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.

Psst, Nobody Will Know...

Most Town Board meetings, as well as Work Session meetings, go unnoticed by the majority of resident taxpayers and business owners. In fact, this is one of the most emboldening elements in The Paul and his Board’s illegal, collusive and immoral actions. While the G10 continues it’s admirable defense of these same taxpayers from these actions, it’s getting harder and harder for them to keep up with all the bad decisions made by The Paul and ratified by his Board.

The latest unholy mess be perpetrated onto the Town has been with the property formerly known as WestHelp, located on the southwestern corner of the Westchester Community College campus. In a show of support for the Valhalla community, The Paul had used Unincorporated Town budget funds to erect an 8 foot tall chain link fence topped with barbed wire to keep the pesky low-income, single mothers and their young children contained and unable to roam the sleepy hamlet, devaluing their property. Others claim the fence was erected to keep single men out. County Legislator Michael Smith bemoans the fact that they have an overabundance of homeless people in their neighborhood. He openly states that there is a halfway facility across from his street and anyone who believes they should be there should ask to have them put in their own neighborhood. Valhalla has too much in one place.

Ned McCormack, formerly part of Valhalla School Board, and now right-hand man for County Executive Rob Astorino, along with Michael Smith, the then-president of the school board, agreed to a money laundering scheme proposed by The Paul years ago. Their brief meeting on that fall day would begin the ruination of the Town’s largest revenue/income stream that was essentially gifted to the Town by the County. Adding insult to injury, Smith, et al, decided to use the funds appropriated to the school board to take a party cruise with money originally intended for the Valhalla students’ benefit. When asked, Smith claimed at the time that county legislators and the county executive gave their approval with no indication that there would be any future repercussions. His moral compass misplaced, that was good enough for Smith and his crew as they hit the high seas. A lawsuit, subsequent loss and fines for repayment of the money proved that simply taking everyone at their word, with-a-wink-and-a-nod just doesn’t cut it!

The Paul was still determined to work with the Valhalla residents in hopes of nurturing votes in the next election, unsure if he’d be running for the supervisor’s position unopposed or if he’d have to mount a real campaign. He knows he can rely on Council member Kevin “Henchman” Morgan and his daughter to challenge opponent ballot signatures keeping The Paul out of the fray. So at the end of his last unopposed victory, he hatched a new scheme for votes. The Paul did not renew the lease with the County for the WestHelp property, told someone to make sure the facility was left open to slowly deteriorate and then did what he is so good at doing: deflection. He talked about Frank’s Nursery, dog parks, the Tappan Zee bridge, hydro-fracking upstate, closing Indian Point, ConEd’s dismal response during hurricane Irene and other things that have nothing to do with running the Town or which he has any authority or control. His deflection was working. “Mr. Open Government” knows what to say especially as he pens letters to the editors, community view op-eds, and interviews by the rotating reporters du jour who never get a chance to learn his modus operandi. It’s amazing that he has all the answers for every other issue but can’t run the Town efficiently.

The next step was to get someone to move in to the WestHelp facility if he couldn’t get it to deteriorate quickly enough to raze it. After all, what would please the Valhalla voters, Astorino, Smith, McCormack and the rest more than getting the homeless out of the facility? Tearing it down! So he needed a group to “play” and he found a neighbor right in his own back yard. The Ferncliff School located just over the Greenburgh boarder in Yonkers was looking to relocate. The added benefit for The Paul is that he could get another group moved farther away from his own gated community. He suggested renting the facility to them and they went after his plan like sharks chasing surfers. Their concerns were that they needed relatively flat land and while the WestHelp property might fit the bill, they would need to destroy about half of the existing facility and rebuild to meet their needs. Ferncliff and The Paul stated there was no other property anywhere that could suffice. Interestingly, The Paul never offered a similarly sized and appropriate property to them that could be ideal for the school – with some remediation. But The Paul already promised that property to Martin Hewitt, a principle for a start up venture/paper company known as GameOn 365 in a back room deal. The property? Frank’s Nursery.

