It Never Ends

While ABG believes Mr Feiner rarely offers cogent and/or thought out proposals, his one about mulching our grass and leaves rang hollow when it was introduced and continues to ring hollow now. He kept insisting the Town would save money if residents mulched their trimming and leaves instead of bagging or creating piles to be vacuumed away by the Town. But in typical fashion he didn't offer tangible figures as to what we could expect to save by doing away with the vacuum trucks or personnel to run them. He didn’t need to. He enlisted several operatives from the Greenburgh Nature Center to beat the mulching drum for him. One question still looms: did we pay the GNC for the propaganda assistance?

Our Town vacuum trucks were in need of repair for several years in a row. It’s one of the reasons we were told leaves placed curbside weren’t being picked up. Another was that the Town leaders didn’t know when the leaves would, ahem, fall to the ground, creating a scheduling nightmare for these leaders. Incredulously, it’s why the season is aptly named “fall”. More importantly, you may be excused the first time around for not knowing when the leaves will need to be picked up, but not every year. In fact, the employees working for sanitation could probably clue them in if asked after one day’s pickup.

We’re more inclined to think this was another initiated deflection because he had cut the repair budget for the Town's vehicles and there was no money available to fix the vacuum truck or simply deflection from the Fortress Bible Church guilty verdict ($6.5M), the WestHelp lease revenue termination ($1.2M/yr), the failed Frank’s Nursery illegal lease/missed sale/ever-delayed auction ($3.5M), the Dromore Road debacle, the automatic granting of property to Brightview Assisted Living, Deli Delicious and others. The list is almost endless.

While the Council of Greenburgh Civic Associations, individual civic groups and others complained about the added expense to the homeowners and their landscapers, their input fell on deaf ears at Town Hall. One Edgemont resident even performed a cost analysis and found it might cost him upwards of $600 per year to now change over to bagging his trimmings through his landscaping company. With tangible information, Mr Feiner and crew simply ignored the facts and pushed ahead. Then when unavoidable, the claim was changed for safety reasons, to -wait for it - protect the children. Ahh, there you go. You can’t be against the safety of the children. Mr Feiner knew by using the “do it for the children card”, not to be confused with the oft-used “race card” or “handicapped card”, or the ever-popular “2% Tax Cap card” nothing could get in his way. Surprise, surprise, it was voted through. We still would like to know how much money has been saved by the Town by not utilizing the vacuum trucks?

So often in government we see bad ideas implemented even though rational, intelligent and thought out information proves it will be a failure. Such is the case with Mr Feiner’s leaf vacuuming elimination. We’re not against mulching, however it should be a voluntary act and since our taxes have included the vacuuming service, cutting something we pay for should yield results that are tangible and forwarded to the residents. This is not happening from Town Hall. We also understand why it got pushed through in Greenburgh. There are several Town Board members who are dependent on Mr Feiner for re-election and must tow his line or be “Sonya’d”*. They’ve played by their own set of rules for so long that they can’t even realize what they are doing anymore is wrong.

To bolster his costly decision without proof of any tangible savings, Mr Feiner just sent out another email blast utilizing the Town email list he refuses to share with anyone, trying to solidify this mulching move. Apparently he simply wishes to paint more lipstick onto this pig in hopes it will change the facts. One resident told an ABG staffer that he followed Mr Feiner’s suggestion to mulch and claims that his weeds have been strengthened by the composting and re-germination of the weeds back into his dandelion and crab grass farm. He also asked if Mr Feiner had a plan to address the weeds and would it be chemically free from carcinogens or actually something that would work? It’s not that tough a question but it still will not get an answer from Mr Feiner as he never follows through with ideas.

Coincidentally, in the Village of Scarsdale administration has jumped on the mulching bandwagon, they claim they spend about $800,000 annually (really only from October 15 to December 31) on leaf removal. They also claim this will raise the Village's environmental credibility while saving money. Environmental credibility? This is certainly is not an issue in Greenburgh as Mr Feiner doesn't have any environmental credibility. Unfazed, he continues to make irresponsible choices and decisions without regard to environmental anything. The mishandlings of the former Frank's Nursery property is a perfect example of his lack of environmental credibility!

Scarsdale is said to have contracted with the Greenburgh Nature Center to have the GNC teach about and demonstrate mulching to the Scarsdale residents. The fee or donation for this service was just over $9,398. Did the Town of Greenburgh pay this same fee? ABG staffers are inclined to believe we did, whether overtly or through some other mechanism that has yet to be exposed. According to the Scarsdale Mayor, “Putting leaves out in the road is selfish, and is the highest form of sin as far as I'm concerned... It is an unnecessary disregard for your neighbor and the health of the community.” Clearly this mayor hasn’t spent any time in the Town of Greenburgh. Otherwise, he would have a better idea of what the highest form of sin really is and what a real unnecessary disregard for his neighbors is. This mentality is perpetuated with a one-party system that must change. We need a better balance of ideas and actions in out Town. Once it does we may see A Better Greenburgh.

* "Sonya'd" - Referring to former Councilwoman Sonya Brown who decided to publicly stand up to Supervisor Feiner, and subsequently found pertinent information withheld from her and inaccessible, as she was slowly nudged to the outside of his inner circle, no longer able to effectively represent her constituents. When election time rolled around, his newly endorsed choice was now-elected Councilman Ken Jones.