Bluff and Blink

The latest go-’round with the WestHelp property and the proposed Ferncliff takeover has reached a new low in bluffing. It’s like the card game that has two players vying for the pot waiting for the other to blink.

The Paul began this house of cards-like scheme around 2009 when he decided to not renew the WestHelp lease with the County for the WestHelp property. Whether his Town Board was complicit is of no consequence as they would have gone along with anything he told them to go along with. We can only speculate of his decision to why he wanted to do this? ABG maintains the primary reason would be votes in the upcoming election. He’d remove the homeless from not only WestHelp, but Valhalla, and return this bucolic hamlet into the enclave it had been prior to the now-Governor’s housing initiative was ever built. Might another reason be The Paul was approached by the County Executive himself or a representative or even a County Legislator requesting an alliance of sorts in a tit-for-tat arrangement to be determined at a later date?

What good would all of this be if the County Board of Legislators didn’t buy in to The Paul’s diversion and deflection? After all, he is the master of deflection. Amazingly, no County Legislative oversight committee, the County DSS system or body of inspectors was monitoring the WestHelp property. This transpired for over roughly two years while the County continued to ignore The Paul’s (vis–à–vis Greenburgh’s) contractual violations to not continue to house low and no income people and ignore the maintenance of the facility. Why? Could it be that the County Executive garnered enough bipartisan support to “break” the contract the County has with the Town? Or, could it simply be that a number of County Legislators are from the Yonkers area, and Ferncliff, a for-profit business, is Yonkers based and they are stepping up for their constituent?

This deal ultimately playing out well for the Ferncliff School still seems like a long shot. They essentially have no money to purchase or do the demolition work to destroy the 108 viable apartments others could be using. They then must rely on state funds for construction and then rent! The majority of their residents are from NYC, even though they claim that these children are coming from what is considered low income families. It seems justifying why they should be allowed to move to the WestHelp site is a different kind of bluff. The Ferncliff School has offered to pay $500K a year in rent to Greenburgh yet have no money to secure, demolish and rebuild and are solely dependent on state funding to proceed, if they can proceed at all. It’s been nothing if not a bluff perpetrated by The Paul this entire time and causing unnecessary pain and suffering for everyone!

Until the County Board of Legislators can get County Executive candidate and Chairman Ken Jenkins, Greenburgh County Legislators Alfreda Williams and Mary Jane Shimsky to concede, the County Community Services Committee has introduced items for discussion and a vote by their committee. Another part of the bluff. Ironically, the Chair for this committee is Alfreda Williams, who has been against this move by The Paul. Also on the committee and against this change is MaryJane Shimsky. But the other side includes Legislator Michael Smith of Valhalla. The rest of the Republican legislators will stand side-by-partisan-side with Astorino and Smith. The several Yonkers Democrats who favor of the Ferncliff deal will continue to push for The Paul’s rouse. ABG wonders what will be offered to these Jenkins, Williams and Shimsky to get them to go along?

There has been much ballyhoo about who is more deserving of the property and are homeless people more important than developmental disabled? The answer is simple: it is not a competition and both are in need of our attention and assistance. The issue for ABG and many others, including the Westchester N.A.A.C.P., who helped get the apartments built, is that The Paul took it upon himself to not renew the lease while we still need affordable housing in our area. He chose to violate the tenets of an enforceable contract which his Town Board condoned (naturally) and subsequently endorsed, and remain in violation of that contract for the last 18 months. Again, why hasn’t the County taken action against The Paul and The Town’s contractual violations?

Below are two pages showing the actions of the Community Services Committee meeting. ABG believes it is a bluff because we know they believe if they profess it enough and act as though this were really happening for Ferncliff School, it will. It seems like the old “beg forgiveness rather than ask permission” routine. There are several reasons they should not be doing this. One, it’s unfair to taunt the Ferncliff School like this. Two, Chairman Ken Jenkins, has worked to try to find a suitable location other than the WestHelp site even though County government is not obliged to do so! In fact, there is additional space near WestHelp on the Westchester Community College campus that has been suggested/offered as suitable. Remarkably, we haven’t heard a peep from anyone about this parcel. Three, while ABG believes it will be next to impossible for the County to bring an action against the Town because not only do Astorino, Smith and McCormack live in the Valhalla area, Astorino appointed County Attorney Robert Meehan, lives nearby! Finally, when the lawsuits do start, don’t you think those “aiding and abetting” will be named as well?

