County’s Special Operations Open House

Elmsford Fire on North Goodwin Avenue

Top to bottom: View of fire scene
View of White Plains Avenue facing north

At approximately 10 PM last night, the Elmsford Fire Department was called out to a structure fire in at 88 North Goodwin Avenue just north of White Plains Avenue in Elmsford. Arriving fire crews witnessed flames coming through the roof. As hose lines were stretched from hydrants to the trucks for water supply, an aggressive interior attack of the fire was mounted by fire crews while a 10-75 was broadcast across the County from the Richard A. Flynn Fire Training Center’s 60 Control, the radio operations arm of that facility. Elmsford firefighters, battled not only the fire, but the cold weather and difficult conditions. They had the fire knocked down and the scene under control approximately 20 minutes after their arrival. No injuries were reported. Numerous fire departments assisted including Irvington, Tarrytown, Ardsley,Valhalla, Hawthorne, Fairview, and Hartsdale.

An Excuse to Perpetuate Illegal Offers

ABG has just acquired two letters (below) delivered to the Town of Greenburgh in advance of the impending Town Board Work Session slated to be held on Tuesday at 9:30AM. The scheduled meeting would invariably not start on time as the audience members, applicants and viewers would be forced to wait until the Board finally shows up. The work session meetings, which typically never start on time, would have included several topics that are generically listed on the posted agenda on the Towns website. But the waters had gotten even murkier for The Paul in short time. Subsequently, while the Elm Street Sports proposal for double the amount GameOn 365 offered, was slated to be discussed, The Paul was running scared and eliminated it by canceling the meeting!

Because Councilman Morgan had a funeral to attend, The Paul thought it appropriate that Town business be halted and foregone because one Board member would not be present. While we appreciate the sentiment, the Board should meet and carry on the Town’s business – less one. It didn’t seem to stop them at all when rookie Councilman Ken Jones was sick for several meetings that were slated to contain votes on the GameOn 365 proposal. ABG believes Jones decided to take some “sick time” to avoid having to take a position on the various GameOn 365 votes, which we hope he, along with many others of the public, recognized as illegal and more importantly, unethical. Too bad he wasn’t there to vote his conscious – something this Town has been missing for numerous years under The Paul’s rule.

If you have followed the GameOn 365 debacle for the last two years or so, you know that The Paul was exposed to having secretly met with GameOn 365 owners to broker a secret back-room deal for the former Frank’s Nursery property at 715 Dobbs Ferry Road. During this time, the Elm Street Sports Group, owners of the House of Sports Facility of Ardsley, NY, had purchased the property at 2 Elm Street, in Ardsley. This had been a former tennis facility and the home of Selecto, a food distribution warehouse which suffered a catastrophic fire years ago and the death of an employee. Selecto would never return to the location. With the purchase, renovation and opening of House of Sports, they have added to the Ardsley landscape, infused the tax base and vitality of an otherwise languishing local economy.

To ensure GameOn 365 every advantage and unfair “edge” they might need to build their proposed “sports bubble”, The Paul stacked the deck in GameOn 365’s favor. He agreed to a proposed fifteen year lease for the knowingly contaminated site, aware it was the acknowledged White Plains Urban Renewal dumping site! When area residents contested The Paul’s strategy with a lawsuit, following his own advice (“If you don’t like what I’m doing, sue me!”), he changed tactics and finally decided to follow the law. Simply, the law states that the supervisor must sell any land acquired through foreclosure, or use it for Town purposes if they decide to keep it. Morally bereft and challenged, our Town Board decided their spines, and political careers, should remain out-of-play. So they went along with The Paul to get along and not be “Sonya’d” out of their generous part-time jobs.

Interestingly, the Town had a property appraisal recently performed for 715 Dobbs Ferry Road and the amount of the appraisal was the amount that GameOn 365 was offering! Hey, wait a minute... is it possible to to stack the deck any more than it already is? Well, The Paul tried. Since The Paul’s illegal actions were bad enough, Elm Street Sports decided to up the ante, so to speak, and took a page out of The Paul’s playbook. They made an public offer to the Town to also purchase 715 Dobbs Ferry Road for roughly double what the GameOn 365 organization offered the Town! The difference between the “real business” that Elm Street Sports operates versus the “paper business” GameOn 365 talks about, is that GameOn 365 is still searching for investors for business model that GameOn 365 hopes to operate with someone else’s money. Elm Street Sports has the capital to purchase and remediate the site now. GameOn 365 is a pyramid scheme designed to operate only after they raise the money necessary to purchase for their possible business.

