The organization provides a forum for communities to share ideas, develop programs and procedures, and formulate effective responses to important sustainability-related opportunities. It convenes and provides support to individuals in member municipalities through volunteer-led Working Groups. Presently there are four Working Groups: Land Use/Transportation, Energy, Materials Management, and Water.  The Working Groups set the strategic direction for initiatives in these areas based on the needs and opportunities presented to the member municipalities.   Website: http://sustainablewestchester.org/

We’re not sure why the previous Executive Director of Sustainable is no longer in that position. Could it be that he didn’t move the process along quickly enough for their Board of Directors and they gave him “the boot”? It reminds us of Westhab in Fulton Park. Their Vice President of Real Estate had sealed the deal with Mr Feiner and his Board and then hit all kinds of roadblocks from the neighborhood associations when the neighborhood associations actually did better research on the zoning, covenants, etc., than Westhab did, causing an over two year delay and significant reduction in the size of their project! Could it also be that due to the delay, the lower cost of fossil fuels and the lack of return once proffered by ESCO’s that Sustainable Westchester is not the Golden Goose it once was thought to be? ABG thinks so.

Below is a letter written by the Mayor of Scarsdale that appeared in the latest edition of the Scarsdale Inquirer about questions surrounding Sustainable Westchester. There are other communities as well who did not drink the KoolAid and go along with this. Rather, they asked the hard questions, studied the facts and made an informed decision with their community. This is the way government should work. When it does so in our Town, we'll finally get A Better Greenburgh.