WHITE PLAINS CITIZENETREPORTER SETS RECORD VISITS FOR YEAR 7,017,658 VISITS! 2,098,003 VISITORS MADE 6 VISITS A DAY EVERY DAY. 63,330 UNIQUE VISITORS MADE 133,730 VISITS IN DECEMBER. WPCNR AVERAGED 17,284 VISITORS A WEEK, VISITING 31,270 TIMES.

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WPCNR STAGE DOOR. From Pia Haas, Westchester Broadway Theatre. August 5, 2007: WBT opens it’s revival of  Little Shop of Horrors this Thursday evening for a through September run.  “Little Shop” is a zany, fun filled, Faustian tale about a timid florist shop worker who raises a plant that takes a carnivorous delight feeding on human blood.

 The Man-Eating Plant of Little Shop of Horrors. 

Photo by John Vecchiola, Courtesy, The WBT

Composer Alan Menken and writer Howard Ashman, based the hilariously creepy musical on the low-budget 1960 cult film The Little Shop of Horrors. The movie, directed by Roger Corman, included a 23-year-old Jack Nicholson amongst a cast of unknowns. The catchy musical score, composed by Menken in the style of 1960’s rock -‘n- roll, doo-wop and early Motown, includes  several show-stoppers including “Skid Row,” “Somewhere That’s Green,” and “Suddenly Seymour,” as well as the title song “Little Shop of Horrors”.

 

Seymour Krelborn, a quintessential nerd who mops floors in Mr. Mushnik’s failing skid row flower shop, is broke, shy, and hopelessly in love with Audrey. He begins to nurture a “strange and interesting new plant” which has the magical ability to draw in customers and the attention of the girl of his dreams. Soon, Mushnik’s Flower Shop is a success and Seymour is a local celebrity.

But there’s something very peculiar about the horticultural oddity – it thrives on the kind of plant food that is not always easily available – human blood. Soon the plant, which Seymour has named Audrey II, grows into a giant, ill-tempered, R&B singing carnivore who offers Seymour fame and fortune in exchange for feeding its growing appetite. It finally reveals itself to be an alien creature poised for global domination!

Little Shop of Horrors is directed and choreographed by Ardsley’s Patricia Wilcox.  Ms. Wilcox returns to WBT after directing and choreographing last year’s terrific production of “Aida “.  Eric Santagata portrays the love-sick Seymour who risks all for the girl of his dreams, Audrey, played by Julie Connors.  The voracious plant will be brought to life by two performers. Puppeteer /designer, Bill Diamond will be encased in his foam rubber cocoon of a puppet every night swaying and lip-sinking as it rants, bellows & rocks out with the fabulously ominous voice of Terri White.  

 

Bob Arnold is the miserly florist shop owner, Mr. Mushnik.   Gary Lynch will make us squirm in our seats as Audrey’s sadistic dentist boyfriend. Kimberly Hamby, Talana Deshaies, and Jalynn Steele will be the Ronnettes, a skid row Greek chorus of sorts, and David Patrick Ford, Joel Briel, and Molly Mastrangelo, round out the cast in various roles.

 

      Set Design by George Puello and Steve Loftus, Costumes by Gail Baldoni, Lighting Design by Andrew Gmoser, Sound Design by Jonathan Hatton, Stage Management and Properties by Victor Lukas, Associate Producers are Lisa Tiso and George Puello. Assistant Choreographer is Michelle Weber. Puppets built and operated by Diamond Studios,

 

Little Shop of Horrors had its world premiere on May 6, 1982 at the WPA Theatre before settling into a long run at the Orpheum Theatre, opening July 27, 1982 and playing for 2209 performances   This original production, directed by Ashman, was critically acclaimed and won several awards including the 1982-1983 New York Drama Critics Circle Award,  the Drama Desk Award, the Outer Critics Circle Award, and the London Evening Standard Award all for Best Musical. When it closed, it was the third-longest running musical and the highest-grossing production in off-Broadway history. Seymour Krelborn was played by Lee Wilkoff and  Audrey was played by Ellen Greene

 

In addition to the original off-Broadway production, the musical has been performed all over the world. The musical was also made into a film in 1986, directed by Frank Oz, starring Ellen Greene reprising her role of Audrey and Rick Moranis as Seymour & featuring Steve Martin as the dentist.. The Broadway revival of Little Shop of Horrors, directed by Jerry Zaks, opened in October of 2003 at the Virginia Theatre in New York  with Hunter Foster as Seymour and Kerry Butler as Audrey. Hunter Foster was nominated for a 2004 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical for his performance. The closing Broadway cast included Joey Fatone and Jessica-Snow Wilson.