The G10 pushed at every meeting to get The Paul and his Town Board to do the right thing. The NAACP, who intervened with the Valhalla property when then-HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo announced was looking to build the 108 units there, has consistently voiced their opinion that the housing should remain and continue to be used as affordable housing. Dave Wilson of the Journal News moderated two forums discussing the history of the facility, its usage, and future use. Legal opinions were tendered as well. The overwhelming majority of people, whether Greenburgh residents or not, tired of The Paul’s tactics of pitting the developmentally disabled children of Ferncliff against the affordable housing needs of residents. The Paul spoke at the first forum but said nothing and seemed to ramble on incoherently until a statement insulted the audience. The normally friendly crowd for The Paul got restless and the meeting was abruptly ended. Yet, at Town Board meeting after meeting, The Paul would continue have his foot soldiers march up to the podium and endorse the Ferncliff plan to take over WestHelp.

“R-F-P! R-F-P! R-F-P!” Okay, there were no protest chants for a Request For Proposals but it was the constant pushing by the G10, and others that forced The Paul’s hand and he asked for RFP’s for affordable housing prior to the state weighing in and saying nay to Ferncliff moving to the WestHelp property. Five companies that were affordable housing oriented companies submitted RFPs. The Paul claimed the Town Board would do it’s due diligence and investigate the offers. Apparently, one of the submissions was from a former school mate of The Paul. Can you say, “favored status”? Regardless, after a conversation with a resident, they withdrew their application. Another of the applications was from Ferncliff. They were in fact the highest bidder at $500k in rent per year. This wasn’t even half of what the Town had received from the County contract that had now run dry at $1.2 million per year. So, then there were three.

The G10 persisted for two long years and dictated the property be used as intended. They also met with County Legislators to try to get them to investigate The Paul and the Town’s failure to adhere to the contractual requirements for the WestHelp property. With a split vote in that legislature, things became a bit dicey for the democrats in charge. Could they go after one of their own (The Paul) and risk alienating themselves within the party? Some did, but enough didn’t. Smith, a Republican, had a veritable meltdown one evening at a County Board meeting over this issue. The Paul spoke at the County Board meeting, punishing them directly and then had Ferncliff supporters speak. The trick was to have the parents speak of the duress and uncertainty they live with if Ferncliff doesn’t get this property; which are all legitimate concerns. Fortunately, the state intervened and said said, “No.” They were against tearing down existing affordable housing in Westchester, nor would they supply the demolition funds and subsequent building funds Ferncliff would require if they received the property. All of their money has probably been allotted towards rebuilding the Tappan Zee Bridge.

There was one bid left in the RFP process that had all the right components, from a Richard Harris, not the famous actor, of the company called Group MRH, LLC. He submitted his “plan” along with a “resumé” and corroborating documentation stating he was working with well-known and respected affordable housing company, The Richman Group. The problems with the submissions from MRH are many and ABG believes were never intended to see the light of day. ABG believes that the RFP submission from MRH was designed to bolster the RFP submission of the Ferncliff School to the top of the pile with a $500K rental payment, besting the $100K up to $350K from the other applicants. By the way, we don’t believe the Ferncliff School was part of this ploy. The Ferncliff figure of $500K was an assumptive amount they hoped the state would pay for rent if Ferncliff’s proposal were to be accepted.

The resumé submitted by Harris was typed on plain paper as opposed to a letterhead of the company he represents and simply adorned with the word “Resume” at the top. It was more of a letter format than an actual resumé format typically seen in business. The text is eerily similar to that found from their “partners” literature. More importantly, after The Paul announced the partnership of Richman and Group MRH receiving the Town’s nod, the Town attorney Tim “Remediation” Lewis received a Cease and Desist order from The Richman Group Affordable Housing Corporation Vice President stating there was no partnership. Harris claimed to have a 10-year track record in affordable housing and yet his company has only been in existence for two years! ABG believes Harris may have been encouraged to submit a proposal only to bolster the Ferncliff offering so The Paul could get the tenant he wanted. But when the accepted proposal could not stand up to scrutiny, The Paul forged on, stating the lack of partnership between these two (Group MRH/Richman) didn’t matter to the Town and the deal stands. Obviously, not on two legs.

