Showing posts with label CBS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CBS. Show all posts

Thursday, April 6, 2017

Bedlam Erupts As Town Petition Meeting Implodes

ABG staffers arrived early to ensure a parking space as well as seats in the room where the hearing was to be held regarding the Edgemont incorporation petitions. Unbeknownst to the hundreds of residents that were present, Mr Feiner decided to once again play games and limit those who spoke and keep those who wanted to speak from doing so. New rules were announced at the start of the meeting that would only allow those people who wanted to object to the incorporation to speak. The crowd was angry.

It’s no secret that Mr Feiner is against the Edgemont Incorporation effort and has gone out of his way to sabotage their efforts. And, he has repeatedly said he might not contract Town services with the new Village of Edgemont should incorporation be successful. Why he would not do what is best for the Town and it’s residents is difficult for us to comprehend. If he did contract services with Edgemont as a Village, the Town budget would remain close if not exactly as it is now. 


After Mr Feiner read a prepared statement, he had Robert Spolzino, a 
retired former appellate court judge, whom some said Mr Feiner “bought”, but we’ll say he hired for $50,000 to advise of the petition's sufficiency, read the law that they were following for this event. Then Town Clerk Judith Beville said they would be timing each speaker allowing them 3-minutes to speak. It was also mentioned that anyone who believed they were tricked by the private investigators that Mr Feiner is responsible for hiring, also would not be allowed to speak. Audience members could only speak if they were against the incorporation petition.

The owner of the private investigation firm Stanton Private Investigators, which was used to get the carefully crafted affidavits from every person who signed the original incorporation petition to invalidate as many as possible by signing this newer affidavit, said that he had many signature affidavits objecting to incorporation and would be delivering them to the Town Clerk’s office shortly. 


It was said just before the meeting started that someone was outside distributing petitions out in the lobby that could be used to speak against the incorporation petition. While we were unable to verify this, we did see Town Attorney Tim Lewis in the lobby with a handful of papers and appearing to be looking for someone. We noticed that speaker after speaker would read the same or similar statement as the speaker before them. Many were not from the Edgemont area which is surprising as only Edgemont residents can vote for incorporation; some were from Fairview, some from Elmsford and other areas of the Town.


A good number of the people protesting the incorporation petition were also many of the same people that have served Mr Feiner in numerous capacities and at his demand when needed. For instance, Ms Mona Freitag spoke against the incorporation petition, citing Craig Bernstein’s signature didn’t match his Board of Elections signature card. By the way, she was Mr Feiner’s hand-picked and personally backed candidate who he had helped run for the Hartsdale Fire District Commissioner position in the last fire district election. She lost that election.

After listening to about a dozen speakers lip-sync why they were against the incorporation petition, Mr Mark Rosenblatt went to the podium. He stated that he wanted to object to several of the objections. The retired judge interrupted him and said that only speakers objecting to the incorporation petition could speak. Taken aback, he stated that he had a right to rule against objecting to the objections. At this point the crowd, seemingly more pro-Edgemont incorporation began yelling, “Let him speak!” One retired judge sitting behind us yelled out, “Shame! Shame!” Then Bob Bernstein, Edgemont Community Council President shouted to the judge, “With all due respect, read part 3 of the statute!” The judge read part 3 which said written and verbal objections were allowed at the hearing. He then said it was his ruling that objections to the objections were not allowed. Like many Town Board meetings that Mr Feiner runs (into the ground) and makes up as he goes along, so too was this judge’s kangaroo court antics. At this point the crowd was on their feet yelling, This is bulls$#@!” and “Facist!”


Knowing their incompetent leader needed to be rescued, Mr Morgan went and whispered in Mr Feiner’s ear. He quickly announced,“We’re adjourned.” At which point almost everyone stood up chanting numerous slogans along with many people who were laughing at the ridiculousness of how this sham of a hearing was being run. Mr Feiner obviously paid this judge with our money and will probably be spending more unauthorized money to keep pushing his agenda to stop the incorporation. We can only imagine what it must be like to live in a Town or Village where everything is on the up and up and done the right way, trying to make life for its residents better. Oh wait, that’s what Edgemont is trying to do. They may be on the right track. If all neighborhoods could do this, we might get A Better Greenburgh.

