Senior Housing and the Comprehensive Plan

Here’s something we don’t hear about every day, or ever see happening in Greenburgh. The City of Rye has elected to change zoning for a commercial property into residential in the hopes of repurposing vacant or unused office space in their community. Specifically, construction is slated to start on a 122-unit senior home in a former office building at 120 Old Post Road after the city's Planning Commission completes a site plan review. According to Republican Rye City Councilman Richard Mecca, “…there’s a market for this kind of property.”

The kind of property he’s discussing is the construction of a 122-unit senior housing facility that would provide luxury residential housing for seniors. The office building in question has been unoccupied since 2009. Once completed, the over-55 residents would be able to choose from one and two bedroom apartments. The current building would be razed and a new 245,000 square feet building would be constructed, roughly 3 times the size of the current building. While we question the increased size as necessary, we’re sure the developers have claimed the usual reasons, focusing on their profitability only working with this size building. We’re also sure if challenged, they have another number they are willing to scale it down to.

In Greenburgh, however, we’ve seen the new Comprehensive Plan adopted. Critics, including ABG, point out that it is more of a political document/statement and an encapsulation of what the Town currently has as opposed to providing a blueprint and true plan for the future of our Town. After 8 long years of preparation, public forums and road shows, the document falls flat on its face, allowing Mr Feiner and his Board similar carte blanche with zoning changes throughout the Unincorporated Town. This failing will be evident tomorrow night when the Town Board adopts a change to zoning specific to the Manhattan Avenue area to eliminate the existing HUD housing and build bigger buildings with mix-use retail space at ground level. It’s easy to perceive the Town Board as doing spot-zoning but they will apply this as a Town-wide endeavor to skirt that issue.

The one bright light throughout Mr Feiner’s constant onslaught to allow commercial enterprises in residential areas has been neighborhood pushback. At the former Frank’s Nursery property on Dobbs Ferry Road, Mr Feiner tried to convince residents to accept an 8-story, 83-foot sports bubble in their residential neighborhood on that property. By banding together, they were able to push back with one mantra: keep the zoning residential and build residential housing of any type at that location!

The GameOn 365 owners, who had been encouraged in private meetings with Mr Feiner and his Board  not to worry about the zoning as they would name themselves the lead agency and push the zoning change through, moved their plans to the Visioli golf driving range property next door. What Mr Feiner and crew hadn’t counted on was the resolve and intelligence of the residents. Using the Town’s own laws, they held fast and got every neighbor adjacent to the property to object to the usage. Subsequently, after Mr Feiner played his games with the property and losing more money for the Town, movement on creating a new senior assisted living facility has begun.

To that end, there will be a Public Hearing/Discussion on the proposed CHS Assisted Living Facility at the Planning Board on Wed. Oct. 19th. The meeting starts at 8:00pm. Residents of the Town are urged to attend to see and hear what the plans are for this new facility. This is a story of David beating Goliath. Right now, however, we applaud the City of Rye for taking a positive step in creating housing from commercial property and wished we could see similar thinking in our Town. Only then will we see A Better Greenburgh.

Government Should Remain Neutral - Addendum

Painting the picture of volunteerism and helping the elderly, Mr Feiner did a mailing on behalf of another company in February that cost taxpayers 48¢ each at face value. There are about 35,000 households in Greenburgh. If he sent this mailing to those households, without duplicates, he would have spent $17,150! We typically refer to this as campaigning as this mailing venue allows him to keep his name front and center with the Town of Greenburgh constituency. As a one-time effort, or a quarterly summary of what is taking place in the Town, etc., we might be more understanding. But we’re not. The reason we’re not is because he does these mailings multiple times a week at taxpayer expense and still does multiple summary mailings. Then at budget time, he insists that all the other depatrtments make reductions!

This particular mailing was to promote a “not-for-profit” company that provides rides for seniors citizens to their doctor appointments at no charge, using volunteer drivers to shuttle the seniors. This is a laudable venture at face value. But once you dig just a little bit, you quickly learn that the founders and operators of this organization are doctors, either come from the medical community or are somehow involved in the medical community. Could they simply be doing this to make sure their patients continue to show up for their appointments, ensuring Medicare payments? They claim that the seniors do not need to pay for their rides, can typically get one ride per day except under certain circumstances which are not detailed on their website, and that they do accept donations. What they don’t discuss is how they actually pay for whatever their operating expenses might be.

While this organization may or may not have an ulterior motive and we believe they do, Mr Feiner should not be promoting them, especially with a 48¢ mailer consisting of three pages (two sheets) printed at Town Hall on taxpayer copiers and paper. In fact, taxpayers are charged 25¢ per print when they ask for a copy of a document from Town Hall. This is another possible expense to taxpayers of 3 x 25¢ = 75¢ x 35,000 = $26,250. So, using medical terminology, this is a non-billable advertising expense for the doctors of $43,400 that Mr Feiner decided without taxpayer input to simply give away on their behalf. We’re pretty sure the doctors involved in this can afford to advertise.

In the end, we’re suspicious because Unincorporated Greenburgh has roughly half of the Town properties listed as tax-exempt. Instead of pushing another tax exempt company, perhaps Mr Feiner and his Town Board should focus on the P.I.L.O.T. Program. This program is geared toward receiving payment from tax exempts for services rendered to them, or Payment In Lieu Of Taxes. Or, Mr Feiner could simply follow the law and not cost us in court fees and guilty verdicts as he did in the $6.5 million dollars from the Fortress Bible Church case, or the $1.2 million dollars for breaking the lease with the County for the WestHelp property, or the loss of $3.5 million dollars + remediation for the former Frank’s Nursery property on Dobbs Ferry Road, or collect on unpaid tickets through the Greenburgh courts, or, the $25 million in unpaid property taxes, or, well you get the idea.

The constant campaigning by Mr Feiner would not be so difficult to accept if he wasn’t spending our money to do so. He has a significant political campaign war-chest and it continues to grow thanks to taxpayer largess – although not by our choice. It has to end. Only then will we have A Better Greenburgh.

