Happy Thanksgiving

 

Sustainable Energy ESCO Finally Loses Power

Greenburgh residents received an email from Mr Feiner about one month ago stating that Sustainable Westchester, an Energy Service Company (ESCO) was shutting down – finally! Here's what he said:

Westchester Power will discontinue providing residents with renewable energy at the end of the year

Sustainable Westchester has informed us that the Westchester Power renewable energy program will be discontinued at the end of this year. This decision results from practical implementation challenges associated with recently-adopted State outreach and education mandates. Sustainable Westchester has concluded that these regulatory requirements cannot be met on a schedule consistent with the program’s continued operation.

Starting with this December’s utility bill, customers who take no action will be returned to [Con Edison/NYSEG] as their default supplier of electricity.

As an alternative, customers may select another Energy Services Company (“ESCO”) for electricity supply. 

We originally reported on this apparent scheme being pushed, no, rammed down our throats, without regard to what residents wanted or would actually save. In fact, Mr Feiner knowingly lied about the amounts that could be saved, saying residents could save upwards of "$400 – $600 per month! The reality however was far from that. Most months saw that the Sustainable Power ESCO was not saving residents money. Rather they were higher than ConEd's rates. Once we learned that we had been opted IN to the program, many residents went through the process of opting OUT, then contacted ConEd to put a lock on their accounts so operatives like Mr Feiner and others could not do this to us again.

Here's a few excerpts in blue from an earlier February 2, 2016 article:

He also recounts, “the Town Board unanimously approved a resolution authorizing the Town Supervisor to enter into a Memorandum of Understanding ("MOU") affirming that the Town and Sustainable Westchester, Inc. agree to participate in a Community Choice Aggregation program ("CCA") to procure energy supply from one or more Energy Service Companies ("ESCOs") for the residents of the Town of Greenburgh.” Not only did this not happen, but it was reported in the Rye Record newspaper that they failed to do this, stating, “Failure to observe even the minimum outreach requirements imposed by the commission results in an inadequately informed customer base.”

In Mr Feiner’s email he repeats the same information multiple times, almost trying to convince everyone that this is a good deal. In fact, Ken Stahn of the Ardsley Road Civic Association, met with, studied, and presented his findings to the civic associations’ umbrella organization, the Council of Greenburgh Civic Associations, the Town Board and others. However, despite Mr Stahn’s pleas to slow down the process to acquire answers before jumping into this, he was summarily thanked and dismissed by the Town leaders. So while residents were sincerely trying to provide validation and correct the misinformation and contradictions, Town Hall was not listening – again! 

Sustainable Westchester has a cool sounding, environmentally friendly name that would evoke a feeling of energy conservation and environmental friendliness, the reality is that this is an experimental program being run by a group of attorneys from a hedge fund group looking to initially do their testing as a non-profit and if they are successful, change to a for-profit venue. With Mr Feiner and other elected leaders blessing this operation without answers to important questions, people may be lulled into a false sense of security. In fact, one of the active participants in this Opt IN scheme was former New Rochelle Mayor, Noam Bramson. He was mayor of New Rochelle until he retired from New Roc and joined Sustainable Power as their Westchester Executive Director. Nice gig if you can get it! Apparently, they decided to terminate this program due to new outreach and education requirements from the State Public Service Commission.

ABG, Ken Stahn and others have all questioned the logic of people having to opt-OUT of this scheme because Mr Feiner and his Town Board want it that way. What we and many others have been saying is that residents and taxpayers should have to opt-IN to this experiment. After all, government should not have the right to decide on what and how you spend your money. Opt-IN, not OUT should be the standard. Many of the community leaders that Mr Feiner has referenced that are participating in this experiment have been appointed to Board of Director positions on the Sustainable Westchester Board of Directors. Does this sound like a conflict of interest to you?

Mr Feiner stated that Sustainable Westchester is “leading the way...” and “Their application to form the first pilot community aggregation program has been granted, and the rest of the state is watching and waiting.” Mr Stahn had expressed reservations about being the first and that we have the ability and luxury of waiting until this model is proven and can supply real numbers instead of projected ones. He also stated that the falling costs of energy around the world is making the entire project even more suspect and asked Mr Feiner and the Board to not rush into anything. A three year minimum commitment is required of all residents. ALL residents, you may ask? Yes, Mr Feiner had signed up all residents in the Town to participate. They must opt-OUT to be excluded. How will you know?

Others continued to monitor and prove that Sustainable Westchester was a flop. The unfortunate result of this is that while Mr Feiner is quick to point at President Trump and the Republicans for rising prices, our own home-grown democrats have forced residents to pay more than they should have by being forced into this scheme! Just remember, the entire Town Board members ALWAYS voted in favor of having Greenburgh residents/taxpayers participate in this fiasco. Not one of them ever questioned the stupidity of this type of program. Thankfully, after ten years it'll finally go away – for now. It needs to stay away and stay out of our resident's way. If they want an ESCO, they can get it on their own. Only then will we get A Better Greenburgh!

Celebrating Those Who Served

 

Staying Safe with Amazon Online

Amazon sent us this in a personal email. We think its valuable information as the busy shopping season approaches, and decided to share it with these tips to help recognize impersonation scams - when a scammer pretends to be a trusted company and reaches out to try to get access to sensitive information like personal or financial information, or Amazon account details.

Tips to help stay safe:

 

• Always use the Amazon mobile app or website for all your shopping needs, including customer service, account changes, delivery tracking, and refund status.

• Remember, Amazon will never ask you to make payments or to provide payment information (including gift cards or wire transfers) for products or services over the phone.

• Consider setting up 2-step verification when available to your online accounts to help prevent unauthorized account access. You can set up 2-step verification at amazon.com/2SV.

