We Knew He Knew

Mr. Feiner filed lawsuit for this 2013 election cycle attempting to remove his only challenger from the ballot, Mr. Robert “Bob” Bernstein. Mr Feiner apparently forgot what he already knew. At the official Democratic nominating meeting held at no charge to the Democratic Party, yes for free, at Greenburgh Town Hall, Mr Feiner didn’t receive the Democratic endorsement. Mr Bernstein, on the other hand, received a landslide majority of the vote from the representatives maneuvering their weighted votes. Now forced into a primary competition against Mr Bernstein, Mr Feiner made a statement, lying again to the public. He said he welcomed competition and this was democracy in action and so on. The reality is far different than his lie would appear.

Based on legal coaching from fellow-attorney and NY State Assemblyman Thomas Abinanti, Mr Feiner sued to stop Mr Bernstein from running as a candidate against him. Abinanti even testified on behalf of Mr Feiner. You may wonder why Abinanti would intercede of behalf of his longtime friend? ABG believes this is payback for Mr Feiner’s effort to halt the Fortress Bible Church from building a new church and school on property literally in Abinanti’s former backyard. Once Mr Feiner lost that case in court, Mr Abinanti moved to Tarrytown. They (Abinanti/Feiner) staked their claim that Mr Bernstein must be removed from the ballot on the grounds of fraud for using the name “Bob” on his ballot petitions. The issue of Mr Feiner contesting Mr Bernstein’s petitions caused many who don’t follow Mr Feiner’s crafty hijinks to scratch their heads wondering why he was doing this? The G10 knew why. The Feiner campaign knew why. Abinanti knew why. Feiner repeatedly said he welcomed the competition and it was democracy at work. The press ignored asking any questions, but especially the tough questions, and simply printed Mr Feiner’s prepared statement that he was seeking to block Mr Bernstein’s petition signatures using the courts based on fraud. Given Mr Feiner’s past court experiences, you would think he might have the common sense to stay away from the courts. He also challenged the petition ballot signatures collected by a group of nuns as fraudulent! Sadly, this pathetic behavior is what Mr Feiner has lowered himself to and even sadder is that this is the best the electorate gets because they don’t pay attention to details and succumb to “headline reading” for information.

Doing a modicum of research, we found this post from Mr Feiner’s blog from March 2013. We expect he won’t respond but if he would, it could be something to the effect of “I didn’t write that.” (nor, would he know who did). Or, “I don’t remember writing that.” Or, “Someone else wrote that for me but that’s not what I said.” Regardless, here’s a statement that he did say and posted (yellow highlight by ABG):

Post from Paul Feiner’s Blog:

TUESDAY, MARCH 26, 2013

Bob Bernstein's comments on the Edgemont Community Council page are false, fiction, inaccurate

The ECC page has been used by Bob Bernstein to criticize me. That's democracy and freedom of speech. I have no objections to that.

However-- in recent months much of what Bernstein says is totally inaccurate. Fiction. Make believe. I sent the following to Bob and the head of ECC a short time ago. 

A reader emailed us a statement that apparently Mr Feiner made to Mr Geoff Loftus, the Edgemont Community Council’s current President, and was posted on the Town website by Mr Feiner (there are more references if you look):

From: Paul Feiner

Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2013 11:10 PM

To: Geoff Loftus; Town Board

Cc: Bob Bernstein; (Note: Editor has removed other names)

Subject: more distortions and fiction in last nights ECC post about me

Bob Bernstein, in last nights post about WESTHELP, indicated that I put up barbed wires at the WESTHELP facility.

APPELLATE DIVISION REVERSES TAXTER RIDGE CASE--FINNERAN LAW UPHELD

Release Date: February 19, 2008

Yesterday the Appellate Division reversed the Taxter Ridge case which Bob Bernstein brought. The court upheld the Finneran Law and made it very clear that parks and recreation facilities are the obligations of the unincorporated area. We are bound by the decision. 
I would have been satisfied with any decision that the court made. I thought that it was important and fair that everyone have their day in court, and since the villages weren’t included in the complaint I thought that they had the right to have an appeal in which they could take part. 
We now have some work to do to repair some of the problems that the case has brought about, and we will have better communications between the town and the villages to make that happen. With the new spirit on the Town Board, and the goodwill of our residents, I know that we can do this. 
PAUL FEINER 

Clearly, Mr Feiner, a non-practicing attorney, knew of Mr Bernstein as “Bob”. Mr Feiner lost his case in court on a technicality and cost Greenburgh taxpayers money once again that needn’t have been spent (wasted). Apparently the old axiom, practice makes perfect is apropos in this case. Mr Feiner named others besides Mr Bernstein in the action but they were not asked to appear in court for the hearing/trial and were not present. Subsequently, the case was dismissed because of it. We understand Mr Abinanti is a practicing attorney, but apparently just not in election law.