Government Should Remain Neutral

A short time ago, Mr Feiner did his routine email blast with the coveted GBList. We'll reiterate he is violating daily yet another court's guilty penalty and order by refusing to turn the list over to the resident who had requested it. She was refused, appealed, refused a second time, sued and won in court for access to it. This is significant mostly because Mr Feiner has always been content to violate the laws he doesn't like without consequence as well as the trust of Town residents. However, Mr Feiner wholeheartedly endorses his developer friends’ projects du jour, usually at an extreme cost to neighborhoods throughout the Town. Now, however the other shoe appears to be on his foot.

We were originally going to write about how Mr Feiner has again mounted a campaign blitz on behalf of his friends from GameOn 365 and their most recent push to build a mega-sports complex on Dobbs Ferry Road. You'll recall they tried to proceed with acquiring the property with an illegal lease scheme concocted and championed by Mr Feiner. Then he tried to gift the property to them at a significantly undervalued price with obscenely minimal payments over 13 years. When another area resident and business owner offered to purchase the property for double the amount at $3.5 million in cash and pay for all site contaminated remediation, Mr Feiner refused to entertain their offer claiming it was not a serious one. What he should have done was publicize all the facts about the property, interested parties and their offers. Clearly, the Town could have held the upper hand while being open and transparent. But once Mr Feiner began the closed door, back room meetings, that ship sailed and sank. Or did it?

Now, many years later, the property remains vacant and still contaminated because the Town Board has kowtowed to Mr Feiner's wishes to finagle a way to gift the property to GameOn 365. Both Mr Feiner and his Town Board have not done the right thing with this (now-reverted) residential property! While Mr Feiner should have the taxpayers best interests at heart, he's more interested in helping his friends. Apparently the City of Yonkers isn't the only municipality with a Friends and Family Plan for developers.

Regardless of Mr Feiner and the Town Board's illogical, perhaps immoral, if not illegal, actions with the former Frank's Nursery property on Dobbs Ferry Road, this article is about to shift gears and focus on the over-development of our Unincorporated Town property. We have bemoaned the fact that every sliver of space in Unincorporated Greenburgh is being gobbled up by developers who then approach the Administration and tout the benefits of mega-construction on the land.True to form, Mr Feiner instructs his Board how to vote and the developer's presentation sails through and before you can say, "Wait just a second," the Town Board declares themselves the lead agency and the deal is done.

Here's a few such examples to what we are referring. First, we'll go with Brightview Assisted Living Center. Mr Feiner touted the availability and need for Greenburgh residents to have a place they could spend their remaining years. What was uncovered and at first denied by Mr Feiner was that someone without assets and on Medicaid would not be allowed to move in. In typical Feiner-form, he finally acquiesced, admitting he was still in favor of it, apparently the poorer Medicaid recipient-residents be damned. This mammoth structure looming over Rt 119 is adding to the infrastructure burden and not contributing any relief to the residents. At least the developers are making out well.

Second, he is entertaining a proposal on a triangular strip of land between the Sprain Brook Parkway off of Payne Street for a 96 room assisted living facility. Access and egress will happen through one of the side streets off of Payne Street. The increase in traffic through a residential neighborhood, we're sure, will be proposed as either negligible or non-existent as these are retired, non-driving occupants. Whatever the developer wants is probably what the traffic study will say. Interestingly, all of these projects are green-lighted (pun intended) regardless of what the traffic study says. This will increase traffic and further burden the infrastructure.

Third, was the Westhab project in Fulton Park, proposed as a 7-story apartment building and finally constructed as a three story gulag-style building that is an eyesore to the neighborhood, Rt 119 and will ultimately become a Section 8 housing facility. Throughout all of the disingenuous posturing from the Town Board, residents were continually told that no decision had been made by the Town Board and they could still say no to the project. What they conveniently left out was that no open decision was made, nor was it made public. The deal was done with the neighborhood, the infrastructure and traffic to the area be damned.

Fourth, there are several plans to build apartments without parking on Central Avenue since Mr Feiner and his Board forced a new tax onto service stations, forcing them to close (opposite Scarsdale Ford). There's also Dromore Road off of Central Avenue. The pièce de résistance is the mega-development that's been presented in North Elmsford's Eastview area. Over 100 acres have been green-lighted by Mr Feiner and his Board to build more of the same. Mr Feiner has never met a developer whose plans he didn't endorse. The over-sized development there is another added burden to our infrastructure as well increasing traffic. The attitude at Town hall is that traffic is already congested so a little more won't matter.

The latest debacle to be proposed is in Ardsley at what was the old Akzo Nobel Chemical site that was in the area of 9A and the Saw Mill River Parkway. STOP! Mr Feiner says its not a good location. He says the developers should reconsider building there because it will, ahem, tax the infrastructure. All developers in the area know that there is no project that Mr Feiner won't give a thumbs-up to as long as his precious gated community is left alone. Infrastructure be damned! Could it be the carcinogens left on the site that might poison staff and residents? No. What's good for the goose, perhaps? No. Too much traffic? No. Overburdening the schools? No, not even close. Then what could possibly cause Mr Feiner to be against another development?

Votes. That's right. Mr Feiner is afraid to upset the Villages of Ardsley, Dobbs Ferry and Hastings. He will lose beau coup votes from the otherwise solid stalwarts at election time. How can we tell? It's simple really, but an even more obvious example is the cleaning out of the Saw Mill River after the massive flooding that we believe was, in part, caused by all the over-development approved by Mr Feiner and his Town Board. He rallied alongside Elmsford's Babbitt Court residents, Ardsley and the other river towns in Greenburgh. More importantly however, is that he did absolutely nothing about helping the Greenburgh residents along the Bronx River corridor. Why? They cannot bring enough votes against him in an election so he knows he can ignore them - and he and his Town Board does just that.