While the choice over which proposal should be accepted is obvious to the vast majority of people, one speaker at the last Town Board public session stated that he overheard a conversation where Town Attorney Tim “Remediation” Lewis stated to the effect that while the Elm Street Sports proposal might be better for the Town, they gave their word to GameOn 365. While giving and sticking to one’s word is laudable, this was one wrong, illegal and unethical move after another for a project destined for failure under the law.

This new opportunity affords the Town Board a facility to right many wrongs, whether intentional or not (ABG is being generous). The Town has lost about $1.5M in taxes on that property. The offer for $1.5M in total from Game On 365 only negates back taxes. In effect, the Town is giving them use of the land for free. The proposal from Elm Street Sports pays the $1.5M in back taxes and gives the Town a profit of $1.5M. And, while GameOn 365 was positioned to appear to pay for remediation of the property, they simply do not have the money to do so, cannot raise what will be needed, and have the opportunity to exit the deal when things get too problematic for them. All of the money that will be needed for the remediation will be provided by Elm Street Sports, something GameOn 365 won’t agree to. This is a no-brainer – even in Greenburgh.

It is incumbent on the Town to accept the best offer for the residents of the Town, regardless of how much “keeping your word” can be used as an excuse to perpetuate illegal offers. Elm Street Sports’ offer is in the best financial, ethical, zoning, planning and neighborhood-centric interests of the Town and the community. Another obvious solution out of this predicament is a legitimate sale process with a new RFP. ABG urges the public to contact The Paul and the Town Board with phone calls, letters and such to let them know you support Elm Street Sports’ proposal or a new RFP. Giving and keeping one’s word is only important when the word is for something legal and morally just. Let’s hope the Town Board understands the difference. We can only hope.

Letter from Elm Street Sports:

Letter from the Elm Street Sports attorneys:

Forecast Called For A Dusting

Two days ago a suspicious package arrived at the Journal News’ new offices containing white powder. Most white powder calls are nothing more than a crackpot taking a stab at being threatening – without the nerve to actually confront someone face-to-face. Located on Westchester Avenue across from where their old facility had resided for years, this prompted a full police and fire response, the all-volunteer County Hazardous Materials Response Team, County Health and several others. Ultimately the white powdery substance was a dusting of a harmless powder. Haz-Mat responders took the call seriously but commented afterwards that it was just another hoax. The County’s all-volunteer County Hazardous Materials Response Team responds to approximately 100 white powder calls a year.

Today, Friday, found the White Plains police and fire units called to the White Plains Public Library for another white powder call. This time it was mail addressed to the Journal News, but because it was suspicious to them, their people drove it in a private car to give it to the White Plains Police. They parked in the below-ground library parking structure. ABG learned that they had put the mail in a plastic garbage bag and secured it. The police refused to do anything with it and called the Westchester County Hazardous Materials Response team to the scene to investigate. The determination by the police was to tow the car to the safety of the Valhalla campus to continuing to try to determine what the powdery substance is. As a precaution, the two responders in Tyvek suits who removed the package were decontaminated by the police under the watchful eyes of the HazMat Team, with water. At no point was the public at any risk.

It’s no wonder an upset public is lashing out at the Journal News after they printed their interactive map of gun owners in Westchester County. ABG is not happy about what the Journal News did but is equally unhappy that people are taking to threatening them in this way. ABG would ask those who are upset with what the Journal News did to take a different course of action against them. Those actions can include canceling your subscription, canceling your advertising in the paper, write a letter to their editor and complain that their actions were wrong, boycott advertisers in the paper and let the advertisers know it. But please, please do not threaten them this way. The bloggersphere that we work within and alternate forms of media will continue to grow. They will continue to shrink by their own accord because their actions aren’t sincere. Rather, they are trying to make the news with stories such as these. The media should never become the story. We can only hope.