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’s The Sunday Bailey. News Comment By John F. Bailey. July 8, 2007: Now the new Board of Education is going to be installed Monday evening. Now that we know  Superintendent of Schools Timothy Connors has informed the school district he intends to depart his position in two years, it is not too early to be thinking about what kind of School Superintendent the district will need. And the debacle he will inherit.

On the other hand, how much more improvement can the district make if they do not address the language problem facing the Hispanic community by not hiring and installing bilingual education in the lower grades?  The African-American academic achievement gap is another problem. When parents are involved children learn regardless of their race or creed or background.  The district makes valiant attempts to do that, but need to do more. Mount Vernon improved their dismal performances by literally dragging parents into the education process.

However the overriding issue facing the next Superintendent of Schools is the budget. As reported here by WPCNR yesterday, the city blithely continues to rollover for certiorari suits by businesses that are the premier properties in town, continuing to erode the tax base on which the school district taxes for the balance of its budget. The city continues to bet the taxpayer’s wellbeing on development, while agreeing to tax givebacks and assessment reductions based on owner numbers which when you think about have to be contrived via accounting creativity. How can buildings sold in a thriving downtown be assessed for less? But try and prove it. The city continues the certiorari givebacks and the school district continues to go along with them.

School taxes that traditionally have made White Plains attractive in the real estate market are going to have to rise about 10% a year to sustain the current level of district spending – which was brought to its lowest increase level in a decade this year but still 7% — double inflation.  Actually 8% if you look at your tax bill.

 The new Superintendent will face a budget that is out of control in a district that shows little heart for reining in spending.

The present Superintendent made very token inroads on the teacher salary structure limiting the year to year contract salary increase to 3%, and negotiating token increase in what teachers pay for their health insurance. And he has to negotiate that again this year since it is a one-year contract. The portion teachers pay of their health benefits has to go up to trim the 10% increase in health benefits costs that continue to afflict the district.  The negotiations have to begin with overhauling the structure. You have to lower starting salaries, and revamp the step levels (for degrees) for new teachers being hired into the system to assure the long term health of the district. It is easy to say this, hard to negotiate, but for too long the district has paid such generous salaries compared to other districts that when shown the White Plains schedules, teachers drop their jaws in disbelief. I know, I’ve showed the salary and step schedule around.

 The relationships in the district between White Plains administration and teachers have always been so cordial and mutually symbiotic. Two thirds of the budget goes to salaries for teaching and administrating.  One could argue that a spirit of mutual cooperation where administration and teaching professionals work together is great for the district. But, the district, thanks to the city fiscal mismanagement of the tax roll, especially the last eight years, can no longer afford business as usual.

The new Superintendent taking over 24 months from now will also have to deal with the very secret process of the District Strategic Plan – in which action plans are being devised for presentation to the Board of Education this fall without any public airing to date. But who knows what those action plans are?  The goals are generic.  Not lower  budget to inflation levels. Not attrit staff by 10%. Things like that Are they even discussed?

Specifics have not been divulged, and oddly enough there has been no public recognition by the Strategic Planners (most of whom are school district employees) of the financial plight of the district and how to address it. 

Creating a strategic plan with goals of a lofty variety that do not engage the issues threatening effective efficient, economic education of our youth in the face of a plummeting tax base is wishful thinking. It’s living in wonderland.

Creating a strategic plan for a decade without coming to grips with the deteriorating buildings at Highlands and Eastview and George Washington School – in the face of cross-your-fingers population estimates based only on birth rate every year – is ignoring reality. The district is at the limits of what it can handle now.

Creating a strategic plan for a decade without coming to grips with the question of why we need to do $17 Million of infrastructure improvements the next two years when we supposedly have been spending $3 Million a year for building upkeep begs the question – how good is the fiscal plant maintenance year to year that is in place now? You have to ask those questions in any strategic plan. If you’re maintaining yearly, you should not have to upgrade $17 million-dollars worth in one crippling debt blow.