ABG believes the site for this newly proposed multi-family metropolis is a viable one in a location that will not intrude on any residential neighborhoods. And, lo and behold, there is an extremely successful sports complex nearby for the families to use. We understand they might be looking to expand and this could be just the venue to help them along. We accept that Mr Feiner routinely lies to the constituency, the courts and God knows who else. And, it was during his 22-year tenure that the infrastructure was neglected. Hardly a valid argument for him to make now. But we needn't accept this bad behavior from our government leaders. Politicians should remain neutral with developers and their projects and not advertise on behalf of them. They should also invest in its infrastructure, not use its failings as an excuse. It's time for a change. Only then will we see A Better Greenburgh

Don’t Worry, I Promised

Trying to get a jump on the GameOn 365’s latest application to the Town, Mr Feiner has once again tried to move the process along by emailing thousands of residents via his cherished GBList. This is the same list which he and the Town have been court-ordered to turn over to a resident, whose repeatedly denied FOIL-ed application forced her into court. Subsequently, the court found in her favor. Transparency? Open government? Honesty in government? You decide.

According to Mr Feiner’s email, “Game On has filed a petition to amend the zoning code to initiate a review of a proposal to build an indoor and outdoor privately owned recreation facility on parts of the Golf Range property.” He continues, “Currently, the property is not zoned to allow recreational uses. The project would include an indoor space housed in a permanent structure covering about 107,630 square feet of the approximately 32 acre property. The remaining land would be preserved as open space and used for recreation fields and related uses. The driving range would stay open.”

While the presentation sounds innocuous enough, which is always accompanied by soft pastel drawings and paintings. He discusses how this offering is different from the previous “sports bubble” that had been proposed. He continues by saying, “Members of the Town Board and I have not made any decisions on whether to approve or reject the petition.” We hardly believe this to be the truth. We read a post by a resident on another site and have chosen to include it here as it succinctly sums up Mr Feiner’s position with GameOn 365:
“WPEyesNEars:
Here's the quote from PF: "Members of the Town Board and I have not made any decisions on whether to approve or reject the petition," Greenburgh Supervisor Paul Feiner said." This is an outright lie. He was in favor of it when he tried to illegally lease the property to them, then sell it to them at an undervalued price, the put it on the ballot as a proposition, then refuse to entertain the House of Sports offer for double the amount plus remediation, then skew the contamination study to move the process along for GO365, and finally to have an "auction" until the auctioneer said no one would bid for contaminated land and finally, when TL said remediation costs would be no more than $100k. They have been doing everything they could to give this land to GO365. Try writing the real story!”

What is most disturbing throughout all of this is the lack of respect Mr Feiner has shown to the residents of the area. Numerous Civic Associations, individual residents, families and leaders have objected to all of the GameOn 365 proposals. Mr Feiner has routinely tried to change the position offering to broker meetings and meet individually with residents. His “divide and conquer” methodology has been a proven winner for him. The residents continue to say they only want residential housing built on the property, not commercial.

Once the former Frank’s Nursery property was acquired by the Town, Mr Feiner and his Board sat on their hands and frequently ignored the contamination within it. When the police department, the courts and the library all were suggested as tenants of the property, the severe contamination of the site prohibited it. During the GameOn 365 debacle created and fostered by Mr Feiner and his Board’s incompetence. Elm Street Sports, Inc., of Ardsley, offered twice the money for the land, plus total remediation for the property. Mr Feiner said, “No! Theirs was not a serious offer.” One of the owners said at a Town Board meeting he was always serious when discussing money.

Now that GameOn 365 has come back with a reworked proposal, albeit a moderately changed one, they’ve decided instead of an 83-foot tall Sports Bubble to build a warehouse-sized building on the east border of Golf Driving Range property line, closest to the Frank’s Nursery property. In effect, they too are thumbing their noses at the residents by moving it even closer to the existing residential housing. We know from our various meetings with Town Civic Associations that this is still unacceptable. In fact, we wouldn’t be surprised if Mr Feiner orchestrated this latest scheme to invade the neighborhood.

The Town Board sits impotent, afraid to upset their elective apple carts as Mr Feiner controls their destiny. Ultimately, and unfortunately, we believe that since Mr Feiner wants GameOn 365 to succeed, and he always gets his way, he will help them get their approval. He’s content to remove more of our green space while adding to Greenburgh’s Corporate Park environment. After all, we believe he promised it to GameOn 365. This has to stop. The electorate keeps voting him into office and it’s time for a change. Only then will we see A Better Greenburgh.

Building Failures and Sports Bubbles

As our staff was researching the sports bubble collapses, we stumbled upon additional information regarding fixed structures with their roofs collapsing. One of the commonalities with these buildings and their collapses was that many of them employ a newer style of construction method called truss construction. As we delved into truss construction, the safety information we came upon was overwhelming. Trying to digest it all was a pretty good challenge.

Truss construction has been around for a good number of years. It has been seen by most people in bridge construction and in warehouse roof construction. Here’s a few picture examples of its usage in bridges.

Finally, here’s one we believe you will be most familiar with:

That’s right, its the Tappan Zee Bridge in the Hudson River. 

When truss construction is in the design phase of a project, its usually being considered for several reasons. Those reasons might be time-savings to construct the frame, lower costs than traditional methods and stronger ability of lesser materials. By this we mean if a traditional roof were to be constructed of 2x6’s or 2x8’s, a truss roof, which is considered an engineered roof, can be made from 2x4’s and rated to hold the same weight (and possibly more) due to its geometric triangular shape, which is inherently stable under ideal conditions. Others reasons to use truss construction is quality control. Like a manufactured home that is built in a warehouse (usually with a truss roof) the conditions are controlled and more precise. When you build outside in the elements, with what is called “stick” construction, many factors affecting the construction’s outcome can come in to play, such as weather, materials, labor, etc.

Since we are looking at all of the sports bubble collapses, however, we’d like to focus on roof structures, what they offer and their detriments. A roof must be rated to sustain a certain amount of weight and pressure, referred to as Loads. There are dead loads, live loads, impact loads, static and repeated loads, wind loads, concentrated loads, axial loads, eccentric loads and torsional loads. Even with conventional stick construction methods, we’ve seen an increase beyond using standard-sized wood from trees of many sizes and types. We’ve also evolved from very early building methods to newer and more engineered methods. So while many aspects of construction have remained the same, much as evolved and changed. But is it necessarily better or something we should allow or use?

