WPCNR MR. & MRS. & MS. WHITE PLAINS VOICE. September 13, 2006: The Executive Director of the White Plains Downtown Business Improvement District writes WPCNR:
John,
I apologize for the delay in writing, but I wanted to wait for the Police Department to implement its new procedures at the Fountain and the City Center and to see how the public reacted to them. Some of your current posting show that people do see a difference.
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I would like to reiterate a few points that I mentioned to you over the phone. First of all, there has not been one documented violent incident at the City Center or Renaissance Plaza involving youth or young adults since they opened 3-years ago that I have been made aware of.
Secondly, the Public Safety Department has been proactively engaged in policing the downtown. I know, because I meet with them on a consistent basis through out the year to discuss “Quality of Life” issues in the downtown. We discuss everything from pedestrian safety, traffic, and the County’s homeless policies to the bar crowd and the writing of cell-phone violations. They work very hard to educate landlords and merchants on what they can do to make their operations safer and to make the downtown as a whole safer.
In fact, I attended a meeting on August 8th, to discuss the very issue of crowd behavior in the Plaza and on Mamaroneck Avenue outside the City Center. I believe this was a few weeks before Ms. Heather L’s letter to you.
It is difficult to comment on someone else’s perception of intimidation or danger. It is such a subjective and personal feeling. From the posts on your site, it is obvious that one person’s intimidating behavior is another person’s horsing around and even yet another person’s expression of constitutionally protected speech.
That being said, it is important to set standards of behavior and ensure everyone’s safety, including the safety of the teens we are discussing. For instance, we don’t want their activities to spill out into the street, which is a heavily trafficked area and would put them at risk. Also, people need to be able to get in and out of the City Center incase of an emergence.
At our meeting, the police informed me that they were planning to step up foot-patrols in the area on Friday and Saturday nights to correspond with the beginning of school and the expected increase in foot-traffic at the movie theater it entails. The same officers would patrol the adjacent Plaza as well. They would also work with the City Center security to increase their presence inside their common areas. These are commonsense steps and have been echoed on your site.
I hope your readers understand that the Police focus their patrols were the statistics show criminal behavior. Since the City Center is extremely safe, the stats did not show a need for increased patrols. Remember, although being a teenager, acting loud, roughhousing and wearing the color red may be intimidating to some people, it is not a crime in the state of New York. I don’t say this to belittle anyone’s feelings, it’s just true.
Finally, I would like to point out that 3 or 4-years ago we wouldn’t be having this debate. Not because teenagers were much better behaved back then, but because no one went downtown at night.
We definitely did not have a place where such a diverse group of people from so many different socio-economic backgrounds would congregate. If I remember correctly, the only visitors who felt safe in the old plaza were the pigeons, and that was only during daylight hours. I know that no one felt anything across the street, because there wasn’t anything there.
From my perspective, having to figure out how to manage the “overcrowding” of Mamaroneck Avenue is a good challenge to have and one the Police are actively engaged in solving.
Sincerely,
Rick Ammirato
Executive Director