These are old schools, too.  How long will they last? Where will the new school buildings come from to handle our gradually increasing population?

The fact that the Strategic Plan is going to be laid on the Board of Education who will tweak it – with their usual rubber stamp – worries any thinking person.

The public needs to see those specifics. If they care. The City School District is essentially where they were five years ago when they dismissed the previous Superintendent, but the financial pressure has increased substantially. It is running out of money sources. If the district leaders do not recognize that they are creating a taxing disaster which will cripple the district for years and the quality of our education more than they will ever realize, the fate is sealed. The taxpayer will be bailing out for years to come.

That is the situation the new Superintendent faces in two years. Should the architects and construction firms executing the Capital Improvements Project execute their projects well and on time, the new Superintendent will have a little time to come in and make some fixes.  If, the architects and construction firms screw up the projects, which occurred royally on the White Plains High School seven years ago by the same architects – the new Superintendent will be facing a real mess and an angry public.

It is imperative that in his final two years Superintendent Connors not let the Capital Improvements Project flounder on construction snafus. He cannot tolerate fumbles by the contractors and the architects on these jobs at Mamaroneck Avenue School, and Post Road School that delay and drive up costs.

On the academic side, one wonders, short of bringing in a bilingual education effort which the district is experimenting with next year – an English Spanish class where students are instructed half in English and half in Spanish – how serious they are at addressing the bilingual need. Port Chester has for years been able to handle their Spanish speaking population with a bilingual program. The White Plains Board of Education was told that by this reporter five years ago, and now thanks to Mr. Connors leadership they are beginning to see the light. Whether the administration will expand on this initiative to teach children of Hispanic descent bilingually  is a fundamental part of Strategic Planning and what the new Superintendent will have to address. Are they evening doing that? We don’t know because the district planners are not talking.

The new Superintendent will have to be chosen not on the basis of can he or she get along and schmooze, but can he or she lead. Mr. Connors, though we have not always felt he has moved hard and fast enough has taken decades of  laissez-faire management in this district and has started to turn this very large bloated supertanker around out of the shoals, even though it is leaking red ink and billing the taxpayer for it.

Above all – just like the City of White Plains – the School district needs a manager type like Mr. Connors, who will be given the charge to trim this district’s operating costs; negotiate a teaching salary structure which over time will keep labor costs at the inflationary rate instead of built in raises that bloat the payroll automatically every year. I am not saying you have to eliminate step increases. I am saying you have to stretch them out, negotiate them down – for new teachers being hired. Otherwise things are not going to change. And attack those benefit payments. They are way out of line with the private sector.

The new Superintendent is going to have to trim administration personnel. We have far too many administrators. Attrition after persons leave the district has to be looked at more seriously than it is. The district currently employs one person for every teacher. That needs to be looked at very closely, and attrition strongly considered.

If the Board of Education simply sends out for the usual suspects in searching for the new Superintendent, White Plains will get more of the same. But look for double digit tax increases every year from city and schools.

But, of course, it is contingent on any strategic planning that the school board recognize they have a problem and that they will hire a person with the intelligence, creativity and toughness to fix it.

Connors will be with the district two more years. He can continue to lay the groundwork for a strong district position by going hard on keeping school district budgets down the next two years. He can craft a new teacher payment schedule for new teachers, whether that is possible legally, I am not sure, but it is the easiest solution.  White Plains is the district every teacher wants to teach in because it is so good. To protect it and keep it that way, the district needs to look hard at their costs, salaries, personnel management and what they are doing with present operating income.

Fred Seiler, Assistant Superintendent for Business, could be a good man to consider for the job. He may not have Connors’ charisma to sell a project or a position, but he knows the numbers. But whoever is selected to be the new White Plains Superintendent of Schools, he or she has to know the numbers to save the White Plains City School District as we know it.

And, please, could we know what the strategic plan is going to attempt to do before the Board of Education rubber stamps it?