 

For Box Office information, times of performances call 592-2222.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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WPCNR’S The Sunday Bailey. News & Commentary By John F. Bailey. August 5, 2007: So The New York Times called me this week asking what I thought about the Marine Recruiting Office unpaid parking tickets, being pursued by the White Plains Department of Parking.

I told their reporter I thought the Marines should pay the tickets, but I had not been following the story since it had been played for laughs much to the Marines’ embarrassment – and the Commissioner of Parking himself had told reporters he had offered the Marines a  $50,000 settlement, about half on the dollars owed. It seemed like just another U.S. Government Bureaucracy Bungle.

Sounded fair to me, I told the reporter, but what I did not understand is why the Marine Corps refused to pay the tickets, that was the only mystery. That nagged at me.

So I made phone calls last week and found out, as Paul Harvey says, the other side of the story.  See if you think this is what really happened:

We  may have yet another embarrassment to the Delfino Administration which loves to squeeze dollars out of citizenry.

Talking to Marine Gunnery Sergeant Matthew Butler last week, I found out why the Marines don’t feel they should have to pay the tickets.

The city  allegedly was systematically shaking down the Marines at the Chester-Maple Parking Garage every month when checks from the Army Corps of Engineers paying for parking permits for the Marines’ cars were not credited in a timely manner by the City of White Plains due to the financial process.

It appears to be a cute little scam worthy of organized crime.  

According to Sergeant Butler, the Marine Recruiters would show up at the Chester and Maple office the first of the month to pick up the Parking Permits, and were told they had not been paid for yet, so they would not issue the Marines the permits to display, taking away the Marines armor against the White Plains Parking Bandits — the dreaded Citationaires. 

Since the recruiters had no other  place to park, they parked anyway at Chester & Maple – and each day it took for the check to clear – the White Plains Parking Enforcers wrote them tickets for parking we believe at metered space without a Parking Permit. A parking official says the Marines have to pay like everybody else.  Granted.

But if you know the cars always park there and usually have permits, why would you write the tickets just because you can?

White Plains, according to the Marines, was giving them tickets for space they paid for because the city could — technically.  The effect would be the same as if Mr. and Mrs. or Ms. White Plains paid for a parking space, got a quarter stuck in the slot and the time did not register (Parking Enforcement Officer comes along sees violated meter, writes ticket).

Trouble is they did Pay.

The Marines claim the city did not record the payments in a timely manner. The Marines assure me the Army Corps of Engineers issued the checks on time every month.

The Parking Enforcement Officers should have known the Marine vehicles were regularly parked at that garage every day. Come on! How cheap a money making scheme is that? No enforcer should have ticketed Marine cars which have been parking at Chester & Maple for years – regulars.

Isn’t that clever? You don’t process the checks on the books in time, and ticket the Marines probably $15-$25 a pop. This has gone on for years, according to Butler and previously it had been worked out (or perhaps forgotten). But Butler said the city never told them about it until last December.

The Marines told WPCNR that more than half the $94,000 owed stems from the tickets and late fees Marines received when the city would not credit the Army Corps of Engineers payments at one location – Chester & Maple Municipal Garage.

The Marine Recruiting Office ignored the tickets, Butler said because the recruiters felt it would be taken care of when the payments came in. But, even if this was a mistake on the Marines part, trusting the city (something no one should ever do in this town), why didn’t the city address the situation? The city claims they did and have been ignored. Sergeant Butler’s statement issued Friday shows why.

Like pick up the phone when they noticed this like a few years ago, instead of running up the tickets because the city could?

Could it be the city needed the money from the tickets which had been apparently previously just forgiven (but we are just speculating here that they were forgiven or ignored by the administration).

Sounds like a scam on the Marines to me, doesn’t it? Whose brilliant idea was this any way to suddenly go after the Marines on these tickets during the budget crush year of 2006-2007? What a coincidence the city needed money in 2006-2007?