The Ferncliff School does great work for a small portion of the population. But their portion of the population should be treated as equally as the others. They need help finding a new location and we wonder why The Paul has never offered them 715 Dobbs Ferry Road, the old Frank’s Nursery property? He could have sold the property to the Ferncliff School for $1 if he truly cared about them, had the Town do the site remediation and kill two birds with one stone. 

Others have been helping them in their quest and will continue to do so. We truly wish them success. At the same time, the one property they seek as ideal is committed to another equally important purpose. While we wish we could snap our fingers and find a solution for the Ferncliff School, their needs will be better served if they abandon The Paul’s bluff and look in earnest for another location that is actually attainable. We can only hope that the Ferncliff School is successful in their relocation and that WestHelp gets renovated as soon as possible and it’s 108 apartments be put to good use again. We want to see people in desperate need of housing move into their new homes. Again, we can only hope.

Feiner Insults NAACP - Part 2

ABG inadvertently omitted several points in our previous post about the forum held by the NAACP on Monday night. We hope to correct that with this post, hence, part 2.

While The Paul had the floor, he bragged about the scatter site housing near Manhattan Avenue that would be torn down to have new low income apartment buildings built in their place. Subsequent to that comment, when Legislator Alfreda Williams had the floor, she correctly pointed out that The Paul has purposely contained almost all of the low income housing in the Fairview section of the Town. And this latest project would just be a further continuation of that policy. She said the result has been the “ghetto-izing” the area! She also correctly pointed out that this is another form of discrimination that appears to have gone unchecked by The Paul.

When the creation of the WestHelp housing was being discussed, formulated and created, this same chapter of the NAACP was a participant group struggling to develop this property as a project for affordable housing. Back then, affordable housing was sometimes considered Welfare Housing and was often met with all kinds of resistance and derision, relegated mostly to the cities. In time, that moniker was eliminated. Regardless of what it was called, the Mayfair-Knollwood Civic Association, as well as several now, high ranking County leaders (Astorino, McCormack, Smith) were, and still are, against the facility as a low income, affordable housing facility. They remain the embodiment of a portion of the Mt. Pleasant/Valhalla’s Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY) crowd! You would hope high-ranking public officials would understand the value this property holds as existing housing?

To Williams’ credit, she also stated that The Paul requested RFP’s for this property. For the uninitiated, that is a Request For Proposal that developers will submit to the Town proposing work to be done. Bidders would like to receive the awarded contract. There were six proposals, with the Ferncliff School being one of them. Ferncliff’s proposal is to tear down the apartments and build a new facility. The others were all proposing some kind of affordable, senior, low-income, municipal and/or emergency services housing. Williams’ point was that after inspection, they all maintained that while the apartments needed various levels of work, these were still well-built, viable and usable apartments that will have a long future of use. This is contrary to The Paul’s statements that these apartments are in such disrepair the facility needs to be destroyed. ABG would like to point out that while these RFP’s were submitted in ernest, they weren’t requested in ernest by The Paul. It was another deflection on his part.

As The Paul rattled off a list of affordable housing in the Town, focused primarily in Fairview, he touted the new soon to be opened Westhab housing facility at Tarrytown and Old Kensico Roads. He lied about working with the neighborhood. He lied about the neighborhood being in favor of the project. He lied when he said Greenburgh’s employees will live there. They will only live there if their name might be chosen from a tri-state lottery. William’s countered with the truth and acknowledged that a resident was in the audience and willing speak to The Paul’s comments. He was never called on to speak.

ABG knows that The Paul had promised the Fulton Park neighborhood something completely different. Some twenty years earlier, when the old property was a former hotel called the King’s Inn, he told the neighborhood that if and when the homeless population were removed by the County, he would want to see a Senior Citizen Living Facility at the site. The neighborhood worked intimately with Westhab and it’s residents to maintain a pleasant relationship. The facility that will be opening in a few months will not have seniors, municipal employees and might have two or three veterans - as promised to the Town Board after they Spot-Zoned the property to accommodate the developer. ABG’s guess it it will invariably be filled with DSS and Section 8 recipients, hardly the senior facility he promised.

While The Paul was a Westchester County Legislator, he was in favor of the WestHelp affordable housing site. Wilson’s one and only question asked of The Paul, was, “Why did you support the WestHelp affordable housing when you were a County Legislator but now as Town supervisor you won’t support it?” The question went unanswered. Time would ultimately be the audience’s enemy and The Paul’s rescuer. Before they could extract an answer from The Paul, the NAACP President was forced to end the dialog as their time for the space had run out and the crowd had to leave.

