Fallen Firefighter's Memorial Service

The 3R’s: Racism, Republicans, Reisman

There has been a synchronal campaign created and executed by The Paul before this upcoming election season. It focuses on vote-getting and re-electing several incumbents, namely The Paul (D), County Executive Rob Astorino (R), his Director of Communications political payback appointee Ned McCormack (R), County Legislator Michael Smith (R). In a minor power struggle are this year’s Greenburgh Town Board candidates, Diana “Sleepy” Juettner (D) and Francis “Back Pocket” Sheehan (R then D). And, in for a penny, in for an untold amount, is the Journal News as well as their featured columnist/employee/front man, Phil “Angry Man” Reisman. Another Astorino appointee to a “do nothing” position serving the FAS* Koolaid is Matt Richter (R), who will post the Ferncliff cause on Facebook and elsewhere. At least this is a non-partisan racist attack.

Once a week the listening public gets to hear the “Angry Man” from the Journal News, columnist Phil Reisman, on his WVOX low-intensity talk show. He received the “Angry Man” moniker from the Journal News years ago when the paper was trying to create some buzz about his column. His written words are usually more entertaining than his vocal ones, with monotone droning-on with topics of minor interest, proving why he is a better columnist than talk show host. This show was a discussion with two Ferncliff School representatives, a mother and daughter combination who apparently run, or are involved in teaching at the Ferncliff School.

Reisman has written several “columns” supporting The Paul’s racist and this long range, Valhalla vote-getting scheme. ABG believes The Paul purposely did not renew the WestHelp lease and intentionally let the 108 affordable housing units degrade. His plan is to destroy them by leaving windows and doors open in hopes of developing mold and mildew, animal damage and theft. So far, his strategy is working. The Paul is hoping to hand the County owned property over to Ferncliff in a coup for Valhalla votes. It’s a skewed plan as he thinks as the lessee he can turn the WestHelp property over to Ferncliff for use as they wish. While this plan may seem flawless in The Paul’s own warped mind, more rational Greenburgh residents know otherwise. Fortunately, they have fought this illegal and immoral attempt by The Paul. But the conspirator and his cohorts plot on.

Reisman spoke with the two women representing Ferncliff, Pat and her daughter Kristen, and collectively tried to paint their current circumstances as bleak, bordering on desperate with no hope in site. No hope except for the only one plot in Westchester County - WestHelp’s! They came upon the WestHelp site from a recommendation of an acquaintance. They again explained their facility is too small, too old and needs to be vacated post haste! Reisman at one point had the audacity to say that he was asking questions and trying to remain impartial. Could it be he’s taking lessons in lying from The Paul? He is anything but impartial or objective about this issue. He, under the wink and nod of his masters at the Journal News, supports and has written multiple “advertorials” on behalf of the Ferncliff School.

Two or three callers dialed into the one hour long show after the half hour break. Naturally, they were all unfamiliar with the property, The Paul, but knew that Ferncliff needs the WestHelp property. One even referred to the property as in Elmsford and another said he didn’t know where it was situated as he was from New Rochelle. Whether regular callers, “plants”, or concerned citizens, these calls seemed too contrived and sounded like a setup! Regardless, the smokescreen that The Paul and his commiserating crew have concocted is being believed by many.

Finally, the money-maker phone call got through: County Legislator Michael Smith (R), whose connection with the Mayfair-Knollwood School Board and their illegal use of illegal payments from The Paul have become somewhat of a bit of political lore in Greenburgh and now Westchester County.
As if nothing has transpired, Smith began his onslaught as to why Ferncliff should get this property. ABG won’t list the entirety of his call, but he did state that the existing housing was full of mold and mildew and uninhabitable. As such, the apartments need to be torn down. Simply, this is a lie. What he did not state was that The Paul’s recent RFP request for the property garnered six proposals. One was from Ferncliff. The other five were plausible senior and/or assisted living proposals that would combine some smaller apartments into larger units. Smith stated these units were all very small and couldn’t understand using them as apartments as they were the size of a dorm room. Obviously, Smith has never been homeless or even worked with homeless people. If he had, he would recognize that living and sleeping in a small single room apartment (even dorm) with a bathroom is much more preferable to a cot in a shelter or even a cardboard box outdoors. Although it is possible Smith has hurried by a box on a sidewalk no realizing there might have been a homeless person inside. Add in the responsibility of a child or two and his position becomes even more incomprehensible!

While speaking on behalf of Ferncliff, Smith, stated that “we can no longer bury these children away.” Nobody is saying we should bury anybody anywhere. However, it’s exactly what he and his cohorts are trying to do to the seniors and veterans in need of this existing housing. Smith, Astorino, McCormack, Reisman, Richter et al, are trying to disguise their racism while pretending to be helping another “less fortunate” group. Both groups are worthy of support and help. But pitting one against the other is morally reprehensible! The issue is that The Paul violated and broke the contract the Town had with the County. For that reason and that reason alone, the County must terminate the contract with the Town of Greenburgh and utilize the facility as intended - for low income housing!

