Upcoming Supervisor Candidate Debates

If you live in Greenburgh -- including Ardsley, Dobbs Ferry, Elmsford, Hastings, Irvington, Tarrytown, or unincorporated (Edgemont, Hartsdale, Fairview) -- this is the first time you can vote for a new town supervisor in a general election in over a decade. Challenger Lucas Cioffi, an Independent candidate, is running against Paul Feiner for Greenburgh Town Supervisor November 5th.

You are Invited to these three debates:
• Oct 21: League of Women Voters Debate, Greenburgh Public Library (300 Tarrytown Rd, Elmsford) @ 6:30pm
• Oct 22: Hartsdale Neighbors Association Forum, St Paul's United Methodist Church (130 N Central Ave, Hartsdale) @ 7pm
• Oct 28: NAACP Candidates Forum, Theodore D. Young Community Center (32 Manhattan Ave, White Plains) @ 7pm

Please mark your calendars.

Early voting starts Oct 26th: details about early voting and absentee ballots.

Lucas Cioffi’s simplified message about his campaign. Please share with your friends and neighbors:
1. Place a two-year freeze on town tax levies
2. Use real community involvement to get the budget and spending under control
3. Significantly increase openness and accountability
4. Implement term limits

Here is his full 8-page platform for your consideration. For info:

Lucas Cioffi
Candidate for Greenburgh Town Supervisor
Greenburgh, NY
Website: https://www.greenburgh.us

PS - You are receiving this email, because you receive our town's email updates. The New York State Committee on Open Government has confirmed that candidates running for office in Greenburgh may use the email list as long as we do not use it for fundraising purposes.  Please let me know if you'd like to unsubscribe, and thank you for your time!

Be The Voice Of The People: Vote

Voters will hopefully head to the polls today, May 21 to vote either for or against their school district budgets – all within the tax cap that “Governor Tappan Zee” enacted into a permanent tax cap, proposed bonds and of course, School Board races. We have been following the Greenburgh school board race which features six candidates. Two are incumbents and four are new faces. While all of the candidates seem to be very nice people, we were most impressed with Tanya Dragic.

Multi-million-dollar bond proposals will be voted on in four school districts - Briarcliff Manor, Irvington, Pleasantville and Somers. Whether or not there are tax implications from them remains to be seen. Most people are inclined to go along with tax increases if the are logical, within reason financially, adequately explained and communicated to the public clearly. After all, this is their money that’s being sought.

In this day of instant news feeds, 24-hour cable news, neighborhood blogs such as this one, podcasts, radio and residents talking amongst themselves, taxpayers (stakeholders) need to feel assured that their money is being well spent and with meaning. This was not the case with the recent $114 million bond the School Board and Dr Chase tried to foist upon the public in the 11th hour two months ago. They got their heads handed to them with a two-to-one defeat.

The take-away that the Board members and Dr Chase seemed to believe is that they did a poor job communicating their “vision” to the stakeholders. If that’s all they got out of this defeat, they really aren’t paying attention. What they also did was hide information. They repeatedly told the public that the $114 million was including interest. It was not. The interest alone would have been almost the face value of the note, coming in at $83 million. With a bond total of $197 million, and the yearly budget of $71 million ($70,752,506 actual), taxpayers will be on the hook for $267 million! In Mandarin, it’s 2.67亿美元！

When asked why the bond should be supported, we were told that the Bailey and Highview schools were in such disrepair that we needed to jettison them as soon as possible and build two new schools to replace them – at the Warburg campus. When asked why, one School Board trustee had the backbone to tell us, “The Board made a conscious decision to not maintain the schools to save teacher’s jobs. Others on the Board believed having all the schools on one campus would be their School Board legacy – as did Dr Chase. Sadly, their legacy will be the disrepair of our schools.

While this revelation was a stunning admission, the honesty and openness of the Board member was refreshing and what a dialog should be. During the entire event the age-old mantra was, “Do it for the children.” In fact, on a community gossip board, several residents kept posting to vote yes for the bond and saying those against it were lying with the facts they presented. They were not. But for Phil, Matty, Mona and a handful of others aligned with the School Board supporting a radical tax increase, many could or would not go along! Can they be persuaded to vote for it now? We’ll see...

The budget vote is upon us, with a small cheerleading crowd in the gossip sites trying desperately to convince those gullible enough to not learn the facts on their own to vote for the budget. When a question was posed on the site if Matty worked for the district and if he ever ran for the School Board, the conversation was closed down. Apparently, just as in Town Hall and the School Board, the flow of information works only one-way. It's ironic that after 3,000 people mobilized and voted "no" that the Board did not capitalize on the obvious interest of the public.

Briarcliff Manor’s $3 million bond proposal would include a roof replacement at the middle school, a track resurfacing, and infrastructure improvements district-wide. Irvington would see renovation projects, conservation initiatives, expansions and modernization efforts. Pleasantville will make repairs to school buildings, increase security, and asbestos abatement in school floors. Somers seeks to increase security, and if approved, would include a partial roof replacement at Primrose Elementary School.

These districts clearly show it is possible to do ongoing repair and maintenance without financially hammering the district residents. Those that can afford it will scrutinize the budget less than those who cannot. We need a Board that understands that it's our money and then their money and that it doesn't grow on trees. The current Greenburgh School Board and its Superintendent seem oblivious to this. Again, they’re not listening. In the Fairview Fire and the Hartsdale Fire Districts, 48% and 42% respectively are tax exempt. That means about half of the taxpayers are paying double of what they should have to to compensate for the tax exempt properties who still utilize their services. The school district suffers from the same malady with little recourse.