Monday, April 3, 2017

Town's Trickery Goes Mainstream

It’s been about a week since we broke the story about the Town using private investigators to get sworn affidavits signed by Edgemont pro-incorporation residents negating their incorporation ballot petition signatures. Now, CBS News has aired a brief story on this latest Town debacle.  

Watch it here: http://newyork.cbslocal.com/video/3645626-incorporate-edgemont/
  
In their story, and our original story, the interviewees stated that Edgemont residents were being tricked by the Feiner Administration’s private investigation firm into signing the affidavits by using carefully crafted wording, showing a video we exposed first from an Edgemont homeowner.

You can see that resident video here:

One resident said on-air that he felt tricked and embarrassed but still could not believe the Town would do something like this. Sadly, we’re not surprised.

During the CBS News piece, Brian Conybeare, interviewing Mr Feiner, asked if the Town was trying to trick the pro-incorporation residents into signing the affidavit. He said nobody was being tricked into signing and the Town would not use those affidavits of people who thought they were. In a signature move, he also said it was the Town Attorney who hired the private investigative firm they are using to do this. Was it Tim Lewis or an underling instructed to do so? We were unable to confirm this, but had maintained all along that Mr Feiner would deny culpability for this egregious move. This is not the first time Mr Feiner has thrown an employee “under the bus”. It’s also not the first time Mr Lewis has “jumped on the sword” for his boss.

Behavior such as this has become a hallmark of the Feiner Administration. While re-election will not impact any of these employees or elected officials, they should, as lawyers, be disbarred. These actions certainly would be cause for dismissal anywhere else. But, in “Bizarro-Greenburgh”, this kind of bad behavior will probably be rewarded. This is also personifying the exact logic and reasoning behind Edgemont’s drive to incorporate and get out from under the Feiner administrations bad decisions, costly and illegal missteps. We again think the proper actions by this administration is the resignations of Mr Feiner, Mr Lewis and the Town Board for condoning these actions. Only then will we get A Better Greenburgh.

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Deflection 101

As time progresses, more of Mr Feiner’s covert actions have crept into the light. Some of those were the guilty verdict from the Fortress Bible Church discrimination lawsuit, his back room deals with GameOne 365 to mention two. During both of these, he has spun other issues out into the public's “eye” in hopes of deflecting attention from his own bad and often illegal behavior. You’ll also recall his pitch for the Tappan Zee Bridge to become a high-line park, be named after Pete Seeger and to have a Denny’s with a water park on it. Ok, the Denny’s part belong’s to our Cindy.

But his trying to take attention off of the fact that he, along with Diana Juettner and other former Town Board members discriminated against the church, destroyed evidence and lied under oath! One of those would be Steve Bass, now in County government on the 8th and 9th floor. Ouch! Let’s talk about anything but promoting bad civil servants. Thankfully for Mr Feiner, Mr Seeger’s passing provided him the deflection topic he needed. When that could no longer be played front and center, the Fairview Fire Commissioners conveniently decided to fill a temporarily unfilled Assistant Chief’s position. He was able to use the Town’s email list, which he treats as his own property, to alert the public about the meeting. The issue is that he did more than just alert the public to a meeting. If he had stopped there, it would have been fine. But he injected his “personal” opinion and insisted, incorrectly, that this was a new position that was being created and too costly for taxpayers. It was just another lie. Since he hasn’t returned any of his salary to the Town for non-performance, a clever hoax from his past, we assume he too is feeling the tax pinch in his gated community of Boulder Ridge.

Now that the GameOn 365 megaplex proposal has hit the skids yet again, Mr Feiner has begun touting the 100+ acre development proposal on the Landmark at Eastview property. Mr Feiner has continually insisted that maintaining the GameOn 365 request for a Recreational Overlay Zone change would be good for the Town. The neighborhoods in the area disagree. Mr Jones, perhaps trying to keep in line with his boss, suggested rezoning the former Frank’s Nursery property. This is illegally known as spot-zoing. The vote passed by three to two, with Mssrs Feiner, Morgan and Jones in favor of openly spot-zoning the property for the benefit of a single applicant. See the video in our previous post for proof of this. Its almost like a bad joke: two lawyers walk into a bar and sit down with a retired cop. The reality is they made and approved a motion to spot-zone an individual property for a particular developer.

