Anti-Semitic Board Offers Hamas Town Hall

In a stunning and yet typical fashion of double-speak, duplicitous actions and definitively controversial, Mr Feiner and his Town Board unanimously allowed the use of the Greenburgh Town Hall last week for an anti-Israel rally at Town Hall. The pro-Palestinian hate-rally Mr Feiner supported was sponsored in part by the Jewish Voice for Peace, a clever name that belies its mission. They bill themselves as “a leader in the American anti-Israel movement”. Also involved was Westpac, another group that sponsors anti-Israeli hate speech.

Westpac had not only enlisted the help of Mr Feiner and his Town Board for the use of the main room at Town Hall, but they have booked Town Hall's main hall for use again on November 5th. Fortunately, Mr Feiner has caved to public pressure and this meeting has been canceled. In another stunning move, Mr Feiner and his Town Board not only allowed the anti-Semitic group the use of Town Hall, but then they called a very hastily conceived special meeting to draft a document for future Town Hall usage. This move would purposely exclude any pro-Israeli groups as well as other Westchester-based organizations from using Town Hall. Typically, rather than barring any outside groups or allowing all of them, they have "grandfathered" already scheduled organizations.

More importantly, there was already a statute on the books that details the use of Town Hall by different groups, including civic associations, Boards, etc. At this first anti-Israel meeting, protesters interrupted the meeting when Ha’aretz’s Gideon Levy got up to speak. He began by saying he hated the occupation and he hated racism, and brainwash which makes those ignorant people... (obliterated). His was an obvious slight toward one pro-Israeli woman, Lauri Regan, who continually held up a sign that said LEVY = HATE. While she was heckling Levy, one man said she should "Go out, we will brutalize you, we will murder you!" Why was nothing done after this threat was made? 

You may recall a number of years ago Mr Feiner decided to refuse use of the main hall to his own Antenna Review Board, who was fighting with him with their position about cell towers throughout the Town. He essentially locked them out of using Town Hall and forced them to meet in the Town Hall parking lot! In 2012, Mr Feiner let the Town Democratic Party use the Town Hall meeting room for their Democratic Nominations without paying any usage or rental fees to the Town. The Westchester Republican Party's Douglas Colety complained about it but since this is Greenburgh, nothing happened.

Mr Feiner has a history of racism for both himself and at Town Hall. He was found guilty of discrimination in the Federal case against him with the Fortress Bible Church Discrimination lawsuit. Employee charges of racism at Town Hall against Town Assessor Edye McCarthy were ignored and eventually buried by Mr Feiner. A number of years ago ABG had access to an email of racism in the police department. When ABG applied for a copy of the email through the Freedom of Information Act, it was refused. 

Mr Feiner also has a history of prejudice with himself and members of his inner circle. He is also known to flip-flop, lie when convenient and "forget" when opportune. His testimony under oath was rebuked by a Federal judge and he was found to be a non-credible witness. So, even though Mr Feiner claims the Town Board is reviewing its meeting room policies, it's nothing more than a diversion to deflect attention away from his anti-Semitic stance due to pressure against him. This must end. Only then will we have A Better Greenburgh.

Eliminating Competition!

During the entirely unnecessary GameOn 365 debacle, which is still underway, Mr Feiner has insisted the only serious offer is from his buddies, GameOn 365. Both Donald Scherer and Irin Israel, who operate the successful House of Sports business in Ardsley, have said numerous times their offer of double the amount GameOn 365 offered for the property at 715 Dobbs Ferry Road is a serious one. Mr Scherer is also on record as saying when it comes to money, he’s always serious, as is their offer. Mr Feiner uses the age-old strategy that if you say something often enough it will eventually become the truth. Yet even though every representative for House of Sports has said the offer is serious, Mr Feiner continues his ploy.

To that end, Mr Feiner has maintained at every opportunity that House of Sports’ offer is strictly about eliminating competition. Every representative from House of Sports emphatically stated it is not about competition. The G10 residents, acting as the conscience that is absent with Mr Feiner and his Town Board, decided to state at numerous meetings that Mr Feiner and his Board have a fiduciary responsibility to the Town and its residents to accept the highest amount of money for the property offered. They said it so often that even Mr Feiner began to use the phrase. And, you already know how that goes. Once Mr Feiner uses it, the Board has carte blanche to jump on board and use it as well. Before you could say collusion, they were in a fiduciary chorus rivaling the TV show Glee! The only noticeable difference is with Glee, their sound system works.

Even if the House of Sports were only looking to purchase the former and still-contaminated Frank’s Nursery property to squash their supposed competitors, so what? House of Sports has offered the Town twice the money for the property, which the Town needs because of Mr Feiner’s guilty verdict judgements, bad business “strategies”, mismanagement, wholesaling the Town to developers and more. Mr Feiner and his Board should abandon the schemes and the charade of “doing the right thing” by trying to finagle a way to gift the property to Game On 365. The Board should genuinely “do the right thing” and sell the 6+ acres to highest offering company, in this case the House of Sports for $3.5M in cash. We’ve lost count how many times the Town has rejected this lucrative offer because Mr Feiner wants the deal to go to GameOn 365. The administration should forget trying to land some mythical deal that once again tips the advantage to a developer friend and not the residents that Mr Feiner swore to represent. 

It has been said by many that the latest iteration of Mr Feiner’s gifting of 715 Dobbs Ferry Road to GameOn 365 through a new RFP is nothing more than another sham in hopes of skirting the finest edge of the law while Mr Feiner again gets his way and does what he’s wanted all along. He has claimed often that the residents of Greenburgh voted for a referendum to approve the use of the property for a sports venue. It was based on a vaguely crafted referendum, for a specific and mostly unethical outcome, that approximately 5k voters out of about 9k voters approved. It is hardly the residents speaking. It is a small, small percentage of the 90k residents who spoke. But since they spoke the way Mr Feiner aimed for, that phrase continues to be bandied about like free candy on Halloween. Mr Hewitt, a principal of GameOn 365 has taken that page from Mr Feiner’s playbook and repeats it at every opportunity. The only major issue with his overused statement is it still isn’t true.

If we adhere to Mr Feiner’s flawed rationale, Mr Robert Bernstein is running against him for the Democratic endorsement to eliminate him as the competition. Or, is there some other devious scheme behind his campaign? It’s no secret that Mr Bernstein and many others have openly disagreed with Mr Feiner’s policies, actions, creation of laws, service cuts, budget numbers, and more. Mr Bernstein had gone to court several times against Mr Feiner and the Town and been both successful and unsuccessful. Mr Bernstein has offered to look into hiring a Town Administrator if elected. We are not here to campaign for Mr Bernstein, but it could put an end to the questionable actions that have happened covertly throughout the Town. Another change we would like is to remove the Town Board from the zoning process and have an independent zoning commission objectively address the zoning for the Town. It would stop the spot-zoning endorsed by Planning Commissioner Thomas Madden and routinely performed to benefit developers by the Board.

In the end, this really isn’t about eliminating the competition. It’s about doing what is best for the private and business residents of the Town. It’s long overdue.