Integrity & Respect Missing In Last Public Information Forum

Integrity. Dr Chase made a very big deal out of touting integrity during the meeting held at the Greenburgh Library last week when residents questioned the integrity of the school board. In fact she went into a several-minute diatribe about it, using up valuable time that should have been given to taxpayers and residents to ask questions and get answers about the proposed school bond referendum that is being held on March 19th under the cloud of obfuscation, and what some have called outright deceit.

This evening’s presentation began as the others had with introductions and long-winded explanations of why the proponents of this were in favor of it. In fact, people who had not attended or spoken at other meetings were now doing so. We believe this was a concerted effort to exhaust the clock, so to speak and limit the public’s time to speak. Additionally, there was an obvious (and dare we say planned) time limit imposed by the Library’s requisite closing time of 8:30pm wrap-up/9:00pm locking of the doors. It seems when these events were held at the schools time was a lesser factor.

After this exhaustive waste of time, the presentation was pitched. There was a new video now being used with a different child “explaining” what was wrong with these school district buildings. If it were not such a blatant and cheap attempt to use this boy as their foil, it would be laughable. Quite the contrary, it was despicable to manipulate a child this way. At least this time the new video didn't have Walter Simon and Mona Fraitag (Planning Board Chair and Alternate member respectfully) espousing the plan’s virtues under the guise of concerned citizens. Their previous participation seems like an obvious conflict of interest. However with the Town’s “paper” Ethics Committee, appointed by Mr Feiner, who was convicted in Federal court of lying under oath, destroying evidence and discrimination of the Fortress Bible Church, we seriously doubt they will be challenging this any time soon.

Once the posturing ended, they finally allowed the public to speak. You should realize that with such an important tax levy about to be thrust upon Greenburgh Central School District taxpayers, the public was only allowed 2 minutes each to speak. In fact, as Dr Chase was belaboring the benefits of this project, she engaged in a back and forth conversation with an elderly woman in the crowd who was obviously in favor of this proposal. Several residents in the back of the room protested as they had their hands up looking to speak but were ignored by Dr Chase! Integrity.

When the first speaker was finally allowed to the podium, she asked for an explanation of the $114.6 million dollars that will be borrowed by the School District and why the interest for it, as found in a document provided by School Board member David Warner, would be $84 million dollars but that there was never any mention of it in any of these presentations? So now the total we would actually be paying off would be $198.6 Million dollars - Wow! Not only did everyone straighten up and pay attention, Dr Chase tried to quickly shut down this resident by repeatedly saying the bond is only for $114.6 million dollars and her time was up! But how can this be? Thank you Mr Warner for daylighting an important piece of information. Finally, integrity.

Several pro-bonders pooh-poohed what was being asked. But the reality is, you can rarely, if ever, borrow money for free and it raised an extremely important question that has still remained unanswered. “Your two minutes are up, please let the next speaker have their turn.” “Answer my question!” “Next speaker.” Integrity indeed. The other 800 lb., elephant in the room is that Mr Feiner has proposed to replace the Town’s Police Department and Courts building with a $49 million dollar bond (plus interest!). So now we’re are looking at a total that could be around $247.6 million dollars! Lest we not forget that the Fairview Fire District’s portion of the Town’s has a 48% tax exempt properties and Hartsdale’s similar tax exempt properties of 42% wind up forcing those who are not tax exempt to pay twice the amount they should have to. And  we have not even begun to discuss the impact to the tax base when the Hamlet of Edgemont Incorporates!

Another speaker got up and questioned the two traffic studies which were very different in their results and curious how their findings could be so different? After telling the speaker very little, Dr Chase told him his two minutes was up. Then one of the administration’s representatives took one of the portable microphones to tell the gentleman that the Town's traffic study was flawed and that theirs was a pre-project traffic study and not binding. It seems whenever a resident/taxpayer(s) stumps the panel with a question they can’t or don’t want to answer, they say they’ll have to research that topic some more. But when it works to they’re advantage, they cherry-pick the points they want to use to make their argument instead of presenting all of the information in a forthcoming and open manor. In fact, another resident said she was an architect and routinely does business property appraisals and dispelled the $20 million dollar value placed the Highview and Bailey buildings the School Board was counting on selling when the are worth maybe $3 million dollars? Naturally, she was told her appraisal was wrong.

Read the Town’s traffic study on the Town’s website for yourself (if the link doesn’t work, copy/paste in your URL field): 
http://greenburghny.com/Documents/Kimley-Horn%20-%20Greenburgh%20Central%20School%20District%20%20Warburg%20Campus%20Consolidation%20Plan%20-%20Traffic%20Review.pdf

The entire evening was a duplicitous show of an overbearing and rude School Superintendent and Board talking down to taxpayers, as they desperately try to cling to her legacy dream, bolstered by a School Board whose past governance has been questionable and sketchy at best. Anyone who spoke against the proposal was spoken over or told their time was up. Mr Williams mentioned that years ago there had been numerous bonds voted down along with austerity budgets. He’s correct. He also responded to the contaminated land-fill issue from several years ago but would not allow a back and forth dialog with the resident. Yet, he was also a member of this Board for some 15 years or so, and had ample opportunity to try to work toward changing the direction of the school district. Whether he contributed to trying to fix it or not, this project is off the rails and everyone needs to put the brakes on this project until all of the facts can be vetted. Another significant issue of concern is that by law, they are not allowed by the New York State Education Department to lobby for a project. Yet, they have hired a public relations firm to do just that. So they are violating the law in addition to limiting facts from the public.

Unable to silently sneak this through to a referendum vote in hopes that no one was paying attention has created another level of mistrust with the School District. The School Board should cancel their misguided push for a referendum and enlist the aid of the residents to help formulate a workable and tenable project if we are to proceed on that route.  Perhaps a consolidated campus, beyond all the smoke, mirrors and lack of concrete information, is a good idea. But this isn’t the way for us to go about doing so. There needs to be openness, honesty, tangible information and answers to hard questions. This translates to integrity. Perhaps they should practice what they preach. Only then might we be better able to proceed. Otherwise, we recommend a “NO” vote against this referendum. It’s the only way to get A Better Greenburgh.