While this was going on, Ferncliff was reworking their bid. We’re not sure why as their ability to secure funds from the state to proceed anywhere seems unlikely. Could their actions have been suggested by The Paul in hopes that once this deal with Group MRH fell apart they would swoop in and save the day? Perhaps. Unfortunately, we’ll never know.

Because of all the incongruous and conflicting information, the G10 has once again asked that the deal with Group MRH be terminated. Once it is learned that any applicant has not been totally truthful or has apparently lied on their application, it should be dismissed and the next available bid be utilized. The Town Board is holding a work session meeting this morning, stated-time to begin to be guessed by all, to discuss this matter. We’re sure The Paul will remain obstinate and insist on discussing this in Executive Session. But, before they adjourn, they will award the sale of Frank’s Nursery to the lowest bidder, GameOn 365. Let’s hope no other countries send representatives to Greenburgh as the Russians did about two years ago to see how our government works. This is not how it should be and must change. We can only hope.

Go For Broke

At the March 27, 2013 Town Board meeting, the G-10 representatives were the only participants willing to show up and speak. The topics du jour were the WestHelp debacle where Valhalla’s racist NIMBY’s and the Town Board continued encouraging The Paul to allow the degradation of the WestHelp facility in hopes of purchasing Valhalla votes in the upcoming election. Next was the former Frank’s Nursery at 715 Dobbs Ferry Road, replete with contaminated soil, back-room deals, unanswered environmental concerns and “confidential information” the Town Attorney deemed inappropriate to discuss. ABG believes any offering to purchase Town property should be put on the table for scrutiny and review by the public. It’s our property! Ideally, an RFP should be proposed. Lewis’ opinion did not stop the G-10 from further questioning and comments. The third discussion topic was the never-ending, never-performed, town-wide revaluation plan (hereafter: reval). The Paul has talked about this for years and but never acted upon it . His motto might be, “Why fix it when I can talk about it and still get re-elected.”

Why is the Town reval such a hot, scary and hands-off topic? Why has The Paul stayed away from it for so long? Because it’s a politicians worst nightmare. Certiorari challenges are how taxpayers within the municipalities typically counter the seemingly high and unfair tax assessment for their property. There’s an explanation of why and how revaluations affect homeowners that is somewhat simple, yet effective. One-third of the properties that are revalued will see their property taxes increase, one third will remain the same and the final third will see a reduction. Senior citizens seem to get clobbered by revals most often as they have purchased their homes years earlier, paid ever-escalating property taxes, retired and live off of a fixed income in the same home. Once their home is revalued, it invariably increases in value and winds up costing them more in property taxes. Increasingly, there are  companies more available willing to assist a large number of businesses and a growing number of residential owners to get certiorari adjustments as a means to a lower end in the Town of Greenburgh. Each Town Board meeting sees a non-stop increase in certiorari adjustment payouts. The March 27th Town Board meeting saw the Town expend $719,240 in tax certiorari adjust payouts! And, that’s not the highest one to date!

Adding up the amounts of money The Paul and the Town Board routinely drain from the wallets of the Unincorporated residents on a bimonthly basis is staggering. Each twice-monthly Town Board meeting the focus on larger and larger amounts of certiorari adjustments, fines, settlements, etc. In fact, one recent certiorari payout several months ago was about $1.2 million dollars. Couple the Town Board bimonthly events with the monthly $100K in lost revenue from the County contract for the former WestHelp property, the impending guilty verdict from the Fortress Bible lawsuit for up to $8M, and one has to wonder if the Town will soon face bankruptcy under The Paul’s administration? Join us as we sing, “I hear the train a-comin’...”