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WPCNR QUILL & EYESHADE. By John F. Bailey. July 7, 2007 UPDATED July 9, 2007:  The Common Council will approve certiorari settlements lowering the city tax roll $2.1 Million Monday, However, contrary to practiced in the past the $2.1 Million has already been removed from the present tax roll, according to Acting Assessor Lloyd Tasch, so as of this date the 2008-2009 roll is not affected he told WPCNR Monday afternoon.

The beginning of the certiorari parade for the new year is headlined by The Crowne Plaza Hotel – White Plains only in-city hotel in the heart of the city’s most affluent shopping district. The Crowne is usually packed with guests. It has negotiated a certiorari settlement with the city lowering their assessment $1,000,000 – which will be agreed to by the Common Council at Monday evening’s Common Council meeting. The owners of 10 Bank Street, 1185 Bank Street LLC,  have also won an assessment reduction of $550,000.

Domino Theory?

The two handsome properties though already a deduction off the present roll according to Tasch continue  a disturbing trend: properties near buildings granted certiorari settlements are filing for certioraris when buildings change hands, reaping future tax windfalls for the new owners and disappearing tax revenues despite city redevelopment, which theoretically is supposed to increase assessment rolls not lower them.  

City Tax Refunds to the owners of Crowne Plaza Hotel, the Town Park Hotel Corporation, total $430,443 beginning in the year 2002-2003, 03-04,04-05, 05-06 and 06-07. Crowne Plaza, assessed at $2,650,000 had had its 07-08 assessment lowered to $1,650,000. The School District will pay back an estimated refund of $1.8 Million as a result of this settlement. Previously, Bloomingdale’s,  the Fortunoff complex and Nordstrom’s in the Westchester Mall had certiorari suits settled for substantial assessment reductions.

The new owners of 10 Bank Street, 1185 Bank Street LLC will be refunded $263,740.50 by the city and an estimated $1 Million will be paid back by the School District. The Ten Bank Street office building is not to be confused with the apartments, Bank Street Commons, was assessed at $2.3 Million in the fiscal years 2002-03 through 2006-07. Their assessment was lowered $550,000 to $1,750,000. In the Bank Street Main Street area, assessment reductions had been agreed to on certirorari suits for Gateway One, one block away.

Other certiorari settlements requiring substantially less refunds evidence a trend that commercial real estate assessments are sinking in the downtown despite redevelopment. (This is blamed by the city to be a product of the State Equalization Rate.) The Sloan-Bar Associates, LLC on 202-228 East Post Road and 51 Mitchell Place in the downtown is being granted a $105,800 reduction assessment.

West Post Road Sinks in Assessment Valuation.

On Monday evening, the city is agreeing to certiorari assessment reductions on properties in the West Post Road area, eyed as the next area for revitalization.  Lincoln-Mercury received assessment reductions of $135,000 on 1-27 West Post Road, 29-33 West Post Road, and 242-252 Maple Avenue.  The property at 55 West Post Road is being granted a $40,600 reduction in assessment. The assessment lowering may make these properties easier to acquire.

Other certiorari agreements lower assessment $100,000 on the 33 Barker Avenue Apartments; $35,975 on 14 Stevens Street; $94,990 on Hampshire House Condominiums on 30 Greenridge Avenue.

$2.1 Million Drop.

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WPCNR POLICE GAZETTE. JULY 5, 2007 11 PM E.D.T: Deputy Commissioner of Public Safety, Daniel Jackson reports the man who jumped from the roof of The Westchester Mall garage has been identified.  Commissioner Jackson in a statement to WPCNR said,  “The deceased is Brian Kaplan 40 years old, who resided in Port Chester. Apparent suicide.”

A “CitizeNetReporter” on the scene tells WPCNR the victim is a man who apparently fell from the top of the parking structure to the concrete surface in front of the Maple Avenue entrance to Nieman-Marcus, approximately 3 PM.

News reports said this evening the victim drove his car to the top floor of the Westchester garage on Paulding Street and jumped to his death.