As an aside, State election law allows nicknames like “Bob” and a formal opinion of the state board of elections actually states using the name “Bob” for “Robert” is perfectly acceptable. ABG is fairly sure Mr Feiner and Mr Abinanti knew this. But what is more disturbing is that in every election he is opposed, Mr Feiner sues his opponent to get their signatures disqualified and ultimately thrown off the ballot, giving him a free ride back into power. Mr Feiner never does the dirty work himself, rather he has someone else do it. In the previous election, he had Councilman Morgan’s daughter using her married name, challenge former Councilwoman Sonya Brown’s petition signatures and got her removed from the ballot. No overt or visible link back to Morgan or Feiner.

To tell the public that he welcomes competition, that this is democracy at it’s best and he’s happy that someone is running against him makes for a great quote or sound-byte with the media. The downside is that it’s simply another lie that he gets away with. He knew Mr Bernstein was known as Bob but even if he hadn’t, it is disingenuous to say you think the competition is great and then sue to block an opponent. They say that all is fair in love and war. There is no love in this campaign and it may turn into a war. But hopefully civility, class and decorum will prevail. We deserve the truth from our leaders and better from all of our representatives. We deserve a Better Greenburgh. 

Due Diligence, Colorful Language and “Sit the F*** Down!”

The first round of public comments where residents get only three minutes to speak seemed to pick up the pace of the Town Board meeting. Two service station owners spoke of multiple violations by a gentleman named Ali, who is running a gas station at Central Avenue and Old Army Road, and would like the Town to look into his sign violations, auto repairs and more. Their request to the Town Board is to have the playing field leveled by mandating the owner comply with all laws that they are all required to follow and cease his illegal operations. Town Attorney Tim “Remediation” Lewis stated they would look into these complaints and get back to them in two weeks. We wish them luck with having the Town make the owner comply and then getting a response from the Town.

Installing sidewalks seemed to be a popular subject as the cost of maintenance and installation of sidewalks was not in the proposed capital budget, also on the night’s agenda. One resident discussed the need on Old Kensico Road for sidewalks as they have witnessed a significant increase in speeding now that the Town has repaved the road. The Paul agreed. One advantage of the repaving was the “lowering” of the road surface which returned a viable curb for the homeowners, preventing water on the street from entering their yards and homes as it did previously. That speaker finished with a criticism of the WestHelp bid by the Town Board, while complimenting them on the New Resident Event held earlier in the evening.

The Paul decided to expound on how aggravated he was over the controversy with the WestHelp bidding process. He started out calmly and then became more agitated as he continued, stating the Town will get $1.5 M within months of signing the lease and there were millions of dollars at play and we’d get several million dollars less if we went with the next bidder(s) on the list. Apparently to The Paul, his logic justifies the Town’s acceptance of an illegal bid to make a few million dollars more over the course of the 18 years. One good thing, borne from a bad thing, is still bad; and it sounds just as illegal. 

Then The Paul brought up Ferncliff and Harbor View, which was the developer mentioned above that dropped out of the bid, and claimed members of the public were trying to stop the highest bidder from working with the Town. He distorted these facts while ignoring reality. His actions were what caused Ferncliff from not happening, as they were never a financially viable candidate for the WestHelp property. Harbor View backed out of the deal because there was an internal conflict with the two partners, with one working secretly with The Paul and the other kept in the dark. They also didn’t want to be in the middle of a public feud with The Paul, the County and the State.

The Paul commented, “Now there’s an attempt to, um, smear the reputation of the third bidder; someone who is offering significantly more money than anyone else. Um, what concerns me, the issue that concerns me even more is the ramifications that this is going to have on every bidding process.” While this sounds very authentic and perhaps a bit sincere, what The Paul fails to mention is that all of the WestHelp bidding process circumstances were created by his actions and condoned by his Board! The fact that the applicant from Group MRH lied to get the bid and subsequently admitted he lied to the Journal News reporter is the single-most damning ramification – all created by the applicant! In fact, the public’s only involvement prior to this was that they were doing the real due diligence and found the discrepancies in seemingly all of the information being presented to the Town.

The Paul’s tirade continued about a resident contacting him because he was appalled that a reporter went to the bidders home and took a picture of him in an undershirt. This same person said he would never bid with the Town to not have his reputation defamed. First, The Paul never mentioned if this person he spoke of would ever be submitting a bid on anything in the Town anyway or was simply making a point that The Paul would seize upon. Second, Mr. Harris let the reporter into his home. Third, what he was wearing was insignificant to the reporter and he could have taken a moment to “suit up” if his appearance were of concern. Third, and probably most importantly, the home address was the one provided as the business address on the bid. As such the reporter went to the business address supplied to the Town in the bid. If he didn’t want people to contact him at home, he should have listed another address for the business, perhaps one where he could share office space for a fee.

