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Believability

Is believability for a politician necessary to govern successfully? We think it should be. That’s why we were a bit dismayed when our local daily paper had an article about “Tackling The Flood.” It went on to discuss the efforts of three communities, Scarsdale, Eastchester and New Rochelle, and how they’ve begun to execute a plan to alleviate flooding along the Hutchinson River in their respective communities. Each signed an agreement, entitled the Hutchinson River Flood Mitigation Project, to try to do something about flooding in their communities. Will they accomplish their goal? We’re not sure, but we believe they will try. Welcome to hurricane season.

The same issue has been brought up at countless meetings for the town of Greenburgh, by different people as well as different organizations. Sadly, with all of the talk about flooding in Greenburgh, nothing has ever been done nor changed to improve the situation during 24-years of the Feiner administration. Taxpayers, both commercial and residential, continue to get flooded. The continued flooding actively forces people to seek higher ground, ultimately with the driest solution being to move out of our town. After all, if Mr. Feiner continues to do nothing but provide lip service what other recourse is there?

Several years ago Mr. Feiner asked to create a task force to address flooding. A task force was formed. Greenburgh Commissioner Victor Carosi and the White Plains Public Works Commissioner were named co-chairs for this committee. County Legislator Alfreda Williams, is also on this commission. There may be several other people on this task force that are also of no consequence and contribute nothing to the flooding problem still being experienced by residents and businesses. Why have they not done anything after having an initial meeting, offering no subsequent plan for relief for these beleaguered taxpayers? And, now it’s hurricane season again with no solutions.

It’s easier to talk about flooding than it is to do something about it, such as coming up with a plan of attack similar to what we see with this Hutchinson River flood mitigation project. The dormant task force has not met in over two years since they were founded. We’re sure if they had they would have said there is no money or there are too many boundaries to try work with to clean the river spaces out, or to dredge them, or to somehow open them up to get a better flow of water. It’s easier to talk about it, to listen to us complain about it, than it is to fix it. After all, these elected officials and subsequent appointed officials know they will be reelected, typically without any opposition, and will reappoint their favorites once again. Losing a couple of hundred collective votes is nothing for Mr Feiner when he receives 7,000 votes running unopposed!

Whenever there is media focus either on a politician visiting the scene of a flood, or the media interviewing the flooded residents, the politicians all say that something must be done and then they point fingers at other politicians either uninvolved, not from the area, or are totally inappropriate for the problem at hand. Previously, Mr. Feiner has passed the buck to County legislators, State legislators or FEMA and the federal government. In fact he told one resident from Old Kensico Road that he would reach out to FEMA on their behalf to see about purchasing their flooded property. He knew that was a lie because the municipality must first perform a number of steps before FEMA will even entertain involvement. It made for great TV sound bytes but little else. Finally, after receiving no help for assistance of any kind from Mr. Feiner, specifically the Town, the County, State, or Federal government, especially FEMA, those same residents sold their house at a loss and moved to another area!

Mr. Feiner went to great lengths to appear on News 12 to bemoan the lack of action by other politicians for his valued constituents. These so-called valued constituents quickly realized that they were mere pawns in Mr. Feiner’s attempt to gain more publicity for himself. While he was successful in beating the drum getting publicity for himself, he threw a small portion of his constituency, literally, down the river along with many of their prized, ruined or irreplaceable possessions. Now that hurricane season is upon us the proverbial barn door has already been closed as the flooding begins once again. With all the development that has taken place in the region there are only two outlets for rainwater to go. The first on the west side of Greenburgh is the Saw Mill River. The second is on the east side of Greenburgh and that is the Bronx River. After the flooding caused by hurricane and tropical storm Irene, the Village of Elmsford mounted a campaign to clean out the Saw Mill River after a resident videotaped the debris blocking the waters flow causing some of the flooding in the area. Mr Feiner jumped on that bandwagon and received all kinds of publicity, but actually did nothing while the flooding continues.

During all the hype that Mr. Feiner and others utilized for their advantage, they ignored the Bronx River corridor and the residents that live near it. They too were severely flooded during Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Sandy. At no point beyond the TV cameras did Mr. Feiner or other politicians offer to do anything to remediate the problems in the Bronx River corridor and the flow of water, especially during even minor storms. Mr. Feiner remains dry and aloof in his gated community in Boulder Ridge. Other politicians also remain dry during storms and bad weather. The role of government is to protect its people – all of its people! That hasn’t happened for those that live along the two corridors that parallel the only two rivers out of the Town and County. Both the Bronx River and the Saw Mill River need attention and residents need relief!

Every community that has the river passing through it needs to take ownership and responsibility for keeping the river clear. Individuals must participate as well. One simple thing individuals can do is simply don’t litter – it clogs our storm drains and ultimately our rivers. By collectively doing this it will help to allow the flow of water to better reach the sound shore waterways and other outlets and not back up into our neighborhoods, homes, and businesses.  By investing in our infrastructure and maintaining all of our wetland areas, we will be helping everyone enjoy a better quality of living in our towns and villages. This needs to happen sooner rather than later so we can have A Better Greenburgh.

Reclaim New York, Pitch Gigabit and Ignore Flooding

This past week featured a very interesting meeting held at the Greenburgh Public Library by a group called Reclaim New York. Simply, their goals are somewhat straightforward and easily understandable. They seek civil engagement of the public with their local, county and state governments. Among their goals include trying to make New York affordable again. They even have an online calculator (NYCalculator.org) which you can use to learn what NY is costing you and thwarting your efforts to save money for retirement, school, purchasing a home and so on. And, for some, it exposes their struggle to just get by. Another of their goals is to try to stop the incumbency curse (our words) of re-electing the same politicians over and over again who continue to insult us by telling us they are creating jobs and saving us money in one breath and then continue to raise our taxes in the next. They also seek to expose and stop corruption and return government as a tool back to the people. Check them out by visiting their website: http://www.reclaimnewyork.org/.