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WPCNR THE DUMP NEWS. Interview with Commissioner of Public Works. July 5, 2007: The Mayor signed a consent order June 8 with the New York Department of Environmental Conservation to conduct a detailed and exacting survey of how much Trichloralethylene (contaminate) is below the surface of the city dump, where it is, and whether or not it needs to be remediated (removed).

The City Dump Southend, one week ago. Spiffed up! Massive Mound of  former Compost refuse, junk, removed.

Commissioner of Public Works Joseph Nicoletti.

The  nauseating contamination of the dump, known to city officials for 30 years, has long been the source of stifling, sickening fumes wafting into the Beverly Road, Ridgeway School Rocky Dell, Colonial Corners area. The Department of Environmental Conservation identified drums which contained TCEs in 1998. On June 8 of this year (nine years later), the city signed the consent order in which the DEC spared the city the onus of paying civil penalties in access of 330 Million dollars for the 9 years the contamination has been left in the ground.  Department of Environmental Protection spokesperson, Wendy Rosenbach said she expected a determination on a cleanup by September.

WPCNR interviewed Commissioner of Public Works, Joseph Nicoletti on the situation and what lies ahead in the city effort to deal with a problem they have ignored for over thirty years:

WPCNR: What is next — remediation?

Joseph Nicoletti: We’re going to work out the fair thing to do.

WPCNR: The DEC put in a long list of things you had to do in addition to what you said you would do, where to drill the test wells, how deep they are, and what information they want. Have you already started to act on their suggestions?

Nicoletti: Not really because all of these things have to be done in concert. We don’t just go out and drill where we think we’re supposed to drill or where we want to drill. We have to get an approved site plan from them. First it’s called a boring log. We tell them where we think we want to go. It usually requires a site visit or two which is what we’ve been doing over the last 6 or 8 months, and we have to look at the topography. They frequently have to be modified, the locations. It’s complicated. It takes quite a while to do that. It takes a lot of meetings. We’re really going to finish up the steps we have now and in the very near future, we’ll have some more meetings with the DEC people and we’ll go to the next step.

WPCNR: What is that next step?

Nicoletti: To do more borings that they’re interested in having us do. I think they’d probably want to wait and see what our current round of tests look like as well. That’s on the way. Sometime in the very near future we should be finishing up the first round of tests.

WPCNR: When is the estimated time when decision would be made on possible remediation?

Nicoletti: It’s an ongoing thing John, we take it one step at a time and that’s the way the DEC is working it, and that’s of course the way we’re working. In the next month or so, I’m sure we’ll be meeting and review all of the progress and things we’ve done to date. That’s the way it works. It’s a large area. There are a lot of things to do, and maybe a lot of things that don’t have to be done.

WPCNR: Have you complied with the order to remove all the previous compost pile?

Nicoletti: Yes. That was done.

WPCNR: Are composting again?

Nicoletti: That removal referred to anything that was there prior to last fall. Anything that we had in there before then they wanted us to remove, which we did. Anything new that came in from last fall’s leaves is being composted as we speak.

WPCNR: So composting operations have begun?

Nicoletti: They began back in October.

WPCNR: So the present time the dump is being used for what activities?

Nicoletti: As we’ve always used it – waste processing, chipping of brush, logs, branches and so forth.

WPCNR: What do you anticipate these new testing operations going to cost the city?

Nicoletti: I don’t know. That would be hard to say because we don’t know what all the tests are going to show. I’m very positive about it.

WPCNR: Could this  (TCE contamination) be easily remediated by a chemical treatment?

Nicoletti: There’s no magic wand. It doesn’t seem to be worse than I thought if anything better. Just my own personal feeling.

WPCNR: How did you determine that?

Nicoletti: Just from my observations of soil as it’s being removed. You can smell the soil. See the soil. I didn’t see any evidence of petroleum contaminates or any of those things. It’s better than I would have expected. I’m just trying to share something with you.

WPCNR: We love it when the city shares, Mr. Nicoletti. This (your observation) is based on the ongoing tests?