On the other unpaid tickets – the Marines say they cannot trace who was driving the cars at the time. On other hand – the city is really at fault there for not going after the tickets at the time, in my opinion – when they were issued. Someone should have run the registrations on government vehicles and told the Marines about it.

The Marines are at fault on those and just because they cannot find the drivers is no reason they should not be paid. The Chester Maple tickets are an entirely different matter if what the Marines say is the truth.

The Marine Corps assures me the Army Corps of Engineers paid the checks for the Parking Permits by the first of the month because they have a lease on the space with the city. The city denies having a lease.

So the city, instead of turning over the permits waited until the check cleared. You have to hand it to the city.  

They really stick to the rules where money is concerned, especially when they see an opportunity to make more money on the innocent — to make more money on meters where the time has been paid for.

I think a phone call to the Marines before the moneys got up to $94,000 might have been helpful, don’t you? Like maybe before it got up to $5,000, maybe?  Does anybody think in government?

White Plains may be the only city in America trying to shake down the Marine Corps.

The Mayor, who proudly wears his World War II American Legion cap in every Memorial Day and Veterans Day Parade, should not have allowed this to happen and get this far. He has been in office since 1997. Now in 2006-2007 his administration paints the Marines as scofflaws? And everybody believes that? And everybody thinks it’s funny?

The Mayor will be at the funeral of the first Marine from White Plains to die in Baghdad. He is a great patriot. A patriotic thing to do would be to intervene here and call off the parking pit bulls and reach an accommodation on this obvious overzealous enforcement maneuver.

It’s an embarrassment. A disgrace. The city should write off the losses – the Marines paid for the  garage space – all of it, they had an agreement and the tickets on the Chester Maple Garage were issued as a money-making dirty trick by the city.  The Marine story is they paid, and the city record-keeping created a situation that allowed them to ticket the Marine vehicles that had paid for the space. Really bad communication on the city’s part.

I have asked to get a copy of the agreement the Army Corps of Engineers has with the city. If there is no agreement, then the city may be technically correct on ticketing before the payment is in. If there is an agreement, then the city was treating the Marines disingenuously.  Even if the city is technically correct, by withholding the permits, it was not a nice thing to do, was it?

And speaking of shaking a person down on a technicality –

The Board of Elections and the Democratic City Committee were about to throw out Candyce Corcoran’s hard earned petitions – all of them—this week because the Board of Elections did not know how to tell candidates to fill out their own petitions.  The candidate asked the Board of Elections if she had to fill out a certain section. A Board clerk said no. She didn’t.

When she filed her petitions the geniuses who run the White Plains Democratic Party said “Ah Ha! Snerdley, we’ve got her now!” and filed an objection to deny all her 67 pages of petitions because she did not list city and county in the Witness Identification Information Section.

Trouble is the geniuses at the Democratic City Committee Headquarters – better known as the White Plains Politburo or is it Poliburro – weren’t even aware of the Nassau County decision in 2003 that ruled you could not throw out petitions if the address and city of the signature taker was already on the ballot.

Ms. Corcoran informed the Board of Elections who apparently did not know this decision either.

So let’s save some money folks and get rid of the Board of Elections.

This Sunday the Democratic Party “leadership” which issued this challenge has banana cream pies on their faces. Not only did they think it was all right to deny an office-seekers’ petitions on a technicality, but they thought they could. And felt no qualms about doing it.

It has been an embarrassing week for the Parking Bandits and the Democrats with No Clothes.

This is leadership?

What is so puzzling is the sanctimonious way the city told all who would listen that the Marines were scofflaws and the city was just seeking their money from the Marines, without explaining that most of the tickets were from the parking garage lease/agreement payment misunderstanding .  

And the self-righteous manner the Democratic Leadership felt it is perfectly all right to keep people off the ballot when their candidates were threatened.

Where are the editorial boards of the nation on this outrageous behavior?

Always keep your hand on your wallet in White Plains, the light fingers of the city may be about to lift it.