Consider how the current School Board behaved during this last episode when you go to vote. If you want more of the same you already know how you’re going to vote. If you want more transparency, open communication and budgets that are reasonably planned out and presented, think about voting differently. It’s one more way to get A Better Greenburgh School Board.

Westchester County Volunteer Firemen Association Convention Parade on Saturday

Parade Date: 
Saturday, September 15, 2018 - 3:00pm

Dobbs Ferry FD and Ardsley FD will be co-hosting the 112th annual Westchester County Volunteer Fireman's Association Convention. 

The dress parade for the event will take place on Saturday, September 15th beginning at 3:00 p.m. at Ashford Avenue at Price Street.  The Parade will proceed down Ashford Avenue, to Cedar Street, to Main Street and conclude at Waterfront Park.

Please note the following street closures during the time of the parade:
The Gateway will be shut down for probably 1.5 hours to allow all of the apparatus/trucks/etc to go by. This is at Broadway/Ashford/Cedar, causing very little to no traffic to get through from Hastings to Irvington

Ashford will be closed from Broadway to Price Street most of the afternoon, so people coming off the Saw Mill will all need to reroute through side streets or turn around

Parking along Main and Cedar will be restricted from noon-6pm (possibly earlier if the parade finishes earlier)

Parking along Livingstone will be restricted as well (for residents, who the WCVFA apparently is notifying ahead of time)

Suspicious Incident in Irvington

An important message from the Superintendent of Schools,  Dr. Kristopher Harrison

May 22, 2018 Good evening, Please see the important public safety alert that was just released by the Tarrytown Police Department. "This agency is investigating a suspicious incident which took place on Tuesday, May 22, 2018 at approximately 0810 hours, near the intersection of Meadow Street and Millbrook Ave.  A 10 year old child who attends the Main Street School, Irvington School District was standing near this location waiting for the school bus when a late model Honda Civic Four Door Sedan, bearing an unknown New York yellow color "Empire" style plate, traveling North on Meadow Street pulled up and stopped near the child.  Child reports a male white possibly in his twenties or thirties with dark hair and short goatee spoke to the child through an open passenger side window. The male asked, "Do you need a ride to school?" When the child said "No" the male pulled away travelling North on Meadow Street towards Route 119." Below is a picture of the actual vehicle involved: Any individual who can assist in identifying the above pictured vehicle, or who has had similar activity is asked to contact the Tarrytown Police Detective Division at (914) 631-1514. Please be assured that the Irvington School District is in consistent communication with our law enforcement partners to ensure the safety of our students.  Very truly yours, Dr. Kristopher Harrison Superintendent of Schools

Stop and Shop or Stop and Steal?

The new 67,500 square foot Stop and Shop Super Center store will be opening this week. The location of the new supermarket is actually where the old Premier Theater had been located many years ago. The difference today is when the theater had been there, with the amount of impervious space it had, there weren't any other buildings in the area. Water drainage was not a problem back then! According to The Paul, and we quote, “Unlike many development application projects that experience significant opposition from the community - this supermarket had an enthusiastic group of immediate residents behind it from day one. I received many calls and e mails from residents expressing a desire for a quality new supermarket.” It's only a true statement when you study how the question of the new Stop and Shop was posed. 


When asked if people would favor a new supermarket offering? The answer was usually yes. Would you be in favor of a new super center style supermarket with a larger variety? Larger variety? The answer was yes. So, as people were polled about a new supermarket, the carefully asked questions guaranteed certain positive answers. No one was asked if closing the existing Stop and Shop would impact the neighborhood negatively. No one was asked about the amount of impervious space that would be created, affecting the water runoff in the already saturated and heavily flooded areas – except the Glenville Community Association, the Babbitt Court Residents and the business and home owners along the 9A and Rt 9 flood zones along with the G-8. 


Many in Tarrytown’s Rt 9 and surrounding area who were able to walk or bike or take a bus  to the existing Stop and Shop (formerly First National, and then Finast) were vociferously against the new Stop and Shop! The Paul prefers to ignore this in his post. Once the existing Stop and Shop closes, the space will be used for yet another CVS. Apparently, we don't have enough drug stores in the area. We have nothing against CVS, but there is a claim that they will have an “expanded convenience food department”. What, more Twinkies?


Also in the mix, as part of Thomas Madden’s job security initiative, are plans to create an assisted living facility nearby. This effort, along with The Paul’s devaluing of the Unincorporated Town space, has been proposed to create multiple apartment buildings, actually twelve, along the Rt 119 corridor. This all dovetails into the proposed train, bus, car corridor they plan to develop Rt 119 into with the expansion of the Tappan Zee Bridge replacement.


An issue ABG has with this expansion is not to utilize mass transit in the area, but we are a suburban area they are trying to develop into a more urban setting. There will condemnations and eminent domain utilized to take over homes and businesses properties to make this happen. The goal of the  separate elevated bus route is to have a bus stop for pickup/drop offs at all of the bus stops every five minutes and then have the buses all exit (near exit five of I-287) onto Rt 119 and proceed to the White Plains Transit Center. After this visit, it starts all over again. If you think there’s congestion on Route 119 now, just wait!


The Paul has assisted in closing two major supermarket outlets. While we recognize he didn’t do it alone, the soon-to-open HMart in the old Pathmark location will serve a limited clientele. That’s okay. But the A&P that closed in the Crossroads Shopping Center is continuing to devalue that neighborhood. As the store stands vacant, and falls into disrepair, fewer new tenants will be interested in revitalizing this store or the neighborhood. Unfortunately, it’s the neighborhood’s residents that suffer. Since The Paul and his Stepford Board have declared the Manhattan Avenue area low income in perpetuity, ABG believes little will be done by the Town to improve this area - stealing it’s future. We can only hope!