The Grand Plan: Ultimatums To Promote Ill-Conceived Consolidation (Part 3)

Lest anyone believe the talks of fire consolidation by Mr Feiner are genuine, please read the letters posted below, authored by Town Councilman Francis Sheehan. The first letter with the heading “Memo” is the letter Mr Sheehan sent to the 2008 Consolidation Board, Fire Districts and Board of Fire Commissioners, detailing why he resigned from the Consolidation Committee. When you read the body of the actual resignation letters, it becomes abundantly clear to all that Mr Feiner is acting consciously to coerce the direction of the vote endorsing fire consolidation with the Towns paid fire departments of Fairview, Hartsdale and Greenville.

Mr Feiner has threatened and is proposing to push a referendum toward consolidating two of the Town’s three paid fire departments. Since his orginal proposal, Mr Feiner has jettisoned Greenville from the consolidation “mix”. We’ve already explained why he is no longer including the Greenville Fire Department, however we’ll quickly recount the reason. Simply, he cannot afford to upset the Edgemont community, already anxious to incorporate and become their own village, because he needs the revenue their taxes generate, the higher value homes and most importantly, the attractiveness of their school system to attract people to move to Greenburgh. Since Edgemont has been rather vociferous about Mr Feiner’s actions, opinions as to what they plan to do abound. Mr Feiner has good reason to adjust his takeover plans.

The Greenville Fire District, and the Greenville Fire Department has its fire station on Central Avenue near the A&P Supermarket and Curry Chevrolet businesses. Loosely speaking, they provide fire protection to the southern and eastern area of Greenburgh. Specifically, they provide fire protection for the relatively affluent portion of the Town known as Edgemont, among others. The moderately wealthy Hartsdale Fire District and Hartsdale Fire Department protects the correspondingly adjacent area mostly north and west of Greenville’s fire protection district. Finally, the balance of the Unincorporated area that is protected by a paid fire service is the heavily populated with low-income and 49% tax-exempted Fairview section of the Town, protected by the Fairview Fire District  and Fairview Fire Department.

Reading the resignation letter Mr Sheehan wrote and sent to the Consolidation Committee, Fire Districts and Board of Fire Commissioners is an eye opening tale of coercion, Tammany Hall politics, and political chicanery not seen or felt before this administration matured in the Town of Greenburgh or even Westchester County. In it Mr Sheehan touches on several points: what he has learned about firematics while on the committee, the distrust many have for him as a Town Councilman (with this undertaking) placed on this committee and the Town Board in general. He comments to Mr Feiner’s purposeful recruitment and placement with a committee comprised of individuals with no fire knowledge or background. 

On page one of the opening salvo to Mr Feiner, Mr Sheehan states he is resigning specifically to resolve the conflict which Mr Feiner created. This deal was a tit-for-tat, one hand washing the other, or more succinctly, politics at its worst. Mr Feiner was blackmailing Mr Sheehan into giving Mr Feiner the fire consolidation report findings he sought in return for approval to amendments to the antenna law Mr Sheehan was working on. Mr Feiner threatened that “Any recommendation other than the fire district consolidation could foster delay in the adoption of the proposed amendments to the antenna law or further retaliation against the Antenna Advisory Board, which would ultimately harm the community.”

During the time the Consolidation Committee was meeting, Mr Feiner was not getting the intended outcome from Mr Sheehan, et al, so Mr Feiner took it upon himself and “authorized Town staff to prepare a Request For Proposal (RFP) to hire consultants, not only to review the proposed amendments, but to assume all duties of the Antenna Advisory Board...” This move was a clear attempt by Mr Feiner to usurp Mr Sheehan and ensure the results he had tasked the committee to produce.

Throughout the two page resignation letter from the Consolidation Committee tendered by Mr Sheehan to Mr Feiner are references to arm-twisting by Mr Feiner. Mr Sheehan decided to step away from the Consolidation Committee to be able to pursue the best course of action for the Town with regards to antennas throughout our Town. Admirable. The Consolidation scam Mr Feiner is perpetuating against the Town will have dire financial consequences throughout the Unincorporated Town if allowed to happen. We must stop Mr Feiner's blatant toying with bits and pieces of the Greenburgh landscape with developers, spot-zoning, discrimination, and other deflections designed to position him as a leader. Real leaders don't need to play these games. Real leaders lead by setting good examples. Greenburgh needs real leaders. Only then will we get A Better Greenburgh.