Greenburgh used to have two bowling alleys. One was the Skytop Lanes on Knollwood Road and the other was the Elmsford Lanes on Saw Mill River Road. Both suffered from roof collapses many years ago from excessive weight from snow. Skytop was eventually torn down and replaced with an office building. Elmsford Lanes was repaired and eventually morphed into Sportime, which continues to operate today. Large expanses of indoor property have always posed a construction challenge, whether it be a gymnasium, bowling alley or warehouse. Go into Sam’s Club on Rt 9A and look up. What you will see is truss construction.

Truss construction has benefits and detriments. One of the benefits is a financially cheaper way to construct a commercial building as well as a residential one. The loss of attic space in a home is detrimental to some homeowners but of no concern to others. The open air feel for a warehouse is obvious. The open air feel in a home, while faster and cheaper with truss construction can be achieved with “stick” construction as well, albeit usually at an increased cost. One problem that exists with truss construction is that the 2x4's are joined together with metal plates with quarter inch deep "teeth" that are pressed in the wood to join the pieces together. The stability of these plates can vary from installation to installation. Another issue with truss construction is firefighting.

It is well known in the fire service that truss constructed roofs collapse mush sooner than traditionally constructed roofs. One reason is the failure of the aforementioned metal joiner plates. Another is the fact that each piece in the truss is dependent on the others for its strength and stability. Loss one piece of a truss affects the overall integrity of the entire structure. The numerous firefighter line-of-duty-deaths (LODD) due to truss construction has caused the fire service to research and change the way the fire service fights fires when truss construction is used. They will cautiously enter a building, if at all, because truss construction failures happen so quickly, giving firefighters little time to exit to safety. Traditionally constructed buildings often give warnings when structural failure is imminent.

Truss constructed buildings give little or any signals of impending failure when involved in fire. Their failure is swift, usually without warning and does not allow firefighters much time to exit. Installed fire sprinklers will help control the fire scene usually by controlling the spread of fire, even extinguishing it. At a truss construction fire, firefighters will often be forced to execute what’s know as a “surround and drown” operation, where they do not enter the building and pour water into the fire scene. You’ve probably seen this type of operation on large building fires on the news. Obviously, if there are lives at stake firefighters will attempt a rescue, however, not if truss construction poses too much of a risk to firefighter lives.

The reason we have touched on truss construction is with all of our engineering marvels on the one hand, there are engineering failures on the other. The sports bubble collapses throughout the sports bubble industry are happening frighteningly too often, too uncontrollably and are proving too risky given the lack of safety standards that do not exist with this industry. Just because someone is able to create an inflatable tent the size of the one proposed by GameOn 365, doesn’t mean the Town or its residents must approve it. If buildings with fix roofs collapse under the weight of snow and because of other weather events, we don’t need to see what will happen with a “temporary” structure. Its only when the Town’s leaders cease to entertain pipe dreams like this sports bubble in a residential neighborhood that will we get A Better Greenburgh.

Greenburgh To Pay for Initial Remediation at 715 Dobbs Ferry Road

An admission was made in an email (shown below) to the Worthington-Woodlands Civic Association President, indicating the Town of Greenburgh will probably pay for the remediation of the oil spill at the former Frank’s Nursery site at 715 Dobbs Ferry Road. The contaminated property has languished  since before the Town acquired the property years ago. ABG has maintained throughout this boondoggle that ultimately it will be the Unincorporated portion of the Town, The Paul’s “whipping boy”, that will foot the bill for cleaning up this property. This letter from the New York State DEC’s Todd Ghiosay confirms what ABG has said all along.

Todd Ghiosay
NYSDEC
Division of Environmental Remediation
Spill Prevention and Response
100 Hillside Avenue - Suite 1W
White Plains, NY  10603-2860
Phone (914) 428-2505 ext. 361
Fax (914) 428-0323>>> 4/19/2013 4:15 PM >>>

Dear Todd,

Thank you for meeting with us on Wednesday, April 17th.

Do you have any information for us regarding the property we discussed?

Sincerely,

Dorrine Livson

REPLY:

Mrs Livson

Victor Carosi returned my call and informed me that his consultant did have an informal meeting with someone at DEC but he did have a name.  He also said that the town is evaluating whether the property will be sold "as is", leaving it up to the buyer to do the remediation or whether the Town should do the cleanup.

Victor did say the he believes that the town will be handling the oil spill cleanup to clear the spill number. 

The last line of his letter is the real indicator of the Town’s intent. ABG is not sure whose decision it was for the Town to pay for the cleanup but doubt it was Mr. Carosi’s. ABG wants to know when this decision made? There’ve been no open discussions about this at any public meetings that ABG is aware of. Was it made during another one of the now-routine Executive Sessions the Board has become so desperate of utilizing? The Paul and his Stepfords have no difficulty shoving their hands down our pants to get at our hard-earned money every time they get more proverbial egg hurled onto their faces due to an impending financial penalty, fine or judgement headed their way. Hold onto your wallets.

If you’ve watched any Town Board meetings within the last six months, you’ve noticed anytime a difficult question is asked or an embarrassing judgement/decision by the Board may be exposed, the secret signal (think The Sting) is given. The designated Board member makes the motion to adjourn to Executive Session, the others stumble over themselves to offer a second to the motion and keep the public from knowing what The Paul (Mr. Open Government) and his Stepford Board will soon discuss behind closed doors.

There are several issues at play here for the Town residents (and several Attorney Generals) that our loyal followers already know. First, The Paul entered into secret negotiations with GameOn 365’s principals long before the Town acquired this property through foreclosure. Can you say collusion? Second, after the Town had acquired the property, a discussion ensued about how the library construction would impede the public’s use of the library facility and the former Frank’s Nursery was proposed as a temporary library site. That suggestion quickly screeched to a halt once it was learned that carcinogens, a fuel oil leak, and the earlier use of the property was uncovered as a dump for White Plains’ Urban Renewal waste. Ironically, the overhead high tensions wires bordering the property seemed to be of little concern.

