County Warehouses Covid19-Positive Homeless With Healthcare Workers In Elmsford

We all know that the County Executive has said that keeping our healthcare workers safe keeps all County residents safe as they put their lives on the line to treat patients during the coronavirus pandemic. He also said, “I am proud of these efforts by the Westchester County Office of Tourism & Film and the Westchester Hotel Association to support those on the front lines.”

While it’s great to have housing for these workers provided for at area hotels, an alarming trend has developed. While the County is supplying housing for medical staff, they are also housing just-released homeless patients confirmed positive with Covid19! In fact, an entire wing of the Days Inn Hotel on Valley Avenue has been designated for only those just released. One nurse staying there was in disbelief when she learned of this.

The Village of Elmsford’s all-volunteer Fire Department operates the ambulance service for the Village. While standard precautions are always taken when dealing with infectious patients, it’s unfair to subject these valued first responders to the unnecessarily dangerous situation such as this. While everyone is entitled assistance when needed, the County should be contracting and staffing an ambulance service that can be used specifically for these patients.

Next, the County should remove all healthcare workers from this and any other hotel being used for Covid19-positive patients. In fact, we’ve learned that some of the cleaning staff are reluctant to enter these rooms, which will increase the intensity of contamination and chance of exposure and spread to others.

The County has set up five huge tents that are being built with rooms inside. We presume it is for Covid19 infected patients but have been unable to confirm this. If the tents are completed, why aren’t they being put there? Surely not every tent is still under construction and is ready to be used.

News Blackout Continues

ABG attended the Westchester County Republican Convention last night at the Manor House in Hastings. As an aside, the parking lot directly across the street remained closed, forcing all attendees to scramble for the few spaces available in the Manor House’s main lot or park precariously on the side of the street. With an official start time posted for 8PM, the main event didn’t start until 8:45PM. Does anything start on time anymore? 

After seats were finally taken, Westchester Republican Chairman began the meeting. There is a lot of pomp and circumstance during these events, although the Democratic Convention seemed less structured. Most of the evening was dedicated to nominating County Legislature positions, the County Clerk candidate and finally the County Executive candidate. Journal News columnist Phil Reisman was in attendance, probably trying to guarantee a position within the Republican party as his former colleague Matt Richter had done. Also there from the paper was reporter Elizabeth Ganga. Several other media representatives were there as well.

During the nominations process, District Leader James “Jimmy” Chism, made the motion to close the non-existant nominations for County Legislator. Before Mr Colety could proceed, he was interrupted by Mr Ed Ciafone, know as a Yorktown Watchdog, who objected, stating this would allow democratic legislator Mike Kaplowitz to run unopposed. He shouted, “We should not let Mike Kaplowitz, a democrat, run unopposed! I’d like to nominate Gregory Kane, who ran against him before and got 44% of the vote!” Stunned, Colety quickly recovered and told Ciafone his motion was out of order. Then Ciafone challenged Chism demanding he second Ciafone’s motion to prove he was being honest. Chism remained silent. Colety stated Ciafone could nominate Kane on June 7th but his motion was out of order. Ciafone stormed out of the event.

Shortly thereafter, Colety announced they had a special guest and they were going to change the order of the schedule to accommodate County Executive Rob Astorino. Nancy Meehan was called upon to make the nominating speech for the CE. Nancy was appointed to and works for the Board of Elections. Her husband Robert, former Mt Pleasant Supervisor, is the County Attorney, appointed by Astorino. This seemed to be a great night for family and friends.

Astorino made a predictable acceptance speech and received several standing ovations. He stated he couldn’t have won without all the voters from all the parties in 2009. He pledged to continue the fight against Washington DC’s intrusion into Westchester’s housing and zoning, maintaining his other pledge to “Stop the tax madness”. He touched on the lack of tax increases while he’s been in office but not the cuts that had correspondingly been made.

With all of this happening, the Journal News and other media outlets chose once again to ignore the event and write nothing about it. Sadly, we see the news blackout continuing in Westchester, ignoring what they choose and quite possibly believe might hurt their progressive agenda in the region. And yet, these same news organizations have no issue attending the event, eating the free food and having a drink or two without offering even a small paragraph. Why the news blackout for certain events and not others remains a mystery. Although, it is becoming clearer day by day.

What do we want in our Town, County and State? You’ll have a chance to decide.

Greenburgh News Blackout

We reported the official announcement of Robert “Bob” Bernstein’s candidacy for Greenburgh Town Supervisor in our previous post. There were numerous members of the press in attendance. Amazingly, in our 24-7-365, internet enabled, nobody sleeps society, ABG was the only one to report this. And, we did it last night, almost immediately after his announcement. Why haven’t the other media outlets reported this?

It is well understood that the media is not only friendly to Mr Feiner, but they couldn’t offer him better coverage if he was their owner and publisher! The Journal News, a daily newspaper with the corresponding Lohud.com website, usually posts breaking news and follows it with a story in the paper. Greg Shillinglaw, a reporter from the Journal News, was at the announcement. So were reporters from the Scarsdale Inquirer and the Greenburgh Daily Voice, neither of which published the announcement. In all fairness to the Scarsdale Inquirer, they are a weekly newspaper that goes to press on Wednesday, is delivered on Thursday. So, we understand they may not have a published story. But they do have a minor presence with a shell of a website that could have had a small story posted.