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WPCNR BUMPER-TO-BUMPER. August 4, 2007 UPDATED WITH NEW VIEWS August 5, 2007, 8 PM EDT: A spokesman for the New York State Thruway Authority told WPCNR Saturday that the Thruway Authority has identified 20 sections of the Tappan Zee Bridge which are “truss” structures similar in design to the span of the I-35 Bridge in Minneapolis which collapsed Wednesday. Ramesh Mehta of the Authority said there are 198 spans incorporated into the Tappan Zee Bridge and twenty are truss spans located on either side of the bridge high point.

 

 

Truss Sections on Eastern approach to Tappan zee Bridge will be inpected.

Thirteen Truss Spans supporting the highest elevated roadway of the bridge approaching the Bridge superstructure  on the east side of the bridge will be inspected beginning August 13. Photos by Janet Bailey

 

7 Truss Sections on Western Approach to the Superstructure (to the right in this photograph) will be inspected

Up on top of the Truss Spans located on the western causeway leading to the superstructure of the bridge. (View is Eastbound)

Closeup of theTruss Structures on the Western side of the Tappan Zee bridge.

In the wake of Governor Eliot Spitzer’s orders to the Department of Transportation, the Thruway Authority and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to inspect 49 bridges across the state employing such truss spans, Ramesh Mehta of the Authority said there are 7 truss spans on the Western causeway section of the Tappan Zee Bridge and 13 truss spans on the East Side  of the bridge leading to the superstructure. 

 

These truss sections will be inspected beginning August 13. The highest elevated section of the bridge with overhead girders, shown above, has no truss spans and will not be inspected.  The regular two year inspection of the bridge was completed eight months ago. (View is Westbound)

Thursday Mehta said Thursday there were no immediate plans to inspect the bridge as result of the Minneapolis accident because it had just completed an inspection,  unless structures similar to the Minneapolis bridge were found to be a part of the Westchester Rockland structure.

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WPCNR THE PARKING NEWS. By John F. Bailey. August 3, 2007: The Public Affairs Chief for the First Marine Corps District told WPCNR Thursday that $75,000 of the $95,000 in money the Marines owe the City of White Plains are a result of the fines and late fees, and that more than half of all 1,891 tickets written on Marine vehicles were given in one location: the Maple-Chester Municipal Garage — on Marine Vehicles where Parking Permits were withheld — resulting in majority of Parking Citations.

 

Marine Corps Recruiting Headquarters, Post Road, White Plains with distinctive gray Marine Official Recruiter Car with trademark globe and anchor Marine insignia on the rear door. The vehicles park right around the corner in the Chester-Maple Municipal Garage below, a location, the Marine spokespersons says where over 50% of the 1,891 Marine tickets were issued, according to Marine analysis of the tickets. The city said this could be true but did not have a breakdown of citation by location available.

 

Chester & Maple Municipal Garage where the Marines lease space for their rolling stock and have parked for years.

The Maple-Chester garage was where the Marines had parking permits to park official and personal cars. Marine cars were ticketed in the Chester Maple Avenue location because Parking Permits were withheld when arranged Army Corps of Engineer payments for the spaces which the spokesman said arrived on time, were not processed by the city in a timely manner for reasons unknown, the spokesman said today.

Gunnery Sergeant Matthew Butler reports 75% of the amount the City of White Plains says the Marines owe the city  could be attributed to late fees, over 50% of those late fees came from the tickets issued at the Chester-Maple garage for parking without a permit.

Butler said the lack of permits resulted from the city not recording Army Corps of Engineers checks for payment, payment methods not being recorded  or cleared in a timely maner on what he described as leased parking space by the Marines in the garage.

 Butler said Marine analysis of the tickets showed that Marine vehicles not having parking permits in time the first part of the month appeared to be routinely ticketed by the city, for months on the first of the month, racking up the parking tickets back to 2001.

Butler said today the Marines who showed up to receive their permits would be told the permits had not been paid for. Butler said the payments arrived on time from the Army Corps of Engineers but the city for some reason did not record them or recognize them as being in.

“As I understand it it has been at least since 2001 (this has been going on). That it (the backlog)had been intermittently taken care of, that would be better answered by the Army Corpos of Enginers,” Sergeant Butler said. “This particular agreement on the parking permits was pay as you go, which is a little bit different than (the usual Army Corps of Engineers policy).  We were paying for the month we were going to be parking for. Not last month’s. This is something special the Army Corps of Engineers worked out with the city.”