It was apparent to those in attendance that The Paul insulted the NAACP’s members and good work they have done to create affordable housing in Westchester and Greenburgh. More importantly, The Paul exposed himself as the racist he is when he discussed people of color and the segregated clustering of affordable housing in the Fairview section of the Town! He has ruled the Town for 21 years and while he’s been able to mask his bad behavior with his bumbling persona, his armor has finally wore thin and the chinks are beginning to expose him for what he is. It’s time for him to go. We can only hope.

Feiner Insults NAACP

Dave Wilson of the Journal News was the moderator for the night. The NAACP was the host and a church in White Plains was the location. The forum on Monday night was a sounding board over the low income housing dilemma facing the County and the Town. The panel for the forum was composed of David “Tax Watch” Wilson, Robert Bernstein, an attorney who intervened with retired judge Herb Rosenberg on behalf of the Town to reclaim $1.2M illegally paid to the Valhalla School District by The Paul. Alfreda Williams and MaryJane Shimsky, both County Legislators representing Greenburgh and other communities, were joined by County Legislator and County Executive Candidate, Ken Jenkins. Arriving late, as had been announced to the crowd, was The Paul.

Wilson began the evening with a slide presentation showing the WestHelp facility on the Westchester Community College campus. Bernstein was the first panelist to speak and highlighted several key points that appear to be in violation by The Paul and his Town Board. He read specific sections of the original contract and the case against The Paul seems damning! It basically said that the Town shall maintain the facility and the Town will continue to house low income residents in the facility. Both of those points have been unequivocally violated. Then the three legislators spoke. Jenkins assured everyone that the County is not against Ferncliff, a private company, and is also working closely with them to find an appropriate site for their school. He continued that The Paul should not be pitting the WestHelp property against Ferncliff. Both are equally worthy causes. Shimsky said that WestHelp is a valuable public asset that we cannot let go to waste under any circumstance. She furthered that there is obviously a need for affordable housing in our community. The crowd wholeheartedly agreed. Williams suggested that organizations such as this one could help by continuing to stay involved.

By arriving late, The Paul knew he would have limited exposure at this meeting. If he was lucky, he knew he could bloviate, dance a bit, get his agenda across and hope to be out of there without answering any real questions. After letting The Paul ramble on for about five minutes with an “opening statement”, Wilson asked Feiner one question, “Why did you support the WestHelp affordable housing when you were a County Legislator but now as Town supervisor you won’t support it?” Performing “The Paul shuffle”, he read from a piece of paper all the points he wanted to make, but never answered the question!

One woman in the back row put her head down on the table, shaking her head in disbelief while others could be overheard saying he wasn’t answering the question. After Wilson interrupted him twice and asked him to answer the question, he continued his rambling. We all know this is The Paul’s main deflection tactic. The woman in the back raised her hand and asked why he wouldn’t answer the question. People in the audience wanted substance. The audience was not happy with The Paul’s deflection. They demanded answers. After The Paul claimed that the DSS referred people mostly of color to affordable housing, one gentleman took offense to Feiner’s statement and asked why Feiner would put “people of color” in his statement? The Paul’s response was because he was at a meeting held by the NAACP. This did not bode well with the crowd, who let their displeasure be known.

Without a doubt, this could have been a good back-and-forth session with good questions and perhaps honest answers. But The Paul wasn’t there to participate in an honest dialog. Rather, he was there to campaign. But tonight, the crowd The Paul thought he could pander to wasn’t buying the goods – finally! Overheard after the meeting was the comment that, “The Town has a lot of bad things happening to it because of The Paul’s mismanagement and illegal actions, but we have a lot more good things happening to it too.” We just need to make sure we keep the good outweighing the bad.

To keep the good outweighing the bad, we need to vote The Paul out of office. This meeting may have been one of the first steps toward that end. We can only hope.

WestHelp As A Loss Leader

There are numerous years still left in the WestHelp lease between the Town and the County. The openly professed NIMBY’s of the Valhalla section of Town, are the Mayfair-Knollwood group, lead by The Paul and propped up by County Legislator Michael Smith (R-Valhalla). In a Town Board work session Tuesday morning, the Greenburgh Town Board collectively fell on the sword for their leader. They voted to continue pushing for the County to accept their “sham” deal with the Ferncliff School, making them the official tenant for the now-vacant property. In any other Town, these people would be recognized as racists and run out of Town!