Another interesting point that we touched on was the need to have a police presence at the abandoned site. With about a hundred or so people in attendance, most car pooled and parked next door in the lot that divides the former Franks parking lot and the driving range’s parking lot. When Mr Feiner held his press-conference there a week earlier, he had no issue with unlocking the gate, letting people in and utilizing the police for protection. Quite the double-standard!

It is also well known that Mr Feiner will not get much, if any, negative press for anything he does that’s wrong – except from Mr Dave Wilson of Tax Watch fame, a writer with the Journal News. Wilson has gone after Mr Feiner’s lease-busting, racist deal with County Legislator Michael Smith, formerly the President of the Valhalla School Board, who fought to secede from Greenburgh rather than allow the 108 affordable apartments be built on the Westchester Community College campus. While Mr Astorino, Mr McCormack, Mr Smith and others have supported Mr Feiner’s efforts to tear down the sight, and eliminate low income housing, the state saw fit to keep it as intended: for housing.

Bob Bernstein is a former President of the Edgemont Community Council and, maintains in part, the ECC website. We are not affiliated although we share a number of common goals. Regardless of whether the news blackout is legitimate or simply that several reporters banged in sick last night, we’re disappointed they chose to go down this road. We also realize that like the Town Board who refuses to answer questions raised by residents, they are just as guilty by omission. We will keep the information flowing to our loyal readers.

What do we want in our Town? You’ll have a chance to decide.

Assaulted From Every Level

The Paul decided a previously thought-to-be untouched neighborhood should have a group home for the developmentally disabled located in it at 88 North Road. He also decided to keep his goal from the neighborhood he was about to punish. Had he included the Parkway Homes neighborhood with his plan in the beginning, he would have learned there were other group homes in the immediate area. The Paul’s actions highlights why we need term limits. The Paul has been in office for so long now, he’s in his 21st year, he has forgotten that he is there to serve the public, not himself, his developer friends, the county or the state! And since the electorate cannot seem to stop reelecting career politicians after a few terms, mandatory exiting through term limits would keep the abuse from perpetuating.

So while The Paul “ghettoizes” Fairview (Alfreda Williams, January 14, 2013, WestHelp Forum in White Plains) with more and more not-for-profits, building homeless/affordable/low-no income/Section 8 and any other type of housing that will not pay taxes, the State has decided to implant it’s own housing in Greenburgh. Why aren’t our elected Greenburgh officials standing up for what our residents want? Did The Paul invite the State to purchase 88 North Road or did the owner of it seek them? Could the State merely have been stumbled upon it? Doubtful. ABG believes The Paul reached out to the State agency and “suggested” 88 North Road to them, promising they will sail right through the approvals/zoning changes, et al, once he makes his Board the project’s lead agency.

In another seemingly shady move, this time from Westchester County and CE Rob Astorino, the County has entered into a deal with a church in Mount Vernon, namely the Friendship Worship Center, on Lincoln Avenue to create a homeless shelter in their basement. The hours of operation for this “warming center” are 9PM until 6AM each day. There are four schools in the nearby vicinity. So once the homeless are asked to leave at 6AM, they will probably be running into teachers, students and their parents arriving at school. It seems we are being assaulted at every level of government with low income and homeless housing. We have the Federal HUD mandate, NY State building out of place group homes in residential neighborhoods, this “paying of churches” by the County, and The Paul saying we should tear down the 108 units in Valhalla that were built specifically for the homeless population. Why so much? Because everyone knows where the money is and simply needs to form a not-for-profit company to jump on the government gravy train.

The homeless problem has lessened a bit in Westchester County, although the frigid weather brings the reality of it right back to our doorstep. Legislator Lyndon Williams made several excellent points in his letter to the County Executive. Here’s an excerpt:

“Addressing the homeless problem is a County obligation that requires a comprehensive long- term, county-wide solution, not a patchwork of fixes in which the homeless population is targeted for tolerant communities like Mount Vernon. Moreover, many of the homeless persons are in need on mental health services, and yet your Administration has closed the County’s mental health clinics that provided such services to this vulnerable population.

Perhaps more than any other community in Westchester, Mount Vernon has done its part in cooperating with the County to address the problems of the poor and vulnerable. However, this City cannot continue to be the dumping ground for all of the social problems of Westchester County, especially when considering that your Administration has eliminated from the 2013 County Budget many of the worthwhile programs that benefit Mount Vernon, like funding for at- risk youth initiatives that have been proven to be quite successful.

I do not want to simply point to the problem without proposing a solution. Therefore, I suggest that the $120,000 awarded to Friendship Worship Center to house the homeless be used instead by the Church to run programs that serve at-risk youth in Mount Vernon.

The shelter program for the homeless, in turn, should be located in the county-owned housing located adjacent to the Westchester Community College campus in Valhalla. This facility consists of 108 units of housing that are presently available and unoccupied. The fully equipped facility, which was constructed under the administration of former County Executive Andrew O’Rourke, was intended to house the homeless and that intention should be fulfilled by using it to solve the homeless problem in Westchester County.

It is truly a disgrace that housing specifically constructed to address the problem of homelessness remains vacant while these most vulnerable members of our communities are left to wander the streets, sleep in doorways of buildings and even die in cars in which they reside by necessity. Mr. Astorino, you have an opportunity to change the plight of the homeless by implementing this solution.”

ABG agrees with Legislator Lyndon Williams and hopes the County Executive will heed his plea to not pay off his friends and cronies, use the County taxpayer money properly and reopen the WestHelp housing that sits hostage under The Paul. We can only hope.