Permits Withheld Producing Tickets for the Marine Vehicles

Butler told WPCNR,  “I was assured (by the Army Corps of Engineers) that the payments were always there on time, so from that, I don’t know if the checks didn’t get cashed on the first day of the month, and because they didn’t get cashed the first day of the month, the new parking vouchers or passes were not issued until the check cleared. I’m assured (by the Army Corps of Engineers) the payment was there on the first of the month. That would be a good question for the city were the checks ever not there on the first of the month.”

WPCNR asked if Marines came up to the Chester-Maple office asking for their new permits and they were withheld.

Butler said, “Because this is something that went on for a while it’s quite possible that Marines got into  this the Army Corps of Engineers are going to take care of this, they know  there’s an agreement there to pay for the parking, we shouldn’t be getting these tickets.”

Asked for this agreement, Sergeant Butler said he would talk to the Army Corps of Engineers to get a contact to produce the agreement.

The Marines he said always paid for the permit spaces in the City’s Chester-Maple garage. This payment clearing problem, the Sergeant said resulted in the city systematically, like clockwork, ticketing Marine vehicles on the first of every month for months – on vehicles Marines regularly parked in the garage.

Larson Comments

John Larson, Deputy Commissioner of Parking, disputed the claim that all the Chester-Maple no permit tickets contributed 50% of the tickets, telling WPCNR, “This could be true, might be partially true” but he had no way of knowing that unless the Department of Parking went through all tickets.

He said, “The Marines have 1,891 tickets not all are related to this issue of parking without a permit – I don’t know if that’s true or not. $23,290 is the base fines on all of their tickets, and $71,325 is the penalties. The total comes up to $94, 615. You tell me he said of the $94,000, $50,000 is related to the (parking without a) permit issue. That’s what he’s claiming. If that’s true that still leaves $44,000 not related to the permit issue. I think he’s trying to confuse the issue. The amount outstanding, fines and late fees is $94,000 and change. If he said $50,000 is related to their failure to buy (parking permits on time), that means at least $44,000 is related to some other issues.”

“ The math doesn’t work out that way though,” Larson said, but said there were no figures on the late fees per individual tickets and ticket category and location breakdowns available.

The Army Corps of Engineers leases the Chester/Maple space and allows the Marines to use it as a courtesy, Butler said.

No lease?

Larson disputed this saying the Marines and the Army Corps of Engineers do not have a lease. Sergeant Butler told WPCNR, the Marines have an agreement with the city to purchase the permit spaces, when told of Larson’s remark.

Larson said that the Army Corps of Engineers paid for parking permits for official Marine Corps vehicles in the Chester and Maple Garage, and said the Marines also leased parking permits for their personal cars in the garage. According to Larson, the Marines did not have an ongoing lease and were supposed to pay for the permits in advance prior to the first of the month “like everybody else.” Larson said the city does not accept “direct deposit” and said the Permits for the Marine personal vehicles were paid for by a Marine Recruiting Center credit card.

Larson did not have a breakdown available on the 1,891 tickets. He said that “it is possibly true” most of the tickets the Marines received could have been for not having parking permits being displayed when they parked at Maple Avenue Garage meters. In such cases, Larson said, the Parking Enforcement Officers would simply write a ticket for overtime meter parking.

Why Marines Do Not Pay

 Friday afternoon Gunnery Sergeant Butler issued this official statement on why the tickets have not been paid:

“…we are confident that White Plains would concur that nearly 75 percent of the 90k can be attributed to late penalties, not actual parking citations.  A majority of the tickets were issued for parking in a garage in which the Army Corps of Engineers leased spaces for our recruiters. This agreement predates this issue.  The Marine Corps has a long tradition of upholding our nation’s laws and standards and we continually strive to be upstanding members of the community. 
We would not have ignored this matter in any way and have conducted a thorough review in an attempt to identify and rectify the causes of the problem and to resolve this issue with the City of White Plains. 

Federal law prohibits using tax dollars to pay for individual fines in this instance.

Meter violations why Marines Not Paying — No Way to Trace the Individual.

WPCNR asked Sergeant Butler about the Parking Tickets owed by Marine vehicles on meter overtime violations in other locations and why they had not been paid:

Butler explained that previously Marine Recruiters in the White Plains Recruiting Center, owing individual city parking tickets had not been made aware by the command of the recruiting office that they are responsible for paying their individual tickets.

