Greenburgh’s Double Standards: Do As I Say!

A good man’s public service career is being made into a media circus event to deflect attention away from another not-so-good man’s flawed career. Mr Feiner, the not-so-good man, is the master of deflection and knows how to “work” the system for his own advantage and he’s doing it again. If he could have, he would have simply “Sonya’d” Fairview Fire Chief LoGuidice, a forty year member between his volunteer and career service to the Town. But he cannot as the Supervisor has no control, input or bearing on the Fire Districts. What Mr Feiner has done is deflect attention from his $6.5M Fortress Bible guilty verdict towards some else. He’s effectively managed to have people forget that he alone cost the Town $1.2M per year in non-tax generated income through WestHelp by pointing the finger of anti-semitism at the Fairview Fire Chief.

The Fire Chief’s for the three Greenburgh Fire Departments don’t work “for” the Town or answer to the Supervisor. Rather, they are employed by their individual fire districts. It’s a shame that Mr Feiner openly lied to the public when he claimed all he wanted was an apology for what Mr LoGuidice had said years ago. The reality is it was never about an apology, it was about taking attention away from his increasing costs to the Unincorporated taxpayers of Greenburgh. The Chief formally apologized to Mr Feiner with a letter and in person and made a donation in Mr Feiner’s name as Mr Feiner had requested to a chosen charity. Subsequently, Mr Feiner has now stated it isn’t enough. It should have been the end of it. But more deflection was needed so this “issue” will linger as long as Mr Feiner can get traction with it. Whats next after the Chief visits a holocaust museum, donate a fire truck to the Town?

Part of the double standard that is so readily witnessed with Mr Feiner, his Board and the Feiner Administration can be summed up with the old saying, “Do as I say, not as I do.” Mr Feiner was found guilty of violating the federal and state constitutional rights of the Fortress Bible Church for deliberately refusing to approve an application for the church to build a sanctuary and school on church-owned land. Not only was he found guilty on seven counts in this discrimination case, he intentionally destroyed evidence and was found guilty to have lied under oath! Why didn’t Mr Feiner step down as Supervisor? Why haven’t Mr Feiner and Ms Juettner, who was part of the guilty verdict, also get disbarred? After all, they are officers of the court. And, what always comes to mind is being sworn in with, “Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?” Double standards abound in Greenburgh. Why haven’t they apologized to the Fortress Bible Church and the Greenburgh taxpayers? More importantly, why do you, the electorate, continue to vote these liars back into office?

Another question that comes to mind is with regards to the former Frank’s Nursery property at 715 Dobbs Ferry Road. Mr Feiner claims he never had any secret meetings with the GameOn 365 organizations and yet those meetings were confirmed when Mr Hewitt insisted the emails between them cease so the information would not be on record and FOIL-able by the public! When the Town acquired that property through foreclosure, they let the property lie as it were without attempting to remediate the contamination on it. By the way, it was never advertised for sale from the date of acquisition and beyond. Mr Feiner then tried to sneak an illegal lease for the property until the G10 caught him in his deceitful behavior and initiated a lawsuit to stop it. He then claimed he would sell it to  the highest bidder but reversed course when GameOn 365 was the low bid. At no point could this sale happen because the Town never had clear title for the property. Mr Feiner intentionally withheld that information from the public – as did the rest of the Town Board members. Double standards? Sure. Lies? Absolutely!

Everyone began to ask the inevitable question, what’s in it for him? Why would he be doing this? He has gone out of his way, above and beyond to make sure that GameOn 365 would be the only bidder for the property. GameOn 365’s attorney’s crafted a Recreational Overlay Zone change that was submitted to be pinned onto the first high-speed Town Board railroad car screaming through the proverbial station. Turning a residentially zoned piece of property into commercial to appease one developer is the quintessential definition of spot zoning. Why would this Board continue this folly? Because Mr Feiner told them to! To be fair, two Board members may be holding out on this but there is really two issues: 1) the Recreational Overlay Zone and 2) the 83ft sports bubble megaplex smack dab in the middle of this residential area. Councilman Jones constantly said he had not heard any objections to these proposals. As such, two civic association turned out in masse to challenge Mr Jones’ misconception. Then he claimed it was what was told to him by others.

During the last Democratic Primary Election to choose the Democratic candidate for the uncontested Town Supervisor’s position, Mr Feiner repeatedly sent out campaign literature full of lies about his opponent, Robert Bernstein. After Mr Feiner won the primary, he was found guilty by the Fair Campaign Committee of these egregious mailings and conveniently blamed others for the “mistake”. Regardless of what Mr Feiner said about the mailings, they found for Mr Bernstein against Mr Feiner, confirming more lies from Mr Feiner. It’s difficult to swallow Mr Feiner’s blame of his printer and mailing service for the content of his mailings as the printer only prints what is supplied to them and the mailing company only mails what they are given. At the end of every political ad is the claim, “I’m Paul Feiner and I approved this message.” Perhaps this time it should have been, “I’m Paul Feiner and I approved this lie.” He never apologized to Mr Bernstein for his lies. Simply, Mr Feiner is a hypocrite. Maybe he should donate a Fire Truck or a new one armed bandit sanitation truck to the Town?

We can go on and on with more examples but the guilty verdict against Mr Feiner and the Board for practicing discrimination speaks volumes. Its sad that discrimination is openly ignored by some, specifically the “untouchable elite” while others are crucified by mob rule. Many have said the three fire districts should consolidate. Perhaps so, perhaps not. We’ll never know until a truly impartial committee is appointed to review and assess the needs of the current districts. Unfortunately, this was done for political gain by Mr Feiner, who appointed a preordained, pro-consolidation committee, to render a foregone conclusion for his own deflection benefit when needed. He knew he would need it at some point and now that point has arrived. They delivered as requested with objections from a small few. Beating your chest at a press conference for publicity with findings that are skewed helps no one. Mr Feiner is not helping the Town anymore and is costing us now more than ever!

If Mr Feiner really is concerned about discrimination, another saying comes to mind, “People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.” Mr Feiner should apologize to Chief LoGuidice for his bad behavior and character assassination of the Chief. A forty year public service career should not be destroyed because one man needs to deflect attention away from himself. After all, if we are to believe in our right to free speech, no matter how offensive it may seem to others, then we should have the right  to say what we say. Please realize we are not condoning what took place. Just because this may have been said in what was believed to be a “safe” environment, doesn’t make it right. But it also doesn’t warrant a man losing his accomplished career after making amends. If it does, we’ll hold the door as Mr Feiner exits first. Only then will we begin to see A Better Greenburgh.