There is nothing a politician loves more than a new project being pitched in their district and being seduced with more tax money becoming available for them to spend. What those same politicians refuse to do, ever, is actually lower your tax burden when these new funds are acquired. Coming off the heels of the Reclaim New York meeting, we read an article in the October 6, 2016 issue of the Journal News with a different vigor. Journal News reporter Richard Liebson quotes White Plains Planning Commissioner Chris Gomez, “For the past year, White Plains has been looking at ways to improve transit and make the neighborhood around the TransCenter a "go to" residential, retail and entertainment destination in the city, with a better link to the downtown business district. Using a $1 million state grant and the consulting services of WSP Parsons Brinkerhoff, city planners have been working with Metro North and other interested parties, and held a series of public meetings to gain insight into what residents and local businesses would like to see in the area.” We went to their website to see what topics of discussion were being highlighted.

There were talks of skyways, tearing down the Galleria and making a Central Park-like park, increasing retail space (huh?), more parks, a theater for live entertainment like Madison Square Garden, more dining (because Mamaroneck Avenue lacks enough restaurants?), better traffic congestion alleviation, and so on. One topic we continually write about and rarely see any resolve or even movement on, is mitigating flooding along the Bronx River corridor. Here is a map of the proposed area to be remodeled.

Notice the bottleneck of the Bronx River at the bridge at Hamilton Avenue and again at Main Street. It is obvious even to non-engineers, residents, government officials and yes, elected officials that this is a significant part of the flooding problem. Another obvious-upon-inspection issue is the quantity of debris, litter and refuse that has built up in these areas which the City of White Plains has ignored. This exacerbates flooding each time there is any rainfall. There are other locations as well along the Bronx River corridor that suffer from the same neglect. It used to be that when we had significant storms there would be understandably generated flooding. Now, however, even sun showers are clogging the rivers.

Town of Greenburgh Public Works Commissioner Victor Carosi was named as the co-Chair for a multi-community task force on flooding. The other usual players were named as well, such as County Legislator Alfreda Williams. But regardless of who is on this task force to mitigate flooding, they never meet, never come out with information and have continued to ignore the flooding issues everywhere in our Town and villages – especially along the Bronx River corridor! It’s as if the politicians welcome flooding so they can have the media feature their soundbyte about how somebody else has failed these victims and they will look into it. The only thing they seem to look into is finding a different flood location for another soundbyte.

The Journal News article said “they” were, “Using a $1 million state grant and the consulting services of WSP Parsons Brinkerhoff, city planners have been working with Metro North and other interested parties…” So,now we know who the developer of this massive project is predestined to be. Every time a resident complains about flooding and what’s not being done to mitigate it, they are told there is no money. Here was $1 million that could have been used toward dredging the river, cleaning out debris and helping the Bronx River corridor residents keep their homes and loved ones safe. Another lame excuse is that there are multi-jurisdictional legal issues to address. Just cleaning the river, which falls under the aegis of the Westchester County government, always seems to be the victim of finger-pointing. Apparently, it’s not enough to get a full-time salary and lifetime medical benefits and actually help taxpayers. Rather, they prefer to spend more time printing a Proclamation to present at a dinner and glad-hand those in attendance in hopes of more votes.

Now we see the latest “pitch” by the cities to install gigabit internet service to “allow them to tap into an exclusive global network of high speed information sharing that is fueling previously unthinkable economic growth.” There it is again. Political speak for how they are unnecessarily spending our money and using buzz words to do it. In fact, New Rochelle lifetime Mayor Noam Bramson said, “What we are learning is that the digital infrastructure can be every bit as important (as roads and bridges).” That’s doubtful. But maybe Mayor Bramson could try maintaining the roads and bridges first, before we give him more money to waste?

Later in the article, other city’s leaders gave their reasons why this needed to be done. A lot of reasons were given to validate this “historic” move, as they always are. Internet companies will bid for this work, such as Verizon, AT&T and Comcast. Wait a minute. Aren’t they really the only games in town anyway? Then they mention that the cities will need to float a bond to pay for this. What’s not said is that you and I will pay for this for the next twenty years even knowing that technology becomes outdated almost as soon as it’s installed. It’s kind of like your brand new car depreciating as soon as you take ownership and drive it off the dealer’s lot.

We also have outside players adding insult to injury. The Westchester County Association, a group maneuvering to be political power brokers started by now deceased former County Executive Alfred DelBello and current president William Mooney in 2009 (or so). Its representatives are extolling the benefits of gigabit services for businesses, in schools, smart-energy power grids, public safety and well, you get the idea. Although they didn’t mention it, we expect it will also cure cancer. While purporting to have no skin the game, why are they even involved?

We’re being are spoon-fed a lot of the same political misinformation that is rolled out for every project to justify these publicity producing moves. Come election time, this will be one of their accomplishments that we paid and will continue to pay for, not them. And are you utilizing it? Of course not. They tell us that this will reduce the digital divide – whatever that really is. What will be divided is your money from you over the course of years. We’re sure Mr Feiner would have jumped onto this bandwagon had he been invited. Since it was only for city leaders, he’ll have to wait until next time - but it is sure to come our way. We’re sure it’s coming. Reclaim New York discusses these types of smokescreens as well as how to combat them. They are worth checking out and even getting involved in. The more people who see what these disingenuous politicians are doing, the better! Only then will we get A Better Greenburgh.