Sergeant Butler said individual Marine officers are supposed to pay for tickets they get:

“When an individual gets a parking ticket for a parking meter that expires, it is up to the individual Marine to pay for that ticket. A portion of these parking fines are from the leasing agreement with the city of White Plains where there was a problem with the payment process (for the lease). It was an administrative thing. Payment was always made for the parking permits in the Chester Avenue Garage by the Army Corps of Engineers for a leased parking facility. But because of administrative errors that credit was not given by the city,” (apparently resulting in the ticket).

It is not clear whether the city made it a policy to ticket Marine cars that were regular permit parkers because they did not have permits or Marines got the permits late due to the Army Corps of Engineers mailing the checks late.

WPCNR asked Sergeant Butler if this was partly the City of White Plains fault, and he said, “I think that’s the stance we’re taking. They’re trying to sort those things out. They’ve changed the lease agreement from monthly to quarterly, so it’s a step in the right direction.”

Butler indicated in a telephone interview Thursday evening that the quarterly arrangement for paying the lease just negotiated would help solve the check clearing problem.  

No Way to Distinguish: Larson

Larson, said  when a Marine vehicle is found without a permit, “We don’t know if they are going to pay (for a permit). They have to pay just like everybody else.”

The city, the sergeant said would ticket the Marine vehicles up to the time when the checks cleared,  at which time the Marines picked up their permits, the concentrations of tickets being at the first of the month. Butler said he was not sure if the vehicles were ticketed for not having permits or for the city not receiving payment from the Army Corps of Engineers for the spaces, or for just parking at meters in the garage without the permit that allowed them to do so.

  Larson  said Friday the Marines would be ticketed for parking overtime at a meter, not for no permit, pointing out that the Parking Enforcement Officer had no way of knowing if the Marine Vehicle had a permit or not, was supposed to get one, or not.

Butler said that of the $93,805 the Marines are alleged to owe (accumulated since 2001 according to press reports) “more than 50%, and 50% of that is not parking tickets they’re penalties incurred for late payment or non-payment. Does that make sense? The actual fines are much less.  55% of that ($51,600 of the $93,805) is ballooned from penalties. Half of that have mostly been accumulated from late fees on existing tickets.”

Larson noted that there were still plenty of other violations not related to the Chester-Maple no parking permit issue.

The Situation Friday

The offer of the Commissioner of Parking reported in other media to accept a $50,000 payment from the Marines to erase the debt was not explained by the Commissioner in news reports, as being payment for the $50,000 in tickets and late fees for parking without a permit in the leased spaces – which Butler says makes up the vast majority of the amount the Marines owe.

 On the individual tickets given Marine vehicles for parking meter overtime violations, Butler said in the past, “The command was not made aware to rectify the situation. Since this has been brought to our attention, there hasn’t been a problem that we’re aware of any situation (of individual Marines not paying tickets). We’re working closely with the City of White Plains. Ms. Claudia Ferrara is readying a report for us we asked for again today, to make sure we’re not violating any parking regulations.”

WPCNR asked Mr. Larson where the issue stands today:

“The law department has been speaking to the General Services Administration and their attorneys and we’re hopeful we can get it resolved one way or another. I’m hopeful we can get it resolved one way or another. I know their position is that the driver of the vehicle is responsible for any tickets they receive. That’s the GSA’s position on all – not just the Marines – government vehicles that are driven around the country. If you’re a government employee and you’re driving a car and you get a ticket, you have to pay.

The problem is they legally say they can’t pay these tickets and that the drivers are responsible, and they can’t figure who these drivers were three or four years ago whenever the tickets occurred. From their side that’s part of the problem.”

The Moroni Settlement

WPCNR asked if Parking Commissioner Moroni’s offer of a settlement with the Marines of $50,000 reported previously, was still on the table:

Larson said, “I don’t think he made a direct offer of a specific amount of money. I don’t know if he (Mr. Moroni) said that or not. I’ m not aware of that exact amount of money. We’re looking forward to some sort of settlement as well.”

Sergeant Butler said there had been no unpaid parking tickets by Marine vehicles since April, to his knowledge.