Nicoletti: We don’t have the actual results back. This is my own personal valuation. We’ll just have to wait for the first official results of the first round of tests.

WPCNR: Why did the DEC administer such a moderate civil penalty, because the cleanup would be very expensive?

Nicoletti: I really don’t know. I’ll have to find out.

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WPCNR THE DAILY BAILEY. News & Comment By John F. Bailey. July 4, 2007: The Spano Administration is fond of mouthing the phrase, Government that works for Westchester Families, and the city of White Plains Democrats praddle about “Putting People First.”

Well, we learned yesterday,  those slogans don’t apply to you if you’re homeless, scruffy, proud and sick and don’t have money.

Yesterday, we learned that if you’re homeless, you’re someone to be used to score political points.

Kindly old Uncle Andy Spano decided, based on what great humanitarian’s advice, to close the 85 Court Street Drop-In Shelter in White Plains which he opened in January 2006 without telling White Plains because he for some strange reason had to close the shelter at the airport. He also as of this writing has not told the Mayor’s Office officially that he’s closing 85 Court.

In retrospect, now that Andy has a very safe and secure airport after blowing through $5 Million for the fence system,( just ask the coyotes), isn’t it time to ship the homeless back to the airport, perhaps have them sleep in the WestAir lounge….giving them identification passes? After all, what safer place could there be? Uncle Andy never did explain why he closed the airport drop-in shelter in the first place, and now that’s so safe, he can issue them i.d.’s to get them in and out…and keep track of them.

But, this closing the shelter and not running busses to move the homeless to other drop-in shelters around the county is a really bad thing. It reverses about 14 years of history. The county has traditionally run buses to drop in shelters ever since a poor person froze to death shocking the truly concerned, if memory served me right 14 years ago.

Now we’re just going to let these people roam around White Plains all night – in 90 degree humidity; in thunderstorms; In 25 degree days in September and October (they do happen) – and let them urinate, defecate, drink and sleep in the streets and alleys and doorways?  Talk about your quality of life issues!

And where are they going to bathe? In the Renaissance Fountain? That’ll look really good.

And how come the genius editor at the Journal News misses this part of the story: White Plains swarming with these poor psychotic people, many needing medication, begging – there but for the grace of the taxpayer go you – our elected officials.

So the Democrats put people first? What crap! The Democratic Councilpersons have not reached out to White Plains organizations to find places to house the homeless now that their peerless leader, Uncle Andy has decided to close the shelter? What happened? Did the Volunteers of America contract run out? (Volunteers of America drives the buses that will pick up the homeless until August 5, then they fade off into the night, and the homeless will rack out at The Galleria, the Fountain, park benches, the White Plains mall and beg.

More to the point. Where are the housing coalition organizations that suck away government money and advocate for the homeless while drawing salaries? Could they step up here? For the truly needy?

And how about the churches of White Plains?

Ask yourself what Jesus would do?

If every church in White Plains took on one or two homeless persons to stay in their sanctuary, clean it, do a little work for a place to sleep, as an experiment, how great would that be? Don’t count on it.  The churches pride themselves on their compassion. But unless you pay them $600,000 worth of compassion a year in county money, a year to do it, they don’t want to do it. Taking care of the homeless is business.

Well, that attitude should change. Making money off the homeless, the handicapped, the affordable housing issue is what is wrong with government.

Closing the shelter is Uncle Andy playing politics and using the down and out as a political football.

The city is equally to blame.

This reporter suggested to the Mayor’s office months ago,  that they be proactive in attempting to find a place to house the homeless away from the downtown, since the county wasn’t doing it, and the Democrats on the Council weren’t doing it.  The Mayor’s office was shortsighted, they said it does not belong in White Plains and the county and other cities and towns should consider the problem.

The Mayor’s office just pounded out the rhetoric: we have to relocate the shelter, not close it, and they used the excuse that White Plains already has three shelters: Open Arms, the Coachman and the Grace Church operation.

