Right On Track For The “Gift-Away”

It was a convoluted plan. The players agreed to the time span. They may have been coached as to what to say and do. They were also told that this would take time. Like every plan Mr Feiner hatches, he is rarely, if ever, stopped. We blame that mostly on the willfully ignorant electorate. We’ve written about them before. They are what we call OIMBY’s, only becoming involved when something crops up in their neighborhood, or Only In My Back Yard.

The Town acquired the former Frank’s Nursery property through foreclose at 715 Dobbs Ferry Road. As required by County and State law, any municipality that acquires property through foreclosure must sell it. Except in Greenburgh. Why the exception? If Mr Feiner doesn’t like a law, he simply ignores it. Knowing he was required to sell, Mr Feiner could have just done a private sale with his friends from GameOn 365 and be done with it. But that would have cost GameOn 365 much more money than was agreed upon. So he offered to illegally lease the property to them. This illegal charade was uncovered and Mr Feiner had his hands caught in the proverbial cookie jar, he put the lease up for referendum in the last election.

We can imagine the Town Board going into Executive Session high-five-ing Paul with his strategic genius. It’s easy to see him as a genius when you are not. GameOn 365 then populated the Town with less than forthright yard signs, promising amounts of money to the Town that were simply fictitious. The referendum passed, giving Mr Feiner the fodder he needed to push his illegal deal. But still, he was unable to proceed. The Town never got the title for the property due to a bank lien. That’s why Mr Feiner went the route of an illegal lease!

The G10 pointed out that the property had contaminants on and in it and insisted the property be remediated before anything be done with it. In fact, the G10 pointed out that the Town had wanted to utilize the property as a temporary library while the award winning, wasted space, ski-jump was being built. There was an uproar then that the property was contaminated and could not be used. Think of the children - the horror, the horror. The same thing was said when it was suggested that the Town police station and courts could be located there. Again, the Town did nothing. They didn’t remediate the property nor did they relocate the police department, the library or courts there.

The G10 Town activists who attend Town and other Board’s meetings and community neighborhood meetings, challenged Mr Feiner and his complacent Board at multiple meetings, ultimately threatening another lawsuit to stop him. Undaunted, Mr Feiner forged on. That is, until the date of a court appearance was upon us and he finally acquiesced. But he now had the attention of the media and that was his goal all along. There were periodic deflections along the way, but his grand plan to gift the former Frank’s Nursery property to GameOn 365 was on track.

Once Mr Feiner threatened to take bids on the property, Elm Street Sports, owners/operators of the House of Sports in Ardsley surprised everyone when they offered almost twice the amount of money in cash ($3.5M) for the property than GameOn 365 ($1.8M). Plus, Elm Street Sports promised to assume full remediation of the property. Mr Feiner began a smear campaign that Elm Street Sports’ offer was not genuine. Say it enough times and it will become the truth. Eventually, the complicit media began purporting what Mr Feiner had been saying, helping his smear campaign against Elm Street Sports.

After being pushed and prodded by the G10, neighborhood civic associations and residents, Mr Feiner announced there would be an auction for the property “as is”, meaning any remediation needed would be paid for by the purchaser. After numerous excuses, delays and postponements, the auction is off again. Our original contention was that an auction would force Mr Feiner to forfeit the ability to control who is awarded the property. Since he had promised GameOn 365 the property back in about 2010 (maybe earlier), he is doing what he can to thwart the sale by normal means.

After hiring Harold Bordwin of GA Keen Realty, the Town’s chosen auctioneer for the property, he informed the Town that prospective bidders were reluctant to bid on the property because of the contamination and the lack of extent, effort and money that would be required to remediate it were they to purchase the property. Residents, G10 and assorted stakeholders all insisted the Town remediate the property to make it whole before trying to do anything with it. Mr Feiner and the Town Board ignored those suggestions.

It has been our contention that this was all part of Mr Feiner’s grand scheme after concerned residents derailed his illegal lease. We envision his new scheme to be the rope-a-dope he is currently doing. He offered the property for lease and was shot down. Then he tried to sell it directly to GameOn 365 and Elm Street Sports loused up that deal. Then he said it would be auctioned off and all types of stipulations, caveats and conditions were embedded in the deal and it waned. Then we believe Mr Feiner told GameOn 365 to go to the press and say they have an “option to purchase” the tax-evading Visioli’s Golf Range. It’s not really a sale, just publicizing that there could be one. Purely semantics. During all of this, Mr Feiner kept insisting that the property would be sold “as is” and adhere to the current zoning that’s in place, per the request of the area civic associations.

During all of this, GameOn 365 began canvassing the neighborhoods to garner favorable support from residents and they’ve started doing it again as of last week. They began donating money to different events to make it appear that they are community oriented and involved. For a paper company, they were doing just as we believed Mr Feiner might have told them to do. Mr Feiner on the other hand, continued to say many people/businesses have expressed interest in purchasing the property. But, as usual, he wouldn't divulge who – a typical ploy he uses so often that many no longer believe what he says is true.

The latest ploy by Mr Feiner is to play up the fact that interested parties whom might be interested in purchasing it won’t because of the remediation required and the lack of information provided. Eventually, he will drag this out until the playing field (pun intended) is down to two and maybe even just one player, Elm Street Sports and/or GameOn 365. OR, he will say there is no interest and GameOn 365 will take the contaminated property off of the Town's hands, paying taxes, offering jobs, etc., pave it, effectively sealing the contamination from the public and have done the residents and Town a great favor. And, like WestHelp, the lesser amount of money we now make will be someone else’s fault, not his. In the end, this has only been about making sure GameOn 365 gets the former Frank’s Nursery property. It’s time for this kind of thing to end. Only then will we get A Better Greenburgh.