Sergeant Butler said the city did not notify the Marines of the Chester-Maple payment problem: “Since we’ve been made aware of it (last December), we’ve done everything we can to resolve the situation. The perfect example of that, instead of a monthly parking permit the Army Corps of Engineers is purchasing three months of parking, making sure that that was done on the first with the vouchers being presented so there is no issues of parking violations and citations.”

Asked if the city reached out and informed the Marines the past saying we’re not getting the parking permit payments on time, we’re going to ticket you:  Sergeant Butler said he did not know.

Gunnery Sergeant Butler released this Official Statement to WPCNR Friday:

The Marine Corps has expressed the need to have open dialogue with the White Plains parking authority in an attempt to rectify the matter and ensure measures were in place so as to not allow it to happen again. I am confident that we are making progress in this endeavor. 

As recently as last yesterday, we were in communication with the Deputy Corporation Counsel for the City of White Plains. It would be inappropriate to discuss the details of this meeting at this time. However, we are confident that White Plains would concur that nearly 75 percent of the 90k can be attributed to late penalties, not actual parking citations.  A majority of the tickets were issued for parking in a garage in which the Army Corps of Engineers leased spaces for our recruiters. This agreement predates this issue.  The Marine Corps has a long tradition of upholding our nation’s laws and standards and we continually strive to be upstanding members of the community. 

We would not have ignored this matter in any way and have conducted a thorough review in an attempt to identify and rectify the causes of the problem and to resolve this issue with the City of White Plains. 
Federal law prohibits using tax dollars to pay for individual fines in this instance.

Currently, there no Marine Corps vehicles operating within the City of White Plains that have delinquent parking violations.  Since the Marine Corps has been made aware of this matter, the command has implemented several preventive measures to minimize potential for future violations of the parking regulations.

* We provided a list of all our government vehicles to Ms. Claudine Ferrara, the parking violations supervisor for White Plains.  We update the list semiannually in April and October or as assigned vehicles change.  We have also given GSA permission to give her our contact information should she contact them about a vehicle that belongs to this command.

* Ms. Ferrara will contact this command directly about any delinquent tickets for vehicles that belong to us.  (A ticket is considered delinquent when it has not been paid within 30 days.)

* The Army Corps of Engineers has gone from purchasing monthly parking passes to quarterly (3-month) parking passes for our vehicles in White Plains in order to prevent gaps in coverage of parking permits for the government vehicles.

We are confident the citizens of White Plains know that the Marine Corps does not put itself above the law in any way.  Instead our nation charges us to uphold and defend their freedoms.  The city of White Plains also knows this; we firmly believe that through these discussions this issue will be rectified.  Since the roll up of the $90K which ended in April we have not been informed of any new tickets. Ms. Claudine Ferrara is checking the records now but hasn’t yet found any violations that belong to the current Marine Corps Government vehicles. If any are identified there are measures in place to handle those violations.

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WPCNR CAMPAIGN 2007. By John F. Bailey. August 3, 2007: Candyce Corcoran’s challenged signature petitions were approved by the Board of Elections this morning, as the Board’s Commissioners, Carolee Sunderland and Reginald LaFayette refused to disqualify Corcoran’s petitions on a technicality brought to their attention and challenged by the City Democratic Party leadership.

 

The Board followed legal precedent in accepting her petitions which did not have city and county written in on the Witness Identification Information line which was ruled by the New York Supreme Court in 2003 in a primary held in Nassau County. The case was brought to the attention of the Commissioners by Ms. Corcoran. The Board of Elections, Ms. Corcoran said, had advised her incorrectly that she did not have to fill out the Witness Identification Information section.

The Democratic City Committee Leadership had challenged all 67 pages of Ms. Corcoran’s petitions, all of which she carried herself, on the grounds that she had not written “White Plains” and “Westchester” in the Witness Identification Information section.

Ms. Corcoran was given her Letter of Acceptance from the Board of Elections Friday morning “accepting” her petitions and placing her on the September 18 Democratic Primary Ballot. On that line she will be running against Democratic Party nominees Benjamin Boykin, Milagros Lecuona and Dennis Power, and Arnold Bernstein. It has not been learned whether Mr. Bernstein’s petitions were approved at this time.

A vindicated Corcoran said, “Now I can do what I do best: meet people in the city I love, listen and talk with them in the city I love, my home, my birthplace, my White Plains.”