Well, I am sorry, Mr. Mayor: how about twisting the arms of the churches and synagogues of White Plains?  Ask them to take two at once. That would show some thought. How about housing the homeless in a gym at the Middle Schools or the high school? Or one of the private schools – or how about the St. John’s Church school on Main Street that is now closed?

Again, nobody cares about the homeless at the political level. The homeless are just used to throw an issue out.

Politicians only care about themselves and their pathetic posturing to make their perceived political enemies look bad.

It is despicable closing that shelter. And not busing them someplace to sleep.

And do not forget, this reporter was the only reporter to tell you what it is like to be homeless at the 85 Court Street Drop-In shelter. You have to wait an hour for your bus to be taken two blocks to the shelter. You cannot get to sleep before midnight. You sleep on paper sheets. No showers. Two bathrooms for 40 people, if I recall correctly. They are lucky they had no serious incidents. You put the average commuter railway car full of people in that situation and you’d have a riot. I have great respect for those people who put up with the county’s idea of humanity. They have great quiet dignity. They get treated like cattle and stoically accept it.

Equally despicable is the Council of Governments – all those compassionate community officials whom  Uncle Andy could not persuade to agree on at least two places to put the hardcore homeless. Not one community stepped up to attack the homeless problem by saying “we’ll take them Andy. They’re people.”  What leaders! How pathetic. How revealing. How bereft!

What a leader Uncle Andy is: he has all this power but no clout. And no guts.

Everybody is afraid of him and his inept, overpaid flacks. I tell you, if I’m the County Executive, I tell Valhalla, a year ago, look it’s going there and you can sue us, but do not expect anything from the county.

If I’m the County Executive, I do not make the Mayor of White Plains look bad by closing a shelter. I make him look bad by personally going on a walking tour with various citizens in White Plains and lining up shelters in White Plains. That’s leadership. (The Mayor could have done that. Councilpersons Malmud, Boykin, Roach, Berstein, Hockley and Power – the great homeless advocate—could have done that, too. But they did not. Have not. Will they now? Or do I see a setup coming on?)

Where is County Legislator Ryan on this homeless issue?

Like every leader, he is missing in action, and on most issues, Mr. Ryan is waiting to see which way to jump. He said he would be willing to work with Mayor Delfino to solve this, calling the Mayor’s bluff. The Mayor did not call Ryan’s bluff. And so nothing has been done.

Ryan never returned our call on this issue. He so badly wants Uncle Andy’s do nothing, spend as much as we can job – he is afraid to speak out against the ludicrous spectacle of winos and druggies and psychotics, and genuinely needy people lounging in the parking garages of White Plains, the Renaissance Fountain, and begging at the Ritz-Carlton – that will play really well. And it is his County Executive who has decided to create this scenario.

Get some new advisors, Andy, they’re killing you, kid. Absolutely killing you.

But wait – here’s another suggestion. Let’s bus the homeless to Indian Point. That is very secure. You can even blow a siren if one homeless person leaves. Are they working, Andy? It is so wonderful your administration is so good at siren testing, and detecting finite traces of radioactive substances.

Man, it is time to call the Journal News and tell them to crank out some Indian Point exposes again. We have not had one in at least two days. Quick get me the Editorial Board of America’s worst newspaper.

Oh – another place to put the homeless – the White Plains Performing Arts Center. Since there’s nothing performing there lately – or for sometime. Perhaps we could start a Homeless Theatre Troup…with an original play or musical, you could call it “Homeless Blues.”

Or is this just another setup? Will Uncle Andy in a week announce he has made an arrangement with some place to bus the White Plains irregulars someplace?

I hope so.

The county says they are going to work very hard at getting the homeless who enjoy the 85 Court Street amenities to agree to seek help in the county Department of Social Services system.

Does this mean they have not been having councilors come in daily to help these people and win their confidence?

I mean the county just hired a ton of new DSS employees. Let’s put them to work. Now.

Put people first for change.

Government puts people last, but your wallets first.