It would be nice to pick and choose who moves next door to you, but you can’t. It would be nice if we had representatives who represented the neighborhoods and their interests. We don’t. Yet, Valhalla has a small group of NIMBY, racist politicians looking to do just that. They were unsuccessful in their attempts to block WestHelp when the HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo had them built – over a mile away from any other Valhalla homes or neighborhoods. They were able to ostracize these single mothers with children on an island-like campus with no ability to “escape”. Then The Paul had the Town pay to install a metal fence with a barbed wire topping, to “keep them in”. Unbelievable!

If The Paul, Astorino, Smith, The Journal News, Reisman and Richter wish to continue their illegal and immoral behavior, so be it. There are many others who are also interested in the outcome of this facility and helping the Ferncliff School find a location while maintaining the apartments for low income housing. In fact, County Executive candidate Ken Jones said that the County Board of Legislators is trying to help Ferncliff find another location even though they are a for-profit business.

The County has offered numerous sites to Ferncliff at numerous locations, which Ferncliff refused. There is also additional property on the Westchester Community College Campus that ABG is told can accommodate Ferncliff. Let’s see what Ferncliff’s answer will be. It seems like this is another Greenburgh fiasco induced by The Paul that will unfortunately end up in court. ABG would rather see it get worked out without going to court. Maybe we can offer sensitivity instruction to The Paul, Astorino, Smith, Richter and Reisman and hope it sinks in. We can only hope.

* Feiner-Astorino-Smith

Pedestrian Struck on Knollwood Road

Sure, there’s a snowstorm happening as we post this and we expect accidents to happen. As we sit in our offices looking over the Town, our police scanner is busy with all the usual calls plus those created by the weather. Numerous police and fire departments along with ambulances have been scrambling about the County as well as the Town to accidents of various degrees of severity.

The Broadway Civic Association has long complained that the Town is shirking its responsibility by not insisting to install sidewalks in numerous places, but specifically leading to the newly built and just-opened Greenburgh Health Center on Knollwood Road. In fact, the Town Planning Board approved a sidewalk at 275 Knollwood Rd, the location of The Knolls at Pinewood, a 15-unit luxury condominium, of which 13 are complete. But ‘The Knolls’ doesn’t want sidewalks built – neither does The Paul! And, of course, since The Paul doesn’t want it, his Town Board doesn’t want them either.

Interestingly, when The Paul, his Town Board, County Executive Rob Astorino, his aide Ned McCormack and County Legislator Michael Smith were all pushing to destroy WestHelp for Valhalla votes, Kevin “Henchman” Morgan suggested the need to build sidewalks on Knollwood Road from WestHelp’s property toward Rt 119 because it would be unsafe for Ferncliff residents to walk on Knollwood Road without them. The irony is that the Ferncliff residents and day students would never be walking anywhere. They would have a van transporting them wherever they might be going. The Henchman must have misspoke.

The point? At about 2PM today, Friday, a pedestrian was struck by a car walking on Knollwood Road at the entrance to the Westchester Community College. There is no sidewalk. At the other end of Knollwood Road, the new Greenburgh Health Center has opened. It’s only a matter of time that a pedestrian gets hit by a car at this new address. The old Community Health Center on Rt 119 across from the former A&P in the Crossroads Shopping Center, found many of it’s clients crossing Rt 119 with kids, strollers and shopping bags, etc., in all kinds of weather and traffic. The dangerous situation that existed at one area has been shifted to another. Even though it is a different area, the same risk still exists for the health center’s clientele, just at their new home. There is no sidewalk.

The Paul had championed the illegal sale of the old Cooke’s Florist property to the Mount Vernon Medical Group that runs the medical center doing business as the Greenburgh Health Center. He spot-zoned the property and has trumpeted not installing sidewalks for this location. While we hope no one ever gets hurt coming or going to this new location, the amount of traffic that frequents the area almost guarantees it. Many will recall how The Paul continually bragged about the Town’s AAA Bond Rating some months ago. Perhaps if we utilized some of it by borrowing the necessary funds and building sidewalks throughout the busy streets in our Town, we can save people from being involved in an unnecessary accidents and injuries. We can only hope.

Forecast Called For A Dusting

Two days ago a suspicious package arrived at the Journal News’ new offices containing white powder. Most white powder calls are nothing more than a crackpot taking a stab at being threatening – without the nerve to actually confront someone face-to-face. Located on Westchester Avenue across from where their old facility had resided for years, this prompted a full police and fire response, the all-volunteer County Hazardous Materials Response Team, County Health and several others. Ultimately the white powdery substance was a dusting of a harmless powder. Haz-Mat responders took the call seriously but commented afterwards that it was just another hoax. The County’s all-volunteer County Hazardous Materials Response Team responds to approximately 100 white powder calls a year.