The next statement is the phrase we believe will be the new catch-phrase of the day from The Paul and his Town Board we’ll be hearing often. “So what’s going to happen because of all this controversy is we’re basically… I consider this a form of bid rigging. And I’m saying it is bid rigging. It is bid rigging because what we’re basically doing is we’re discouraging the highest bidder from getting an award from the Town.  The aim of all this character assassination is to encourage people who win a bid successfully to drop out of the process and what’s going to happen its not only this project that counts. It’s going to be all these other projects.” Then he rambled on without offering any proof but claimed to have letters that the public hasn’t seen validating his position. It was an amazing exchange and then he reiterated, “I am convinced that this is a form of bid rigging.”

The second public comment, where the public is given five minutes to speak, became the liveliest and testiest. The first speaker, Robert Bernstein detailed point after point of the submitted information, explaining the incongruities he found and the apparent falsehoods throughout. At the end of his time, Mr. Bernstein chastised Councilman Jones as a lawyer and member of the NYS Bar reminding him that he has a duty to make sure no fraud takes place in the Town of Greenburgh. Councilman Jones appeared visibly shaken and was sweating profusely. Once Mr. Bernstein’s time was up, he concluded, “Ladies and gentlemen, you have a duty to do the right thing. You have a Supervisor out of control. You need to put a stop to this.” The Paul responded that they have a duty to make sure there is no bid rigging in the Town; to which Mr. Bernstein countered with, “Sir, you have faked this offer. The only one who is bid rigging is you!”

Resident after resident came to the podium to highlight discrepancies in the bid for the WestHelp property, the process, the illegalities of same, and occasionally other issues involving the Town.  Toward the end of the evening in what turned into more and more absurd responses from our Town “leaders”, Ms Preiser asked numerous questions of the Board and had a short dialog with them. When the last speaker, Mr. Bock asked for his turn at the podium, the Board begrudgingly conceded. As he was speaking, several Board members were busy with their electronic devices and not paying attention to what he was saying. Mr. Samis approached the dais and said loudly, “Mr. Feiner isn’t listening to you! He’s playing with his machine.” Councilman Jones told Mr. Samis  to sit down. Mr. Samis then repeated himself. Councilman Jones responded, “Sit down! Sit the f*** down!” Mr. Samis remarked that, “Mr. Jones spoke and he never speaks during a meeting.” Jones insisted that Mr. Bock was speaking. The Board immediately rose and they simply said in unison the meeting was over and exited. Mr. Bock’s final comment in disgust was, “This is Open Government at it’s best.”

The language used by Councilman Jones, no matter how frustrated he may be, is inexcusable for any of our Town “leaders”. We understand that sanctions should be placed against Mr. Jones, but know in “Bizarro Greenburgh”, he will probably be receiving an award at the next Town Board meeting. ABG noted several Board members were outside after the meeting by their parked cars laughing. 

Please watch the two Public Comments portions of the meeting to be enlightened as to what is happening to our Town by our “Leaders”. To see the part where Councilman Jones loses control, go directly to the last view minutes of the Second Public Comment section. But don’t sell yourself short; and watch the whole event:

http://greenburghny.swagit.com/play/05082013-689

Due Diligence?

So much for The Paul and his Town Board doing their “due diligence”! You’ll recall in Town Board meeting after meeting The Paul continually boasting, to the point of bragging, that the Town Board was doing their due diligence in choosing a company to take over and operate the WestHelp property. For two years now, Town residents, the NAACP and others were all insisting to return it to its proper intent as affordable housing. You may recall the town is contractually required to provide low/moderate income housing at the WestHelp property.

But in a move to purchase votes and endear himself with Valhalla residents and certain county republicans, The Paul ordered the apartments to remain vacant for nearly two years. He also insisted they remain left open to facilitate their ruination, ultimately requiring demolition. This would ensure no low/moderate income residents return to the bucolic Valhalla Hamlet and allow The Paul to gift the property to the unsuspecting Ferncliff School to build a new residential school for the developmentally disabled on the property. The state rejected that proposal last month, insistent the property be used for affordable housing as intended. Another of The Paul’s latest schemes that would backfire!