• Save time and stay secure using a passkey. It’s a safer way to sign in than using passwords and it works with the same face, fingerprint, or PIN you already use to unlock your device. Set up a passkey at amazon.com/passkey.

• Scammers might try to create a sense of urgency to persuade you to do what they're asking. Be careful any time someone tries to convince you that you must act now.

Example impersonation scam tactics that you could receive:

 

• Fake messages claiming to be about delivery or account issues.

• Third-party social media posts and ads with deals that seem too good to be true. 

• Shop directly on our website or mobile app for authentic offers.

• Messages through unofficial channels asking for your password or payment information.

• Unfamiliar links asking you to verify your account credentials through fake or phishing websites. Amazon will never send emails asking customers to verify their account credentials.

• Unsolicited phone calls claiming to be from tech support or other agencies.

Visit amazon.com/scams to learn how to identify and report scams, access resources for scam prevention, and understand Amazon's efforts to protect customers from fraudulent activities.

Committed To Help Fulton Park

Two storms ago found residents packing a Town Board meeting to get answers to their flooding problems, which they would never get. What was available was a lot of hemming and hawing along with the admission from one tearful resident, “This was not the American Dream I signed up for!” Surely they cannot be the only neighborhood that is experiencing flooding in Greenburgh, are they? They’re not.

To career politicians such as Paul Feiner, Francis Sheehan, Rich Fon, Eyde McCarthy and others, all know that if they drag their feet long enough, those residents will eventually give up and/or move, taking a loss on the sale of their home just to be done with the corrupt, unresponsive and failed leadership that’s spearheading over-development in our Town at breakneck speed. All this while ignoring the antiquated infrastructure that is too overburdened to support the growth. Hence the flooding almost every neighborhood is experiencing.

Mr Feiner's patent line when he speaks to people who get flooded is, “I'm going to prove we're committed to help Fulton Park.” He rode his bicycle down Old Kensico Speedway recently and told it again. Having a good line of BS has paid off for him. On that day I told him no one in the neighborhood trusts or believe anything he says. After a little research, we found more neighborhoods that are flooding. Simply change the neighborhood from Fulton Park to the next affected neighborhood, i.e., “I'm going to prove I'm/we're committed to help Gibson Street,” or “I'm going to prove I'm/we're committed to help Babbitt Court” or “I'm going to prove I'm/we're committed to help Troublesome Brook residents.” You get the idea. Whatever lie is convenient at the time will be in play.

The Manhattan Brook has numerous choke points throughout its length, like this one below.




Apparently when the Army Corps of Engineers built the “brook’s” channel, flooding and water disbursement in the area was not as big an issue as it currently has become, but has been over-whelmed by various Feiner Town Boards’ actions. How did it become this bad so quickly? Simply, development. And in reality, over-development. Every project that his Town Boards approve sees an increase in water runoff that had previously been absorbed by grass, woods, open fields and even small lakes. More impervious space is the talk everyday as developers continue to pitch green roofs, water retention basins, dry wells and the like to get their project approved. And it works for them. While this happens individual homeowners are challenged by Mr Feiner’s boards for years to get their approvals.

Here’s a picture of the alleged pump that the Town brought to Fulton Park two storms ago, that just sat there and was soon after removed. 

 

 

 

When questioned prior to that about the pump, we were told that it was missing parts. Skip to the day before the Thursday’s storm (Wednesday) when we saw three Town trucks and the mysterious pump on it’s trailer sat at the non-existent traffic circle (sarcasm re: Westhab development) where Old Kensico Speedway and County Center Road intersect. Later that day the trucks and pump were gone.

On Thursday, at about 3pm, the storm began to pick up in intensity. Emails went out from neighbors asking for the pump, who naively believed, “I'm going to prove we're committed to help Fulton Park.” No timely replies. Now several days later, with even more debris collected at the vacant pump's staging area (see photo) the County committed to regular cleanups. Good. But here’s proof of a small part of the problem when a storm misses the schedule, promising us more of the same during the next storm. And this is after you cleaned out portions of the river off of County Center Road!

Several ideas have been suggested to all involved as to what to do by most of the people in the neighborhoods. If the plan is to respond with empty promises and false hope, and hope the residents get burnt out, fed up and move, then the plan is working! As my neighborhood has almost completely transformed itself with young families, they're hearing the empty promises that my neighbors before them also heard before they left.   

Francis Sheehan talks about 100 year and 500 year storms as though they are the exception, and of course climate change, but the narrative needs to change. Even Bill Gates has acquiesced. Mr Feiner came to Miguel's house to give the group your empty pep talk and asking for them to trust him has proven that he’s full of it – just like all of the homes are full of water.

BTW, Eyde McCarthy telling everyone to reach out to her to meet and possibly adjust their revaluations and then saying she's too busy is also frustrating. And, passing a resolution or law to perform revaluations every year overcompensated in the wrong direction as home values rise and fall and a true value is unable to be equitably established by doing it yearly. But this is just another knee-jerk reaction by Mr Feiner and his Town Board.

Passing the flawed bill that the Greenburgh Town Board adopted as legislation that would help victims of storms and other disasters obtain tax relief if they experienced significant property losses helps no one as was pointed out in the Town meeting awhile back. The first step is the Supervisor must declare a state of emergency. Did that happen Thursday or even Friday? No. Is that because it would change the bond rating of the Town or lose the classification as one of the best places to live?

Residents sent you a video of the water raging down our streets, until it got into their yards and homes. We all have videos, photos and damages. Please don't tell us what you've done. What residents have done is pay our inflated, reevaluated taxes all while losing value in our homes and the quality of life while you vote yourselves raises and heap praise on others. While the police department did nothing to close the road to help the neighborhood, the traffic division could have dropped off the road horses and we could put them up. After all, it's seems we have to do everything else.