One easy example to eliminate unnecessary and controllable expenses is to combine the two Recreation departments The Paul insists on maintaining. As an example, both recreation department’s pool chemicals are not purchased for both pool facilities by one department. It makes no sense but it continues as the Veteran’s Park pool purchases are made by “their” recreation department and the Theodore Young Community Center’s pool purchases are made by the other recreation department. It’s been publicly alleged at an open Town Board meeting that maintaining the two recreation departments as separate but equal is racist by nature. It’s also costly.

This despicable behavior fits The Paul like a glove. He has openly flaunted this demeanor as part of the “goresome foursome” with County Executive Rob Astorino, County Legislator Michael Smith and County Executive Communications Director Ned McCormack. How do we know about The Paul’s racism? ABG witnessed it at an NAACP meeting held in White Plains several months ago when he publicly slipped and put his foot in his mouth*. We also know because he was found guilty of discrimination, destroying evidence and more in the Fortress Bible case. A subsequent appeal of his guilty verdict by The Paul and Diana “Sleepy” Juettner was struck down by a Federal Appeals Court, validating the guilt of The Paul and Diana Juettner.

Running the Town requires basic management skills. ABG believes the department heads (Commissioners) are qualified to run their own departments. If they are doing their jobs well, the running of the Town becomes a bit easier. But even with qualified individuals at the helm, The Paul and his Board manage to screw things up. Morale is at an all time low. Teamster-member Town employees are forced to wait four years before The Paul will negotiate their contract. There’s a hiring freeze in place unless it’s a position The Paul wants to fill with one of his cronies. It was pointed out by one speaker that the Town Board maintains its vacancy of moral actions because they lack a moral compass. ABG believes this is mostly because they wish to be re-elected and helped by The Paul. Subsequently, they blindly and unconditionally follow The Paul’s mandates and lead – contrary to Francis “Back Pocket” Sheehan’s pronouncement of independent thinking on behalf of the Board members. Could a contributing factor be that the Town Board consists of only one political party? Possibly. Regardless, ABG is of the mind that it may be time to vacate the holder of the Town Supervisor position for someone with management experience and the ability to judge right from wrong instead of whether they are gaining a vote or not. Maybe it’s time to go for broke! We can only hope.


* See: 

Tuesday, January 15, 2013 - Feiner Insults NAACP:

http://www.abettergreenburgh.blogspot.com/2013/01/feiner-insults-naacp.html

and

Wednesday, January 16, 2013 - Feiner Insults NAACP - Part 2:

http://www.abettergreenburgh.blogspot.com/2013/01/feiner-insults-naacp-part-2.html

Ruining WestHelp to Secure Votes

The Town’s largest source of rental income will invariably continue to stand abandoned and empty, and continue to deteriorate throughout 2013. Regrettably, because of intentional and designed neglect, it will need to be torn down when all is said and finally done. This bill will wind up being paid for by the Town’s Unincorporated residents, victims of The Paul’s lack of management skills and overall incompetence. Of course, we all know this facility as WestHELP, the 108-apartment low/no income housing complex off of Knollwood Road on the Westchester Community College campus.

The Paul had craftily ignored requests from the Spano Administration over three years ago to renew the $1.2 million lease back when Spano was still the county executive. There was obviously an ulterior motive behind his refusal to renew: more votes for himself and even his “opposition”. He knew if he didn’t renew the lease, he could intentionally let the units fall into disrepair, vandalism and destruction and then say despondently, “These units need too much money invested in them to save, they must be destroyed as they are uninhabitable!”

The scheme was hatched. He informed his Stepford Board that they must sing the same song or risk expulsion from The Paul’s Circle of Trust, invoking the Sonya Brown clause. They concurred with the requisite, “Yes, m’Lord.” Seated to the right of The Paul was Kevin “The Henchman” Morgan, who scorned, “You will comply.” Newcomer Jones tendered temporary resistance by abstaining from attendance when a vote was necessary to move the plan forward. One demerit earned.