Month after month, meeting after meeting many residents, and specifically the G10, would ask what the criteria was for selecting a vendor for the property. The new catch phrase from The Paul and his Board was, “Yada, yada, yada. We are doing our due diligence.” You can easily substitute a host of words/expressions for the “yada, yada, yada’s”. These substitutes could be: “blah, blah, blah”; “go away, go away, go away”; “we’re in over our heads, we’re in over our heads, we’re in over our heads”; “help us, help us, help us”. The list is endless. And yet The Paul persisted they stick to their due diligence story – and they did. Due diligence actually requires doing something. It appears they did little, if anything.

It’s been about two years or so since The Paul decided to pull the plug on the Town’s most lucrative “do-nothing” contract with the County of Westchester. The Town earned $1.2M per year in rental payments from the County for the WestHelp property. Because of The Paul’s latest scheme, the taxpayers lost this cool $1.2M per year that will a) never be recouped; and b) never be replaced with anything even close. In the meantime, after doing their due diligence, The Paul instructed his Board to choose the bid from a new partnership made up of the Richman Organization and Group MRH. They did. This partnership proposal promised to pay Greenburgh $1.5M up front and almost $500,000 annually. The payments will continue through the year 2032. They will also spend approximately $2M in renovations. The Town won’t even be making half of what it was before this debacle began and the Ferncliff School is no closer to finding a new home.

Now it’s been uncovered through other people’s due diligence that there is no partnership between the Richmond Group and Group MRH! So what due diligence was The Paul and his go-along Board engaged in? Can we expect similar due diligence from them regarding other projects in the Town, such as the Frank’s Nursery property? Or how about the spot-zoning changes recently made to accommodate the Brightview Assisted Living facility just off of Benedict Avenue at Rt 119? How much due diligence was performed here?

The Brightview spot-zoning change, another “done-deal”, happened not only for the Brightview developers, but was passed by the Board under the guise of a Town-wide change to allow Assisted Living facilities throughout the Town. Justification for this spot-zoning for one developer was evenly spread out through the entire Town’s Unincorporated districts, allowing four story buildings on postage stamp sized properties in residential neighborhoods. Due diligence? Hardly. The attorneys for Brightview wrote the spot-zoning change to benefit themselves and The Paul and his Board voted to approve it, and fast! After all, Brightview is on a schedule and might withdraw their plan if they’re delayed. They’ve repeatedly said so.

Now that the WestHelp deal is done, The Paul openly stated that the two organizations are not a partnership. And when asked if this would alter the WestHelp property deal or not, The Paul, who begrudgingly only reverses course when he is mandated to do so by court rulings, said, “Not at all. It’s not really a big deal. Richman was never going to be the financial backer. There were zero misrepresentations on the part of (MRH).” Perhaps not – technically. But after all the espoused due diligence, ABG wonders what their due diligence actually was? And now that you do know something is amiss, most normal leaders, at least in business, would take pause, review, perhaps reopen the evaluations or reopen the RFP process. In a story ABG posted called “Under The Circus’ Big Tent” on April 26th, we quoted The Paul saying, “This is not a game. This is not entertainment. This is not a circus. This is a business. We have a fiduciary responsibility to the taxpayers of Greenburgh to get the best possible deal for the Town.” This is a business? Really? Fiduciary responsibility? C’mon! Of course the representatives for MRH had no comment. They got what they wanted. Could this deal have been promised to them? You decide.

If this sounds a bit familiar to ABG readers, its because we’ve been living through this same scenario with another Unincorporated property and phantom business. The former Frank’s Nursery at 715 Dobbs Ferry Road was another “done-deal” brokered behind closed doors by The Paul and his Board with the “paper” company GameOn 365 before the Town acquired the property through foreclosure. Apparently, GameOn 365 did not have the money to purchase the property, so The Paul offered to lease it to them. A lease is simply illegal by county and state law. It wasn’t until a lawsuit was filed against The Paul and the Town that he withdrew his lease offer and offered to sell GameOn 365 the property – until House of Sports doubled the offer! That’s when The Paul and Francis “Back Pocket” Sheehan began a new mantra that they were only looking at “serious investors”. GameOn 365 had, and continues to have, no money. House of Sports is fully operational and has the financial resources to enter into the sale. Where’s The Paul’s fiduciary responsibility now? Business indeed!

The Town officials obviously did not do any due diligence and again made a deal with a questionable start-up company. Even more incredible is the arrogance of The Paul and his insistence to continue with this deal. ABG had hoped the Town’s due diligence would surprise us with a transaction that might get renovations underway immediately, help those in need of housing and follow the law. Once again, the Town leaders have failed miserably – this time with due diligence. Just as the investment company ads claim, that “Past performance is no guarantee of future results”, ABG is not confident The Paul and his complicit Board will do the right thing with the Frank’s Nursery property and provide us with different results. We can only hope.