Today, Friday, found the White Plains police and fire units called to the White Plains Public Library for another white powder call. This time it was mail addressed to the Journal News, but because it was suspicious to them, their people drove it in a private car to give it to the White Plains Police. They parked in the below-ground library parking structure. ABG learned that they had put the mail in a plastic garbage bag and secured it. The police refused to do anything with it and called the Westchester County Hazardous Materials Response team to the scene to investigate. The determination by the police was to tow the car to the safety of the Valhalla campus to continuing to try to determine what the powdery substance is. As a precaution, the two responders in Tyvek suits who removed the package were decontaminated by the police under the watchful eyes of the HazMat Team, with water. At no point was the public at any risk.

It’s no wonder an upset public is lashing out at the Journal News after they printed their interactive map of gun owners in Westchester County. ABG is not happy about what the Journal News did but is equally unhappy that people are taking to threatening them in this way. ABG would ask those who are upset with what the Journal News did to take a different course of action against them. Those actions can include canceling your subscription, canceling your advertising in the paper, write a letter to their editor and complain that their actions were wrong, boycott advertisers in the paper and let the advertisers know it. But please, please do not threaten them this way. The bloggersphere that we work within and alternate forms of media will continue to grow. They will continue to shrink by their own accord because their actions aren’t sincere. Rather, they are trying to make the news with stories such as these. The media should never become the story. We can only hope.

Williams’ Approach to Occupy WestHelp Has Merit

The Paul acts like he owns Greenburgh. His Town Board knows on which side their bread is buttered and stand at the ready to vote however he mandates. The Board, with it’s typical faux-posturing, are calumniatory of residents who berate their unflinching conviction to the master they are beholden and what he wants done to his playground. Their behavior would almost be comical if it weren’t so distressing. In fact, the chief enunciator is Councilman Francis “Back Pocket” Sheehan, who when faced with a declining republican population, hastily switched parties, poked the dogs away from The Paul and snuggled up close, taking advantage of The Paul’s financial resources, mailing lists, email lists and increasing democratic wealth. 

To increase his span of control, The Paul decided it was time to jettison a few resistant Board members and bring in some fresh blood, someone more malleable to his needs. One of those members he kicked to the curb is a former Town Clerk, now County Legislator Alfreda Williams. She had been the Greenburgh Town Clerk for many years when The Paul stumbled upon current Town Clerk Judith Beville. ABG finds her incessant commenting during Town Board meetings is not only unwarranted, it’s disruptive. As the Town Clerk, she is there to record the proceedings (which are captured on video anyway) and announce the speakers during the public hearings and comments. ABG wishes she would simply do that.

The Paul had started a deflection campaign to draw attention away from his bungling (we’re be kind) of the WestHelp property by attempting to shift blame of his screw-up onto the County. Before the last Town Board meeting ended, Councilman Kevin “The Henchman” Morgan stated that the Town cannot proceed with doing anything with the WestHelp property as the County is holding them up with their inaction. Immediately, after the motion was made to adjorn, Williams stood up from the back of the hall pointed at Morgan and said loudly, “Kevin I need to speak with you, now!” Williams stormed up to the dais and proceeded to give him a reprimand for the misleading and incorrect comments he had just made about the County and the WestHelp property. 

ABG has stated in numerous postings the onus is not on the County to find a tenant, but Greenburgh. The contract specifically states that the Town of Greenburgh Housing Authority will maintain the occupancy with low/no income residents. The Paul is in violation of this contract, costing the Town $1.2 million annually.

With the recent Hurricane/Tropical Storm Sandy fiasco, so many people in Greenburgh remain without power or a place to live. Williams, has come up with a viable and implementable idea to help Greenburgh residents. She wants to immediately open up the currently vacant WestHelp facility to people left homeless or who cannot yet go back to their homes due to storm damage. While The Paul offers nothing but useless attacks toward the utility companies, and insists they hire untrained electricians, he is doing little to actually help anyone. ABG wrote about his methodology after Hurricane Irene swept through and demolished numerous homes and businesses throughout the Town. While he simply gets his media machine to regurgitate his pablum, Williams has struck upon a novel approach to help constituents and the Town. This is the type of thinking that is lost on The Paul and his do-nothing Board. Is it any wonder he ousted Williams?

ABG hopes County Executive Astorino, listens to Williams’ recommendation. Otherwise, he’ll prove to be simply another self-serving politician patting himself on the back. Almost all of our elected officials are scrambling to appear to be doing something while nothing is accomplished by them except insisting on progress reports from the utility companies so they can get airtime. Williams’ idea not only has merit, but exceeds what anyone else is doing to help our residents! Astorino needs to decide that agreeing with The Paul and putting a special needs school on the WestHelp property, which are nothing more than payoffs to his Director of Communications Ned McCormack, and County Legislator Michael Smith, to gain more votes from Valhalla, isn’t as important as actually helping our suffering residents. ABG urges our readers to reach out to their County Legislators and let them know that this is not only a good idea for the facility, but an ideal way to keep the facility doing what it was designed to do: house people in need. 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.