In an interview about a complaint levied by Robert Bernstein and two community leaders against Mr Feiner and the Town Board in the Westchester Business Journal, we quote: “Feiner called Bernstein ‘the Joe McCarthy of Greenburgh. He likes to smear people’s reputations.’” Wow! Mr Feiner has some nerve to make a comment like this! Unlike Mr Feiner, the one thing ABG recognizes about Mr Bernstein is that he doesn’t lie when he is discussing issues before him. And, when Mr Bernstein makes a mistake, he owns up to it and apologizes. Speaking of apologies, this statement by Mr Feiner warrants a public apology to Mr Bernstein. ABG believes Mr Feiner is getting a little testy as more and more people are exposing his questionable actions with developers, town assets and personnel.

Mr Feiner has been beating the drum for the GameOn 365 proposal for several years now, constantly applying his deflection tactics to wear down any opponents to the project. Those opponents seem resolute in their determination to fight the proposed megaplex, regardless of Mr Feiner’s deflection efforts. Worthington Woodland Civic Association President Dorrine Livson, the Town’s newest, self-proclaimed real problem solver, suggested the proposal be scrapped on Dobbs Ferry Road and moved to the Landmark at Eastview location where the zoning and the open space that Mr Feiner is so desperately seeking to eliminate, can handle to project. Ms Livson is correct with her assessment of where the megaplex should be built. The Town Board should listen. Only then will we begin to see A Better Greenburgh.

Sunday, March 16, 2014

Spot Zoning House of Cards

The Town Board screwed up by pulling the GameOn 365 Recreational Zoning Overlay Request from the March 12th agenda. GameOn 365 may have screwed up by hiring the law firm they did. The Landmark project that Mr Feiner says will bring us $5 million dollars in tax revenues a year was presented yet again at the public hearing. He screwed up the numbers. By pulling the GameOn 365 Overlay Zone proposal from the agenda, it moved the Landmark at Eastview proposal to the forefront, highlighting several issues. One of those issues is that the Landmark proposal projects recreational facilities on the 100+ acre development. In fact, Worthington Woodlands Civic Association President Dorrine Livson made the introductions. She said that the law firm and the planners for GameOn 365 are the same as the Landmark proposal and suggested they introduce the two parties so this sports bubble megaplex can go onto that property, legally zoned for it. She also stated she is the Town’s new Problem Solver!

The attorneys for the Landmark Project screwed up. They are the attorneys for Landmark project, and complained that they weren’t happy about having to re-present the project to the Board after Mr Sheehan referenced some procedural issues that were incorrectly done. Interestingly, those same attorneys were overheard responding to the question before the meeting if they were at tonight’s meeting representing GameOn 365? Their collective response in the vestibule area was, “Not tonight!”

It’s well known that Mr Feiner often and cavalierly spews numbers and fictional information as needed to make his argument for or against something. He’s also known to often put his foot in his mouth. He has previously stated that the Recreation Overlay Zone that GameOn 365 authored and requested be implemented for their sports bubble project, specifically for the former Frank’s Nursery property, is not spot zoning. Councilman Ken Jones has said the tax revenues from the sports bubble megaplex proposal would amount to more tax income for the Town than if homes were built on the property, similar to those on Westchester View Lane. He’s wrong. Mr Feiner said the Landmark proposal will generate $5M per year in tax revenue. He’s wrong. How do we know? Numerous people have run the numbers and they don’t gel with what Mr Feiner or Mr Jones have said! 

At the Town Board work session of October 8, 2013, Councilman Ken Jones made a motion at the 32-second mark in this video “to authorize Thomas Madden to begin to investigate the possibilities of rezoning to recreational the Frank’s Nursery property for the December 3rd, “as is” auction, not withstanding.” “For recreational purposes,” added Mr Feiner. The vote was 3 to 2 in favor of having Mr Madden investigate the possibility of a recreation zone.

This was clearly an endorsed motion for spot-zoning for a particular piece of land. The three Board members in favor of the change are now backpedaling to cover their southern exposures after the outcry from the public has exposed their blatant intent. Apparently, in an effort to circumvent time, public hearings, criticism and general taxpayer resistance, Mr Madden went ahead and worked with the GameOn representatives to draft the Recreational Zoning Overlay zone change. There was no “open” discussion with the Town Board or the public as to what might be nice to have, required, necessary or unnecessary with a study. Their was no conference with the Comprehensive Plan Steering Committee who intentionally left overlay zones out of the soon-to-be-proposed Comprehensive Plan for a reason. The existing Comprehensive Plan discussed Overlay Zoning but decided against it.