The Paul, ever adept with diversion, deflection and deceit, then formulated the next part of his plan. He found a likely subject that might be interested in occupying the property once the units were destroyed in the Ferncliff School. We imagine Sheehan might have asked The Paul, “But what of the County rental contract with the Town? Even as a non-practicing attorney you know it’s a breach on contract if we don’t rent these affordable units to people in need of homes?” And with a quick and surprising follow-up, Diana “Sleepy” Juettner might have asked “How about our own Greenburgh Housing Authority list of over two hundred and fifty people in need of homes? Can’t we put them in there?” Enraged, we can almost hear The Paul yell at them, “ENOUGH! IT’S NOT ABOUT HOUSING! IT’S ABOUT GETTING VOTES IN THE NEXT ELECTION! Pay attention people. If we get rid of housing the homeless in Valhalla and get rid of WestHelp, we’ll get more votes from that part of Greenburgh. Don’t you get it?”

Ken Jones, may have asked The Paul, “Can you win a fight with the County Legislators or can you get them to go along with this?” The Paul responded confidently, “The only one who will be a problem is Alfreda Williams. She’s still mad because when she wouldn’t play along, I threw her off the Board and put Beville in her place. Astorino is a slam-dunk, he’s in my pocket on this, his guy McCormack and the new legislator, whats-his-name Smith. They’ll all go along because they’ll get the votes too once the homeless are gone. Hell, this was going to be the best payoff ever! It was all working until Bernstein and Rosenberg got in the way. I’m telling you it was foolproof!”

On Monday, December 3, the Town will receive bids for the use of the WestHELP property. It appears that Ferncliff is in the lead as the preferred candidate. While it looks sincere, it’s all moot as The Paul will continue his “tear it down” mantra and insist the Town enter a long-term lease for the property with Ferncliff. Plus, it’s not up to The Paul to decide what can be done with this property. Ferncliff is a for-profit school for developmentally disabled children. They seek to build a new residential school and facility to replace a Yonkers facility which they will be forced to leave. Why wouldn’t The Paul offer the old Frank’s Nursery property on Dobbs Ferry Road. According to The Paul the Ferncliff deal is worth more than the GameOn 365 deal. The operative word here seems to be “deal”.

The Ferncliff proposal was turned down by the County Board of Legislators because the Town's contractual rights to the WestHELP property mandate the 20-year old county-owned apartments be used for low and moderate income housing. After allowing the contractual lapse, a SUNY Purchase representative looked at the facility in hopes of using it for student housing, as it is currently on SUNY property (the WCC campus is a SUNY facility). He found that with the disrepair and now mold conditions, the apartments would require about $20k each for renovation to make them livable by students. Given the state’s fiscal troubles, ABG doesn’t see SUNY or the state stepping up to take these over anytime soon. Although, this would be a great usage for them.

The Paul has made alliances with an overwhelming majority of residents from the Mayfair Knollwood community who have opposed this housing since it’s inception. They claim it’s too close to their homes. Ironically, these “NIMBY-ers” are a mile away from the facility and the housing is secured on the Westchester Community College campus in a fenced-in area that the Town erected. So, by knowingly choosing to not spend any town money to maintain the 108 apartments from September 2011, when the contract expired, The Paul guaranteed the apartments to be uninhabitable and gifted their destruction to the Mayfair Knollwood community!

While the Town has lost the $1.2 million dollars annually by not renewing the contract, The Paul is claiming that if the Ferncliff deal had been approved, “the town would have received about $530,000 a year in rent.” Of course, without New York State agreeing to fund it, the Town gets nothing! The Paul is pushing to keep the property from being used for low and moderate income housing regardless of whether the deal happens or not. THAT’s how all the politicians will get their votes.

The Paul and his Board have not posted financial resources in this year’s 2013 town budget for any repairs or maintenance of the facility. This indicates that The Paul isn’t planning on doing anything with this property except tear it down. ABG believes he will continue to bemoan the Westchester County Board of Legislators as resisting his plans to raze the facility and lease it to Ferncliff. The County Board of Legislators threatened to take the WestHELP property away from the Town for violating the terms of its lease and maintained it must be used for low and moderate income housing. ABG believes they should do just that! He’s even challenged them to attend a meeting as a publicity stunt we hope they won’t dignify by attending.