We’ve previously written about the apparent links to the County Executive, the County Legislature, The County Executive’s Communications Director, The Valhalla School District and of course, The Paul. In a concerted effort to drive the unwanted homeless element out of Valhalla, whether combined or singularly, The Paul let the $1.2 million lease with Westchester County lapse, claiming, as he is doing again, that it’s the County’s fault the lease wasn’t renewed. Then to prove his virtue, he manufactured two emails that he claimed were emails he had sent to then County Executive Spano stating he wanted to renew the lease. Everyone who saw the emails said the same thing: they were phonies. 

Monday night The Paul released the RFP’s (request for proposals) submitted to the Town for the County’s former WestHelp property. There were six submissions:

Ferncliff Manor, Inc. 
$500,000 per year to the Town until the year 2031 to operate a residential school for 74 developmentally disabled children. 70% of the children come from families with incomes below $50,000 annually.

Group MRH, LLC & The Richman Group Affordable Housing Organization
$100,000 per year to the Town until the year 2032 to operate an affordable rental housing pursuant to a triple Net sublease agreement with the Town for the remaining 20-year Master Lease term.

HarborView Properties
$125,000 to 165,000 per year to the Town until the year 2032 to operate property as an eighty percent (80%) Market Rate Apartment Rental Community with twenty percent (20%) of Units set aside and designated as ¨Affordable Housing Units.¨

Marathon Development Group
$200,000 initial lease payment and lump sum $2,000,000 at contract closing representing the net present value of 20 year payment streams to the Town until the year 2032 to convert the existing shelter apartments into 80 units of affordable senior housing (55 and older), with a preference for veterans.

Community Housing Innovations
$350,000 per year to the Town until the year 2032 to develop the former WestHELP site for use as affordable housing, primarily for seniors and the existing administration/school building for a community use such as relocation of the Lois Bronz Children’s Center or Ferncliff Manor, Inc.’s. temporary use for a disabled school facility.

WestHAB
$200,000 per year to the Town ($600,000 up front) until the year 2064 to operate affordable housing pursuant to a tri-party lease between WestHAB, the Town and the County using Low Income Housing Tax Credit Equity for 50 years. 

The first proposal is his proposal of choice. It’s the reason he has let the WestHelp facility deteriorate with plans of tearing it down once he finally exhausts the County Legislature with his incessant posturing. His deflection campaign of trying to foist his failure to renew the contract as their fault is not working. Fortunately, the majority of legislators are not buying into his convoluted scheme. Is The Paul simply using Ferncliff as a loss-leader or is it just another deflection, cooked up long before this year’s budget debacle and would begin to take attention off of this year’s budget? He couldn’t know a hurricane would strike, bailing him out of another laser-focused critique of his poorly executed budget. In The Paul’s classic form, he just shrugs off the criticisms.

Interestingly, the WestHelp complex of 108 apartments was built under the authority of the United States Housing and Urban Development. That organization was run by then HUD Housing Secretary and current NYS Governor Andrew Cuomo. ABG believes Cuomo will be running for president in the next election, or at least vice-president. Regardless of his future plans, ABG doesn’t seriously believe that Westchester’s lack of affordable housing would find Cuomo endorsing the demolition of these same apartments after championing their creation. Why should that matter?

First, the state has it’s own budget problems and is unlikely and unwilling to come up with to remove affordable housing. Second, Ferncliff Manor is only offering $500,000 with the proviso that New York State pay for what will happen with the property for them. Without the state’s assistance, it is unlikely that the Ferncliff deal can happen nor would the Town actually be making $500k per year. Undaunted, that didn’t stop the Town Board from supporting The Paul’s harebrained idea – no surprise there! Somewhat sheepishly, Tim “Remediation” Lewis, coming off his major mishandling of the toxic site cleanup costs for the GameOn 365 proposal site, cautiously seemed to offer The Paul an “out” stating they should look at all the offers equally. The Paul barreled on.

The County Legislature, and it’s chair Legislator Ken Jenkins, have repeatedly told The Paul and the Town Board they must abide by the contractual obligations of the existing lease. They are not in favor of repurposing the site and giving up much needed affordable housing in Westchester especially in view of the housing desegregation settlement. While The Paul usually can’t wait to install affordable housing in the most inappropriate places, it begs the question of why he would be so adamantly against maintaining the 108 apartments in Valhalla and keeping the affordable housing? In fact, he’s been on record saying there is a glut of affordable housing in Greenburgh! So, what’s in it for him? 

ABG maintains votes as well as county support for The Paul is his motivation since this appeases Astorino, McCormack, Smith et al. This entire episode is loaded with ethical dilemmas, illegal actions and simply more lies. One of these RFP’s might very well be the one the Town signs on with, regardless of the superficial date The Paul has created for a final decision. These games have to stop. We can only hope.