Third, collusion with GameOn 365 began the illegal scenario but was by no means the only misplay by The Paul and his Stepfords. Once GameOn 365 finalized their Sports Bubble plan, they needed investors to pull this pyramid-like scheme off as their organization is made up of a bunch of stock brokers without the funds to proceed. GameOn 365 needed the lease to promote the offering to potential investors. They winked and explained to The Paul of their plan to erect a gigantic, 8-story (83ft tall) inflatable bubble on the site, make a few outdoor fields and pay the Town $5M. They had him hooked once The Paul heard he could make $5M dollars. The Paul had lost so much money with his screw up of the WestHelp deal, Fortress Bible guilty verdict (and others) that he began salivating like a vampire at a blood bank. GameOn 365 went in front of the Town Board as a formality and officially pitched the plan. The Paul told them to love it, so they did! Shrewdly, The Paul offered to lease the property to them for 15 years for a total of $5M. That breaks down to about $300k per year – an amount The Paul was unwilling to accept for the WestHelp property that the Town doesn’t even own.

The Paul has been pushing sports bubbles in the Town for years but could not proceed because of a restriction through the Finneran law. What to do? Wait a minute... The Paul asked his buddies Tom “Proclamation” Abinanti, now a NYS Assemblyman and NYS Senator Andrea “Platitudes” Stewart-Cousins to railroad an amendment to the Finneran Law allowing bubbles through their respective chambers during the “it’s getting late and we have to hit the road” final minutes of their respective legislatures. Done (deal)! The Paul could proceed with his promises to illegally offer the lease.

The Paul even had one of our Recreation Commissioners (there are two – just like our magic tax-cap number), Gerry Bryne, speak to Greenburgh’s need for more sports fields. Rather than remediate the property and develop it as a sports field if we truly need more sports fields, The Paul sought this illegal lease. Then The Paul decided to add insult to injury and hold a referendum for the illegal lease deal, trying to validate his illegal deal. Knowing the public is clueless, he knew if he worded the referendum “properly”, adding in yard signs and newspaper ads, voters would read it for the first time at the voting “booth” and it would pass – which it did. But illegal is still illegal even though he successfully duped the majority of voters into approving it.

ABG readers also know that anytime someone disagrees with what The Paul is doing, his classic response, “If you don’t like what I’m doing, you can sue me.” So they did – again. Another sports-oriented company with a different clientele and business model, House of Sports of Ardsley, NY, initiated a lawsuit along with several others, to block the illegal lease. The premise for their lawsuit was that NY State and Westchester County law mandates any property acquired by a municipality must be sold or utilized by that municipality. GameOn 365 littered the landscape with yard signs claiming this deal would bring $5M to the Town. How could this be bad for the Town?

The saga continues, but is now on hold as The Paul claims the Town is doing its “due diligence” regarding the two offerings. Read: stalling. The Town Board members have been instructed to say the same thing, so they do. As they parrot what The Paul tells them to say, the property sits unremediated and unused. The site is about the size and scope of the WestHelp property that The Paul insisted should be used for the Ferncliff School for the Developmentally Disabled. And mysteriously, he has never suggested using 715 Dobbs Ferry Road for the Ferncliff School. Why not? ABG continues to insist the Town do the right thing and ask for a Request For Proposals (RFP) for the site and see what else we might get?

ABG has previously predicted the Town’s decision will be to sell the property to GameOn 365 – even though House of Sports has offered double the amount of what GameOn 365 has for the site and promised to pay for the remediation. The Paul and the Stepfords will site all kinds of excuses but they will be irrelevant. GameOn 365 can’t “up the ante” because they have no “ante”. House of Sports has cash in hand. ABG continues to predict the Town will wind up paying for remediation of the property either directly or through credits of some sort once GameOn 365 gets the property. ABG doesn’t really care what is built on the property but acknowledges it is zoned for residential housing and should remain that way. We can only hope.

Media Complicity or Just a Lie?

Similar to the never-ending “games” The Paul likes to play for his own skewed reasons, GameOn 365 decided to take a page out of his play-book and issue a misleading press release that was printed by a weekly newspaper. It was a small, under-the-radar press release that went unnoticed by many but was caught by our vigilant Christina, an ABG researcher who was startled to read the incredulous title, “Greenburgh Sports Bubble Is a Go”. This small and misleading press release was from Martin Hewitt of GameOn 365, which stated the Greenburgh Sports Bubble project is back “on”. The reason it’s back on? He states the reason is because the lawsuit by Elms Street Sports, owners of the House of Sports facility in Ardsley, and other petitioners has been dropped due to the unmentioned counter-suit GameOn 365 launched. This “article” seems more like an example of the media being complicit with The Paul and another of his pet projects.

He continues his claim that the lawsuit was dropped due to GameOn 365’s motion receiving sanctions and a dismissal of the suit. This is simply a lie. ABG has detailed quite extensively how and why we believe Hewitt has distorted the truth in the past while maintaining an arrogance when speaking with or to residents. But for him to say he, GameOn 365, or their attorneys caused the lawsuit to be dismissed is altogether not accurate! The lawsuit was maintained by the petitioners even after The Paul announced he was withdrawing the lease “deal” (he had concocted) with Hewitt long before the Town ever acquired the foreclosed upon Frank’s Nursery property. Once his Stepford Board officially voted upon the withdrawal, the petitioner’s dropped their lawsuit. The issue with the lawsuit was that the Town and The Paul were in violation of County and State laws that said a municipality that acquires property through foreclosure may sell it in a public or private sale.

 GameOn 365’s motion claimed that Elm Street Sports had several contradictory statements in it and that Simon of HelpBurstTheBubble.com, had a financial arrangement with Elm Street Sports and it’s owners. While these points may or may not be true, the fact of the matter was that the Elm Street Sports lawsuit was dropped after the Town decided to drop the lease proposal with GameOn 365 – the only reason the suit was initiated in the first place! In reading the GameOn 365 petition, it sounded like the best response they could muster was the old playground ditty, “Nah, nah, na-nah nah!”