It’s a shame that this has been allowed to intentionally happen right before everybody’s eyes and no one, especially the County landlord, has acted to stop it. ABG believes the County Legislators, the County Legal Department and yes, the County Executive need to get off their vote-purchasing bandwagon and do the right thing! They should initiate an action against The Paul and his Board forcing the Town to renovate the facility to habitable status and either put people in it who are homeless, abuse victims, veterans or students and start utilizing the 108 apartments as intended and collecting rent. If the Town will not do so, the County should immediately take the property back, begin renovations and get it into a ready-to-use condition. By letting this valuable asset decay, nobody but a few politicians, and most importantly The Paul can come out ahead. It's time for everyone to stop playing games with this existing and vital housing, fix it up and get people living there. We can only hope.

Stop Playing Games With Their Livelihood!

Two of the signs protesters wore and held up at the Town Board meeting.

ABG was at the Wednesday night Town Board meeting, also referred to as the Greenburgh Employees and Teamster’s Protest, held on September 12. There was the obligatory movie and other campaign-centric fodder from The Paul. By no means is ABG lessening the value of what these presenters have done, merely maintaining this should not be the venue for it. Most of the G8 was in attendance and assumedly relieved to see a sea of people filling the room. The Town’s Teamster union members, sporting matching red tee shirts, are Town employees working for the Highway, Recreation and Repair Departments. There were about fifty members there to protest their treatment by The Paul and his Stepford Board regarding their still-absent contract after four years.

You may recall our post several weeks ago where the union inflated their now infamous “rat” near The Paul’s home in the gated, well-to-do and exclusive Boulder Ridge community (Can You Smell A Rat?). The following week they placed it outside of Town Hall to protest his flip-flopping and new position against building the new Tappan Zee Bridge – costing the area and union much needed jobs! It seems The Paul and his Stepford Board is waging a personal vendetta against our Town employees.

The Teamsters are protesting The Paul’s unwillingness to bargain regarding their contract between the Town and our employees. ABG knows they have been played by The Paul for too long; longer than should be necessary by any stretch of the imagination or truth, and want action! When he asked them to agree to freeze their pay because times were tough, they went along with him and abandoned a raise. But for the last four years The Paul has refused to come to the bargaining table for serious negotiations. When he does offer to meet, he violates the law by adding new stipulations to the contract. Once the contents of the contract are established, additions cannot be made. As we’ve witnessed so many times before, if The Paul doesn’t like a law, he feels compelled to disobey or ignore it. He’s at it again, adding insult to injury.

The issue is not the union members. The issue is not revenue, per se, or insufficient taxes for the Town. No, the issue is The Paul and the financial “Three Card Monty” he’s continually shuffled during his twenty-plus years tenure. Greenburgh is not the most expensive place to live in Westchester County, but it certainly is expensive. Yearly double-digit tax increases, 102% water rate increases, WestHelp contracts left to languish and disappear are only the tip of the iceberg. The financial problems besieging the Town have been self-induced by The Paul! It is squarely on his shoulders. That’s why he’s scrambling to push every hare-brained idea he can think of to offset the Town’s dwindling fund balance.

Patronage abounds in Greenburgh if you are in the right clique; The Paul has tried to supply his friends, similar to the Friends and Family Plan run by the City of Yonkers, with “do nothing positions” in the Town. He has repeatedly tried to gift his friend and supporter Alan Hochberg with positions for more pay than any of these employees make! Each time The Paul tries to slip a job to Hochberg, the G8 and others protest. Given Mr. Hochberg’s criminal past and The Paul’s political slight of hand we owe the G8 a big “thank you”. But, how long will they continue to be successful?

