Consolidation Deflection Plus

Recently there was a private meeting with the self-appointed Fairview Fire Monitors and the Fairview and Hartsdale Fire Chiefs along with Mr Feiner. Why would Mr Feiner be participating? Because they aren't really self-appointed, he is the catalyst behind the Fire Monitor group, pulling their strings, if you will, and making sure all the headlines and faux issues deflect attention away from his mismanagement of the Town. This isn't the first time the Master Deflector has done this.

More scrutiny of the Town and actions of its employees is not only necessary, but imperative given the constant illegal actions of Mr Feiner. The change of venue with the former news website, the Greenburgh Daily Voice has given Mr Feiner carte blanche to write anything he wants directly onto the site with little or no fact checking. So, in spite of an outdated and cumbersome Town website where Mr Feiner has free reign, he now has the ability to amplify his mantra, usually poised to benefit someone other than the taxpayers.

The Fire Monitor group is just another example of his control of the issues behind the scenes and ultimately the media. Case in point, when it was time for the Town Board to vote on the budget, he kicked up the high fire taxes as his deflection to hide the almost $17 million dollars in bonds that passed through the Town Board faster than a bullet fired from an outdoor shooting range. With the exception of the G10, there was no outrage with the budget passage. Nor was there even a mention about the Town's oft-touted superior AAA Bond Rating which Mr Feiner always boasts. This would have been a perfect opportunity to mention it, finally in the correct context. Instead, we get more duplicity from Town Hall.

Mr Feiner "kicked off" the fire tax issue when his own contaminated land sale debacle blew up after being brought to the public's attention by us and others with the former Frank's Nursery property. Mr Feiner desperately tried to gift the contaminated land to his friends from GameOn 365 with an illegal lease. When that illegal action was publicized and a lawsuit threatened, Mr Feiner backed down. When he tried to manipulate the sale to GameOn 365 for half the amount that was offered by Ardsley's House of Sports ($3.5M), an established and full functioning business, he incredulously blamed the public of bid rigging and it was their fault that the land sale fell through. Through it all, Mr Feiner knowingly withheld the fact that the Town never had clear title for the property he was trying to gift to his friends. The Town couldn't sell the contaminated property even if they had followed part of the law!
 
More recently, he has reneged on his offer with the Worthington Woodlands Civic Association, as well as the public, to enforce the conditions for an auction of the former Frank's Nursery property to only qualified bidders who intend to use the property as residentially zoned. The Civic Association fought vehemently for this one provision. And, while Mr Feiner had actually insisted on Civic Association inclusion, at the eleventh hour Mr Feiner changed the bidding structure.

This latest twist means bidders will no longer be required to comply with existing residential zoning for the property allowing bids from any bidder, regardless of intended use and totally disregarding the neighborhood and its civic association's request for zoning adherence. According to Mr Feiner, it was a legal necessity. ABG believes the real reason is the structure he had originally put in place would have virtually guaranteed GameOn 365 not be a contender or even the winning bidder. More importantly, he wouldn't be able to control the outcome as a favorable one for GameOn 365. And Mr Feiner's end-game, no pun intended, is to deliver the contaminated property to GameOn 365, one way or another.

All of this is nothing more than deflection - period - taking attention away from the Town's budget fiasco(s). A financial source extremely close to Mr Feiner admitted that the next couple of Town budgets promise to be very painful for the Unincorporated taxpaying residents because of impending increases which will border on obscene. This tells us we should expect more deflection, whether it's a high-line park in Hudson River with the Tappan Zee Bridge, regulating gun ranges, developing and delaying adoption of Comprehensive Plans, withholding tax revenues collected by the Town for the fire department fom the fire department, collapsing park pools, or anti-Semitic charges against other Town employees. We're sure there will always be more to come from Mr Feiner to muddy the facts until he gets what he wants.

One final comment about the Fire Monitors sans Mr Feiner. They are in agreement with several civic association leaders and the fire chiefs that it is not necessary to push for a referendum to consolidate the two "cherry-picked" departments. Numerous residents and the Fire Commissioners, the Chiefs and their members proved with facts and figures that any savings that might be had initially would be short lived and ultimately more costly to the taxpaying public. Since both the Fairview and Hartsdale Fire Chiefs have been openly discussing the issues surrounding consolidation, and their efforts to control costs and expenses, the Monitors agree that the dialog is improved and a pause may be warranted. Perhaps a study about consolidation in the future will be requested and even done. ABG hopes it won't be a knee jerk reaction to another one of Mr Feiner's unqualified comments. We'll discuss this more in another post as necessary.

Greenburgh taxpayers take everything Mr Feiner does "on the chin" and more importantly, with their wallets. This must change. It requires a public that is not content to accept the meager bribes from the Town, or with phony certificates at Town Board meetings. It requires the residents to abandon their willfully ignorant status and become involved. It requires a certain amount of paying attention which our current crop of politicians count on the public to not do. Again, this needs to change. Only then will we see A Better Greenburgh.