Hewitt was quoted as saying, “We are glad that the frivolous litigation is now behind us, and we look forward to making our indoor sports facility a reality for everyone to enjoy.” We wonder why the article’s author never asked even a few pertinent questions? Those might be: 1) Many have stated that GameOn 365 is a “paper” company with no financial resources, is that true? 2) Are you ready to purchase the property right now? 3) Elm Street Sports has an operational facility in Ardsley with financial resources and claims to be prepared to purchase immediately, how does this affect your decision to continue? 4) Claims have been made that you need investors to proceed, have you been able to gain any investors to date? 5) The remediation costs made by Town Attorney Tim “Remediation” Lewis were capped at $100k but persist going higher. The escalating remediation costs and a lack of investors from GameOn 365 point to an inability for you to proceed. Is this is not the case, would you explain why not?

The list of questions could continue on, but ABG believes it is pointless. All indicators have pointed to a cold reality for the GameOn 365 organization. They cannot get investors, funding or enough money to proceed. The Paul and the Town Board have dragged their feet with every aspect of this parcel of land with every excuse they could muster. At one Town Board meeting, Francis “Back Pocket” Sheehan stated he wasn’t looking for the highest bidder for the property. Why not? The fiduciary responsibility of the Town representatives to the taxpayer is to pay the back taxes on this parcel and sell it for as much money as the market can bear. That amount seems to be lost on this Board. We have previously predicted the Board will give this deal to GameOn 365 after all the excuses against doing so are dismissed. Elms Street Sports has offered the Town double the amount of money and full remediation cost coverage to what GameOn 365 has offered. How can they justify taking $1.6M over $3.5M for the property? This would be a no-brainer for any Town Board, except ours.

If the Town cannot see the forest for the trees or cannot figure out which way to go, we agree with the solution many have offered numerous times. Put the property up for a Request For Proposals (RFP) and see not only what offers comes in, but how much others, beyond GameOn 365 and House of Sports might be willing to pay. Those offers may bring something else to the table that everyone wants. We can only hope.

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:

Calling In The Troops

As usual, the evenings Town Board meeting started out with about an hours and a half’s worth of wasted time. Patience exhausted, even Mother Theresa might have snapped. The first presentation was from a small group of students from the Xposure program of the Theodore Young Community Center. Their’s killed a half an hour. The Convicted criminal Alan Hochberg and his Citizen’s Committee  members each got up and hammered The Paul’s financial failures, with Hochberg returning to the microphone after each speaker to give a synopsis about that person. The mutual admiration society would have been proud.

Speaker after speaker got up and found fault with the financial operations of The Paul and the Town. As has been said, The Paul lacks the “shame gene” and while he should have been embarrassed that “his” committee ripped his policies apart, he just thanked them. After an hour of this, the Board might not have been ready to move on but the audience certainly was ready to get down to the real business at hand. There were two hearings: one for a Town-wide zoning change to allow Independent or Assisted Living Facilities and while removed from the agenda at the last minute, the GameOn 365 referendum/proposal/“done-deal” brokered behind closed doors by The Paul and his Stepford Board.

Several issues with the Brightview Senior Living Center start with a play on words as to what type of facility they plan to be. Then will they have kitchettes, or a communal dining room; will they accept Medicaid or not? If they do not accept Medicaid patients, will it really be low cost, and will poorer people will effectively be barred from this particular facility? Any future facility built under this zoning code will also be able to block Medicaid recipients, ultimately making these facilities only for the wealthy or those with assets that can be used to purchase entry.

Another issue is the size of not only the Brightview facility in particular but the future commercial structures to be allowed in any tiny residential neighborhood through this zoning change. Since the Town’s Legal and Building departments are incapable of writing a law, and The Paul will not utilize the expertise on his appointed Zoning Board, the Town always counts on the developer’s attorneys to craft and propose the law. The repeatedly experienced problem with this is that the law serves the developer better than it winds up serving the Town. Our Town Board, reliant on Francis “Back Pocket” Sheehan’s pseudo-legal abilities, usually produces sloppy, incomplete and inadequate Town laws. Whenever Sheehan writes proposed legislation for the Town, the G10 typically points out it’s flaws and then in their act of defiance, the Board passes it anyway.

Resident after resident got up to speak against the zoning proposal change mostly for three reasons: 1) it allowed structures to be four stories in the middle of residential neighborhoods throughout the Town; 2) it had setback allowances that would effectively let a parking lot be created to within feet of a private home; and 3) it utilizes state and county roads as a necessary access/egress to the facility. Two Edgemont residents suggested utilizing just a state road instead. Another consensus was that most people favored having assisted living facilities but were against such a liberal granting of neighborhoods to the developers, especially in residential neighborhoods. As Greenburgh becomes more and more congested with structures throughout the Town, we need tighter controls as to how we parcel our land away. We also feel that any structures created should incorporate flood, traffic and infrastructure alleviation since our current administration seems incapable and unwilling to do so.

The other hearing, pulled from the agenda at the last minute, was to be for the GameOn 365’s 83-ft tall sports bubble proposal for 715 Dobbs Ferry Road. Scan back through the ABG site and you can read in detail all the issues with this “done-deal”. Simply, a group of uninvested investors struck an apparent back room deal with The Paul to lease the property before it was acquired by the Town through foreclosure. Several plaintiffs sought a legal solution to this questionable and costly-to-the-Town deal, so The Paul turned around and decided to put the lease on the referendum. Both the proponents and opponents each posted a video on the Town website explaining their positions. The  supporters posted a slick 10-minute commercial. The opponents posted their positions and highlighted why this deal should not be done. The referendum, which was penned to favor approval by stretching the truth, passed. The Paul would go on to say that the people spoke. Actually, about 1% of the Town’s registered voters voted in the election and about two-thirds of them voted in favor of the proposal.

The room was literally split in two: GameOn 365’s supporters on one side and the Woodlands-Worthington neighborhood, the G10 and others sat on the opposite side. Even though the hearing had been removed from the agenda, both sides spoke passionately as to why they were for or against the proposal. The Paul continues to claim this is about one established company trying to stymie competition. The Paul has repeatedly pushed the GameOn 365 proposal after brokering what has been called a back-room, sweetheart, done, under-handed and under the table deal. It will require a zoning change after the property reverted back to residential six months after the foreclosure. The Paul will propose the change without reservation and mandate his Stepford Board to vote it through. They will comply without hesitation.

