Natural Gas Moratorium To Halt Expansion, Benefit Neighborhoods

According to a Journal News article by Chris Eberhart, “Local and state officials fear Westchester's recent development renaissance will come to a screeching halt because Con Edison said it can't take on new natural gas customers. Con Edison issued a statement Friday saying the demand for gas is “reaching the limits of the current supplies to our service area.”

"As a result, and to maintain reliable service to our existing natural gas customers on the coldest days, we will no longer be accepting applications for natural gas connections from new customers in most of our Westchester County service area beginning March 15, 2019," Con Edison said in its statement.”

Boom! Environmental extremists are probably rejoicing at their success at shutting down the big bad utility companies that do nothing but pollute the environment and put us all at risk. Or do they?

Prolonged protests against the utility companies have concluded in the governor pushing to shut down Indian Point. We don’t believe there is anyone in the area that has not heard their argument about how dangerous or horrible the facility is to the local area or those in the 12-mile radius deemed the radioactive safety zone. They have pushed since the 1970’s to close the facility. And, now that we have a governor who panders to every minority-fringe group to hold a rally, he has given in to their battle for a few votes. Sure, some of their concerns may be legitimate but having an all-or-nothing mentality does not serve us well. Nor does the governor serve the rest of us by not having replacement power plans in place to offset the closing.

Alternative “solutions” routinely touted always include the same banal arguments: solar power, wind-power and electric vehicles that don’t pollute. We’ll admit that they can be a piece of the solution, just not the entire solution. Let’s ignore for a moment the energy needed to produce an electric car, train, bus or truck. Let’s also ignore the energy needed to produce the components used to build the equipment that builds the cars, trucks, etc. Once built, go ahead, plug them in and charge them up. While they are considered to be using “clean energy,” the power plant that produces that power is still polluting, especially if it’s a carbon based facility – unless it’s nuclear power (we’ll concede the spent fuel rods). The point is they are only shifting the supposed pollution from one medium to another and not really solving the problem. As an aside, France has eradicated many of the nuclear power plant issues by continuing to develop it.

In the same Journal News article, Westchester darling, State Assemblywoman Amy Paulin, D-Scarsdale, said it's going to "devastate" local development, particularly in cities like New Rochelle and Yonkers, which are in the midst of redeveloping their downtowns. "These projects are on a marginal budget, and we're not going to get the economic development that we're hoping for," Paulin said. “Compounding the problem is affordable housing. Developers won't be able to do them at all, so this is a huge problem for our county and it's disappointing that we're being told two months prior (to the start of the moratorium).”

We agree. However, the anti-fracking movement in New York, blocked again by a governor seeking a future presidential bid, has made natural gas expansion/exploration/development virtually impossible for the likes of any utility. But not only have they tied the utilities’ proverbial hands behind their backs, but the extremists vehemently fought the replacement and expansion of the existing Tennessee gas pipeline using numerous excuses. One was that it ran along the faultline shared with Indian Point. Another was that it ran through populated neighborhoods. Still another was the close proximity and risk to New York City. Those same objections were moot as long as a natural gas line from Canada went through Canada and other parts of the country, just not Westchester. Sorry, but you can’t have it both ways.

By stopping any and all types of growth and development related to energy, the energy extremists have finally gotten what they wanted: no growth. So, while the likes of Amy Paulin, Mayors Noam Bramson or Tom Roach may be upset that their cities, along with towns and villages may need to remain the size they currently are, it’s good news for the numerous neighborhoods trying to stop or at least slow the over-expansion taking place throughout their neighborhoods. Dare we say that we have finally found a way to stop Mr Feiner's unbridled over-development of our Town?

Development is better suited for the less populated areas, such as in the northernmost sections of the county, than in the southern portion. Why do we say this? It’s simple. Traffic is already unbearable in almost all areas of the county. Forget rush hour – it’s just always congested. Why? Politicians are anxious to give huge tax breaks to developers, disguised as “incentives”, that add residential and business people and traffic on every speck of land that is undeveloped. We wind up paying for it financially as well as in a poorer quality of life. Their tired and ineffective solution? Add more mass transit and tell everyone that millennials don’t drive or own cars (not true). But they continue to ignore the infrastructure and roadways while giving in to every developer. Neighbors and neighborhoods frequently object to no avail and are told this won’t have a negative impact. It’s all a pile of crap!

Every traffic study, environmental study along with the mountains of paperwork that even these approvers don’t always read before they vote in favor of a project, all do the same thing. They are all crafted to negate any argument offered in protest or objection. We’re told that traffic is always minimal and will not adversely affect the area based on NY legal criteria. Residents know it’s a joke and that this is simply not true. Many have used the analogy of putting a frog in boiling water and he’ll jump right out. Put him in water and heat it to a boil and he’ll not notice and die. Everyone in the various neighborhoods are noticing that they are dying. Special interests are killing our neighborhoods. Say something and the neighborhoods are either ignored or labeled anti-“something” and then bombarded with more. It has to stop and maybe the environmentalists have finally found a way to do just that. Inadvertently, they are helping to make 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.