Incentives for Business, Disincentives for Residents

Disincentivizing residential taxpayers in favor of incentivizing business taxpayers to remain where they are has been proven to not work in the long term. Initially, the company announces they will move to another, cheaper location, whether sincere or not. Almost as if orchestrated, the particular municipality offers a tax break for a company who agrees to stay, thus saving jobs and maintaining the local economy. The press writes it up, the politicians pose for pictures and espouse what a great service they performed. Collectively everybody slaps each other on the back with “atta boys” preening like the next coming of the savior. As has been replayed time and again, the companies take advantage of the tax breaks until they exhaust their viability and eventually leave for greener pastures. And who’s left holding the “tax bag”? You know who.

The next portion of this tragedy is creating Business Incentive Districts (BIDs) to focus on “blighted” areas. These too, don’t work. Yonkers has a BID. The visible rewards of the BID are singular, as are most. There are BID employees literally sweeping the streets in Gedney Square and the surrounding areas. As fast as they clean the area they are assigned to work in, the residents and visitors deposit more trash where they stand and not in the trash cans and receptacles – often only a few feet away. What the BID system indirectly does is ignore the root problems and foster bad behavior. We wouldn’t need street sweeping personnel if everyone would practice cleaning up after themselves and not litter. But that seems to be an excuse for not “insulting” residents and guests who are being slobs. All this bad behavior and trash adds up.

In fact, many years ago in New York (and probably other states) during the 1960’s, there was an anti-littering camapign with signs, TV commercials and radio spots telling us not to be a litterbug. ABG also recalls having street sweepers and garbage men picking up trash and garbage on the street until that term was considered insulting and required an upgrade. Of course, budget cuts also brought a halt to the street-level cleaning we used to have. The anti-littering campaigns of long ago worked. Our highways slowly became less littered with debris and what debris we see now on the highways are usually from auto accidents. Garbage cans placed everywhere would sometimes overflow as pickups became fewer and fewer as scarcer budget funding became greater and greater. In Greenburgh, Mr Feiner and his Board have bragged about installing two new solar-powered trash compacter garbage receptacles in Hartsdale. The compactor part of the receptacles promise fewer pickups and less attention provided it remains sunny long enough to charge them and keep them compacting.

Back to our tax giveaways. Here’s another example we recently read about in a Sound Shore weekly newspaper that will cost taxpayers more. The County’s Local Development Corporation will give Phelps Memorial Hospital of Sleepy Hollow access to $14 million in tax exempt bond financing toward the construction of a new 20k square foot surgical suite. For any of our readers who have not visited Phelps in the last five years, they have undergone a major transformation, becoming an area Trauma Center, with other expansions, including a completely renovated Emergency Room.

And who is pushing this financial extravaganza? None other than our old development friends, Alfred DelBello, of DelBello, Donnellan, Weingarten, Wise and Wiederkehr, LLP. DelBello made a presentation to the LDC on behalf of the hospital and explained how the plan will improve patient care by increasing efficiency and staff productivity, while creating 10 permanent medical professional jobs. What hasn’t been mentioned is that Phelps plans to lose in excess of $45M with the implementation of Obamacare. According to our sources who insisted on anonymity, the Obamacare mandates will force the hospital to give away $45M in services that they will not be able to bill for or be reimbursed for. If you are wondering who’s left holding that bag, we’re pretty sure you know we all are.

Our regular readers know that DelBello, Donnellan, Weingarten, Wise and Wiederkehr, LLP, are typically the attorneys of choice representing every major not-for-profit project (and then some) to request the blessings of Mr Feiner and his Town Board to build oversize, zone-busting, mega-projects on specs of land in Unincorporated Greenburgh. Delbello, along with William M. Mooney, Jr., started the Westchester County Association as a vehicle to gain more clout throughout the County via business strength and representation – the ultimate special interest group!  Mooney, the organization’s President, is the public persona. DeBello is the unseen and all-knowing wizard behind the curtain, typically recognized by Mooney at their events and invited to speak at what is made to appear to be an impromptu moment. While they are smart enough to know the organization needs to appear to have a balance, Mooney is a Republican and DelBello a Democrat, they have openly supported current County Executive Rob Astorino. This is why Astorino made this statement regarding the $14M giveaway: “Thanks to the partnership between Phelps Memorial Hospital and the County’s Local Development Corporation, Westchester residents will have more access to outstanding health care and our talented workforce of medical professionals will have more opportunity to find good-paying jobs.” Maybe so. But what is the County doing to help residents who don’t have access to $14M giveaways?

Each time a BID or a County Local Development Corporation gives a break to business, you and I must pick up the remainder of what they do not pay. It’s the same with Obamacare and why Phelps proposes losing $45M this year. Everyone was told if they liked their healthcare, they could keep it. This is being proven to not be true. The “marketplace” rates are proving more expensive than private programs as everyone must now pay for those uninsured users who cannot pay, have pre-existing conditions and so on. The point being that somebody always pays for others and in NY, there never seems to be a cap – real or imagined – on any program once its been implemented.

Special interest groups work. Delbello and Mooney sought to build the ultimate special interest group and struck gold. The County Executive owes them his support because of their support of him and routinely gives it. The proverbial “tit for tat” or “quid pro quo”. Paul Feiner owes Al Delbello and proves it every time DelBello’s law firm files an application on behalf of another developer or project that doesn’t fit or doesn’t want to conform to existing zoning. Our Town Board goes along with Mr Feiner’s wishes because they fear being “Sonya’d”*. So when does a willfully ignorant populace stand up for themselves? Apparently, no time soon. If they did, we’d start to get A Better Greenburgh.

* To be attacked and dismissed from the “Feiner Team” as was done to former Councilwoman Sonya Brown when she publicly attacked Mr Feiner.