All the points as to why the proposal should not be allowed were not only impassioned, but logical. The GameOn 365 supporters were struggling to make their case. After all, we have the desire to build a superstructure to play kids games versus homeowners whom have invested in the homes, the neighborhood and the Town trying to save their largest investments. Game on stands to make a proposed $55M through the course of the fifteen-year rent-controled project. But wait, there’s more!

Once The Paul finally realized he would lose the lawsuit on all counts listed in it, he decided to change the deal to a sale, circumventing the court case. But the public voted in a referendum to support a lease, not a sale. No matter, The Paul could legally do this based on the legal requirements for foreclosed property. But wait, there’s more! Since The Paul decided to make this a sale, the House of Sports, located in Ardsley, the supposed “competitor” for GameOn 365, publicly announced they were offering $3.5M for the property! This is twice the money the Town would make from the GameOn 365 proposal! But wait, there’s more. House of Sports also said they would pay for the remediation of the property.

The Paul, never one to accept defeat quietly, did what he always does, he tried to level the playing field (no pun intended) and insist that House of Sports’ offer was not sincere. One of the House of Sports owners got up and said, “I am always serious about business.” Then another House of Sports owner got up and she questioned why the conditions The Paul was saddling on them was not done to GameOn 365? Everybody knows why, but the Board members won’t admit it’s because the House of Sports proposal was not the deal The Paul wanted. Fortunately for the House of Sports, they can meet with all the conditions The Paul throws in their path. During the night, The Paul could feel his grip slipping away. He began texting furiously to have supporters come to the meeting and speak for the proposal. They did. In fact, Town Clerk Beville pushed them to the top of the pile, forcing those who signed up earlier to speak to wait further into the night. That was wrong. Several residents protested. No matter for The Paul, the damage was done.

In the end, the neighborhood and the residents are the ones who will suffer. They will suffer with a bubble the is over eight stories tall. It will increase traffic congestion which will be compounded by additional traffic congestion from the Fortress Bible Church and School once it finally gets built nearby. The glaring issues of The Paul picking and choosing projects he favors, laws being broken, spot-zoning being done all pale to the bad shape the Town is spiraling into. It’s time for a change. We can only hope.

Admitting Guilt, Town Offers To Sell Property

In a stunning development just uncovered by ABG, The Paul has attempted to circumvent another guilty verdict by having the Town offer to sell the 715 Dobbs Ferry Road property, formerly the home of Frank’s Nursery, to the GameOn 365 Sports Bubble developer! In learning of The Paul’s reasoning, it cuts to multiple points made regarding the lawsuit currently underway by www.HelpBurstTheBubble.com, the Worthington-Woodlands Civic Association and numerous others that maintain The Paul and his Town Board have illegally signed a lease for the property to GameOn 365. During the last election, The Paul foisted an illegal referendum, judiciously worded, as he colluded to assist the GameOn 365 organization toward getting voter approval for their project.

The Paul has maintained the project has received overwhelming support from the Town’s voters. Technically, it did not. Out of the 9k or so people that voted in the election, a disproportionately small percentage of the Town’s population, the majority did vote in favor of the referendum, claiming the public recognizes the need for and benefits of an indoor/outdoor sports facility. Perhaps. By why hadn’t our sports professionals that run and maintain the TWO Town Recreation Departments recognize this need and act on it? Could it be because someone was offering a buck for an abandoned piece of property that no one wanted to touch because of it’s contamination, until The Paul promised another back room sweetheart deal?

The Paul maintains that by selling the property the Town will avoid unnecessary expense and time by not going to court. He’s right - of course that’s never mattered to him before - so why should it matter now? He maintains that there could be years of litigation. He’s right! The Town would have to continue paying taxes on the property. He’s right again. And the property, suffering from major contamination after being used as an Urban Renewal dump site for White Plains, would still need to be remediated. His real motivation for doing this is that by selling the property instead of leasing it, he negates another lawsuit and moves forward with a project only he sees a need for.

By eliminating the lease, the paradigm shifts dramatically. New Request For Proposals (RFP) might need to take place for a sale to happen. New environmental studies may also be needed. Until the sale is committed to by the Town, the lease is still active and cannot considered “over”, as The Paul would have us think. The issue of zoning also factors heavily into this piece of land. It is currently zoned for single-family residential use and would need to be zoned for commercial usage. It had previously been zoned commercial for Frank’s Nursery but reverted back to residential once the property lay vacant for six months.

ABG would recommend the lawsuit against the Town continue. The only purpose of this ploy by The Paul is to accomplish one thing: get GameOn 365 the deal he promised them! While the entire Town voted on the illegal referendum approving the GameOn 365 deal, The Paul knows the lawsuit will again prove his actions and methods were illegal and wrong. It also hurts one neighborhood that is not being allowed the right to control their destiny as The Paul put it in everyone else’s hands to decide if this neighborhood should get a bubble or not. This too is just wrong! By turning the game on (no pun) it’s heel and going a new direction, The Paul thwarts the will of a neighborhood to stay residential. He and his Board will rezone the property to whatever GameOn 365 asks for - residents be damned! A sale would have been the right thing to do in the very beginning when the Town acquired the property, with real bids after a real assessment. Now it seems a bit moot. Perhaps we should simply develop this property as another Town park and be done with all. We can only hope.

Opening Acts

Town Board meetings are cyclical. When the Town Clerk fails to book an opening act, the meetings might start on time. We’re actually unsure what time Town Board meetings start since they rarely begin at the appointed time. This was the case Wednesday evening as the audience sat through the requisite video shows (there were three) and The Paul’s ramblings like a drunk uncle at a wedding everyone tries to avoid. The audience started out with a few more than the regular attendees but eventually whittled itself down mostly to the G10.

FEMA was the opening act for the meeting with several FEMA representatives going to the podium to state what they can do for homeowners and business residents that have been affected by Hurricane Sandy. While The Paul asked a few questions and Francis “Back Pocket” Sheehan chimed in, the result of the twenty or so minutes was if you don’t apply for assistance, you won’t get help. Having witnessed many nearby residents who were flooded in Hurricane Irene be turned down by FEMA for assistance, we aren’t expecting newly affected residents to fare any better.