Money that should be used toward the Town and especially the Town employees’ contracts goes to other uses. First and foremost are the oft-used outside attorney and litigation fees The Paul racks up with lawsuits. An example of an unnecessary expense because of The Paul’s ego would be the yet to be announced financial penalty of the Fortress Bible guilty decision. That decision promises to go as high as $8 million once it is rendered. Then there’s the $4 million dollars lost with the Water Department. Had the water costs correctly been passed on to the users, the Town would not have had to raid its fund balance to cover these costs. If you’re counting, the tab is up to about $12.5 million because of the illegal and incompetent actions of The Paul. Still, no contract for our neighbors, the Town’s employees.

These problems that are costing the Town exorbitant amounts of money are not the employees fault. In fact, it’s because of their actions in spite of The Paul that the Town is doing as well as it does. As The Paul tries to find financial relief for the Town, his failures become more intensified. He laid off two workers almost a year ago. Scott Uzzo, a former Town employee became distraught after the layoff and committed suicide off the Tappan Zee Bridge (Ex-Greenburgh Worker Jumps From Tappan Zee Bridge). We grieve with his family, friends and coworkers because this was nothing more than a power play by The Paul. This isn’t how you run a Town.

Not running a Town properly seems to be The Paul’s main strength. He blew the WestHelp lease deal with the County to counter with an alternate deal worth half the revenue with a Yonkers School. He paid off Valhalla’s School district and Mayfair-Knollwood Civic Association to the tune of more than a million dollars. The Paul’s actions were proved to be illegal and he was again found guilty! Michael Smith, the newly elected County Legislator for that district was part of those shenanigans, and his reward was to move up to a higher position in County government. Then there’s the GameOn 365 Sports Bubble deal that will net the Town over $5 million dollars in rent over 15 years. Wow! We mean really, Wow! When you break down the numbers, its peanuts. The property is contaminated and must be cleaned up. Sure, GameOn 365 will dribble some money into that fee until it gets too costly. Then ABG believes they’ll back out and walk away, leaving the Town to pick up the entire cost - again.

The action The Paul and his lackey Stepford Board should have taken when the Town received ownership of the property after the Frank’s Nursery default on their taxes, was to have it cleaned up and sold. The sale would generate a cash influx and a future tax paying property owner for the Town. The sales money could have been used for many things in the Town, including a contract for the Town employees. They deserve a raise. The one sticking point The Paul and his Stepfords want is for these employees to pay 12% of their medical insurance coverage. We won’t discuss the right and wrong of this point. Give them a raise and agree to an incremental health insurance increase come the next contract and meet with them in earnest to work this out in the next contract if it’s the direction the Town needs to go. Kevin “The Henchman” Morgan stated that the other union members pay a percentage of their health care. While technically correct, he ignores the fact that the other employees make significantly more money than these employees. It’s not an accurate comparison.

The Frank’s Nursery sale could have generated enough money to pay for the cleanup of Frank’s Nursery (how about super-fund grants to assist with the cleanup?). Or, the revenue could have been used to improve the infrastructure in the flood-prone areas of the Town. Our infrastructure continues to decay and each time a developer is gifted their project from The Paul through spot zoning, variances and the like, the existing infrastructure remains the same. For instance, Old Kensico Road seems to flood when it gets cloudy out because there are only six storm drains on the entire street that now gets water from numerous neighborhoods. Twenty and thirty years ago when there weren’t condominiums on Old Tarrytown Road and other developments, the water was absorbed into the ground or was aptly caught up by the storm drains. Not any more. Now the houses in the area constantly flood. These same Town employees came through after Irene and carted away everything that wasn’t disposed of in dumpsters. They did a terrific job. In fact, they did their usual exemplary performance everyone has come to expect of them. They are that good!

This is an outstanding group of employees that are part of the entire family of employees whom have all gotten contracts. They weren’t threatened with privatization as these employees have been by The Paul. They are an integral part of the heartbeat of the Town of Greenburgh. When The Paul touts the outdated Money magazine Best Places To Live article, it wasn’t because of The Paul. Rather, it’s because of our employees – our people are our greatest asset. These employees are the gears that mesh the machinery that runs the engine that makes Greenburgh great! Give these employees a raise; stop playing games with their livelihoods and treat them with the respect they deserve! We can only hope.