But, the Town administration either knows better than the public or simply doesn’t care about the public. ABG believes the latter to be the case. Because of the apparent collusion that seems to be taking place between GameOn 365 and the Town, we suspect they do know more than the public. They know all the closed-room deals that have been made, regardless of how many times Mr Feiner says he is telling the truth. After all, he was found guilty of lying under oath by a federal court. The public, however, continues to dig and uncover more. Why not just be honest and, dare we say it, open with the public?

The former Frank’s Nursery property at 715 Dobbs Ferry Road is the intended and unintended casualty of all of this deflection by the Town administration with GameOn 365’s ludicrous proposal. It remains contaminated with carcinogenic debris and waste and has been ignored by the Town since they acquired it through foreclosure. By leaving it alone and focusing on the GameOn 365 proposal on the Golf Driving Range, the property will not only languish, it will become the bastard stepchild of the Town. No one will want the property should the GameOn 365 proposal move forward. We believe Mr Feiner will begin the woe-is-us story about how the Town is lucky GameOn 365 has agreed to take the former Frank’s Nursery property off the Town’s “hands” and will use it for a parking lot for their sports bubble. We hope this doesn’t happen. In fact, we hope the Town with its AAA Bond Rating, will float a bond, remediate the property and then sell it at market value. If that doesn’t happen, Mr Feiner has often said he has ten or more parties interested in purchasing the property, as is, out of the other side of his mouth. He refuses to say for what use these offers are interested in using it for. We believe its because there are no offers and this is just another delaying tactic to find a way to give the property to GameOn 365. Open government? Miscommunication? Misinformation? Non-Transparency? Hidden Agendas? A Board out of control! You decide. Only then can we get A Better Greenburgh.

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Town Board Pulls Recreational Zoning Request

Shortly after parking their personal vehicles on the Vizioli’s parking area, two community leaders waiting for the Channel News 2 van were forced to move to the entrance of the former Frank’s Nursery. Once Channel 2 News’ Lou Young arrived with his cameraman Chris, Young immediately began peppering the two with questions. Shortly following, other leaders arrived and joined them as they walked to the Golf Driving to record his report.

Asked “on air” by Lou Young to explain what was going on with the Golf Driving Range property, the requested Recreational Overlay Zone and the installation of an 83 foot tall inflatable and temporary sports bubble, Worthington Woodlands Civic Association President Dorrine Livson explained the proposals using a mock up she had constructed. She explained that every neighborhood resident she discussed this with was against the Recreational Overlay Zone, against the sports bubble megaplex with two outdoor fields, ice hockey rink and 80 ft tall lights. Finally, they want the former Frank’s Nursery property remediated of carcinogenic contaminations and sold. Young also spoke with Robert Bernstein at a different location about these three issues. As this was all taking place, the Town Board Work Session was underway and found the Board postponing the Recreational Overlay Zone vote scheduled for tonights Town Board meeting.

After speaking with the community leaders, Young then went to speak with Mr Feiner, who tried to convince Young, as he has tried to do individually with residents, that this project should proceed against the wishes of the residents and civic associations. We’re sure Young doesn’t recognize Mr Feiner’s Divide and Conquer strategy. Nor does he understand Mr Feiner’s deflection or delay tactics. This is “routine” for those in the know. The neighborhoods have spoken out loud and clear, but once again the Board is doing what they want, not what the residents want.

Here are two links for this story from CBS Channel 2 and from News12:
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/video/9934771-proposed-sports-complex-has-some-westchester-residents-up-in-arms/


 Whether the real issues remain in the forefront or are disguised and dismissed as rants by an elected and privileged few, we know the issues are real, tangible and will affect our people and their largerst investment: their homes.  When Lou Young asked Mr Feiner on camera if he had any connection with this company or project at all, he replied, “Zero.” Mr Feiner has been found guilty of lying under oath in Federal Court in the Fortress Bible Church and 6 more counts. Why should we believe he’s telling the truth now? We can’t. It’s time for a change in Greenburgh where residents and taxpayers are treated fairly and given preference over outside developers. Only then will we get A Better Greenburgh.