After the Veteran’s video and the Boy Scouts’ video, the meeting haphazardly got under way. There was a representative from the Friends of the Greenburgh Library who spoke during the first 3-minute public session. She commented on the use of the library during the storm and then pleaded for the Town Board to not cut their funding in this year’s budget. The Paul commented about the 2% Tax Cap from the state, so we still don’t know if the library is able to purchase any new books this year. Interestingly, every time the issue of money comes up and it’s not one of the pet projects of The Paul, we’re limited by the 2% Tax Cap. Otherwise, the Town is spending like there’s no tomorrow – which may be closer than we know.

A representative from the Worthington Woodlands Civic Association got up and asked if the timer could not be started as she wanted to compliment the library for their participation in Hurricane Sandy before she began what she came to discuss. Francis “Back Pocket” Sheehan said, “No, you get three minutes like everyone else.” There’s that fostering of community spirit if we desperately long for, shot down again. At one point The Paul began to converse with a resident during their public comment session. During resident Ed Krauss’ 5-minute public speaking session, he stated that maybe this dialog with a resident was an epiphany. But once a dialog started, Francis “Back Pocket” Sheehan stated, “We’ve already violated our policy of not commenting during the public sessions,” and stopped it before it materialized into something productive. Finally getting some feedback from the silent Board was refreshing. “Back Pocket” knows The Paul will get them in trouble if he’s allowed to ramble for too long.

Many speakers got up and commented about numerous topics. Most residents that spoke, however, seemed to focus on either the referendum or the GameOn 365 sports bubble debacle. After getting pummeled by so many, The Paul exploded and gave his usual dissertation of his skewed view of democracy in action. Many of the points were salient ones that made his comments moot. Uncustomarily, the Board began spouting off many of the same issues and points they had ignored from residents prior to the referendum and The Paul’s signing of the contract with GameOn 365. He seemed frustrated that his supporters abandoned him during this assault. In fact, even most of his commissioners were not in the room, while Tim “Remediation” Lewis kept his head down during most of the meeting unless to tell a speaker their time at the microphone was up. Maybe he was feeling shameful or possibly repentant for lying to residents as to the clean up costs for the 715 Dobbs Ferry Road site. ABG is confident The Paul had mandated Lewis’ behavior with this deal and is now Lewis is reflecting on his time as the Town Attorney and that it too may need “remediation”.

This meeting was perhaps one hour long if you stripped out the opening acts. The Board made themselves the lead agency for a number of projects The Paul wants pushed through for developers. Several gas stations applied to pay the new “fees” (really a penalty tax) for the recently adopted service station law benefitting Cumberland Farms’ “new” gas station on Central Avenue. Many believe this will be crippling to existing service/gas stations in the Town. The low applications prove the Board’s revenue-generating scheme has backfired. For a change, there were no tax certiorari refunds. ABG guesses you could say we broke even this night. Don’t get overconfident just yet – ABG knows it won’t last. It would be nice to think residents were witnessing a new path with Town Board meetings that are conversational, constructive, purposeful and leave us with a feeling of accomplishment. It could have been a great opening act. We can only hope.

Referendum Scheduled AFTER Bubble Contract Passes

Thankfully, the Town’s video system was working last night and it wasn’t necessary to go to Town Hall to witness the GameOn 365 “done deal debacle”(DDD) happen at about 9:45 PM. ABG has maintained that the GameOn 365’s recreational “bubble”, a problem-ridden concept from even before day one, was another of The Paul’s done deals. The ethics law for the Town are being “dumbed down”, eliminating a good amount of consequence for unethical behavior by Town employees. Coincidence?

Once the DDD locomotive got up to full steam, the meeting started a half an hour late, as usual. Recently, residents have been forced to endure all kinds of crazy hours for meetings with Town officials. But the conventional media never seem to question this. Why not? ABG’s guess is because as school children the “reporters” had been instructed not to question their elders and this is just a carry-over from that. It’s so sad. It’s part of the faux-learning system indoctrination our youth is being subjugated to. How nice it would be to have a reporter actually challenge The Paul and his Stepford Board.

Regardless, after sitting down and hastily reading the items on the Agenda for this Special Meeting, The Paul made motions and Kevin “The Henchman” Morgan seconded them. While the vote was “unanimous”, once again Councilman Ken Jones was absent. He was also absent previously and the caused a rescheduling of an important vote on this proposal and once again he bailed. Could it be he did not like this DDD proposal and was trying to escape being cornered into a vote he didn’t want to make? We'd like to think so, but also are sure he’s already in the tank for The Paul. Council members Jeuttner and Sheehan sat by quietly, hardly squeaking out their vote in favor of this debacle. “Yes we’ll vote for it, whatever you say, M’lord. Please don’t treat us like Sonya.”

The Paul also moved to have the resolution go to a public referendum, after voting in favor of the contract! We could barely hear a few residents question him as to why they would not have the referendum first and then vote? He claimed in order to hold a referendum, there must be a contract. Don’t be fooled. Even if the referendum mandates not doing this proposal, he will say we already have a contract and it doesn’t matter! Apparently there are two types of referendums. Organizers against the GameOn 365 bubble have been acquiring signatures to force the Town to put this proposal on a referendum. By moving to do this first, The Paul again takes the power away from the people and continues to pull the strings of this game regardless of the referendum’s outcome.

The date for the next vote is August 29th, to put the GameOn 365 proposal on the ballot for a November referendum. While this is still a done deal, the kids from the traditional media are probably clinging to The Pauls every word and believing the referendum will happen, possibly even pass this, and justice will be served. But the referendum is moot. With or without it, the uninvested investors, having no skin in the game and no investment in the Town, will get their piece of contaminated and undervalued property in the center of the most expensive real estate market in Westchester County. The Town will pay for the property’s contaminated soil cleanup and then they will have a market value piece of land for pennies on the dollar. The Paul? He’s getting something, indirectly of course, that will fall through the cracks as well as the newly edited ethics law. The Paul has to go. We can only hope.