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 THE PLANNING NEWS. By John F. Bailey. March 21, 2007. UPDATED WITH PIX OF CONDOMINIUM DESIGNS 2 PM: At the Tuesday evening Planning Board Meeting, two preliminary plans for approximately 20-to 30 unit condominiums in the Battle Hill area were presented and there is a possibility of a third condo targeted for Chatterton Parkway that would help pay for creation of the long-awaited Veterans Memorial Park. The peripatetic developer, Frank Cantatore and his DeKalb Development Corporation presented plans to expand his condominium town houses by 12 units at the White Plains Scarsdale Gateway.

The North Street Community went over details of their Senior Housing Complex Senior Residency Zone approved last month by the Common Council for the former St. Agnes Hospital Property.  The Planning Board asked numerous questions on routing of traffic through the site, and requested sight line drawings portraying how the 335-unit condominium senior residence would look from neighboring sites.

The condo details:

It was emphasized by the Commissioner of Planning that the Carvel Children’s Rehabilitation Center on the site, because it was a “community needed facility,” could not be recaptured by North Street Community, should  it ever cease operations. Susan Habel said the North Street Community partners would under terms of the new zoning district have to find another tenant performing a community needed service for the facility – or seek a new zoning of the Carvel property – before they could seek to add it to the complex.

Presenters for the North Street Community said  they were working on plans now for presentation in about a month or so. North Street Community is not on the Common Council agenda as of yet for April to seek approval of the project – though the zoning change they requested, creation of a senior citizen residency district was approved this month – all but assuring approval of the project.

The details on the condominiums:  

The White Plains land magnate, Juan Camacho’s  group, Harmon Associates, presented preliminary plans to revitalize the Harmon Avenue blighted area – where a recent rape occurred in a vacant house – with a 29-unit condominium complex overlooking a strip of green parkland stretching alongside Route 119 – the western gateway to the city.

The five story complex would offer 29 units, with parking situated behind the building. It would rise on the North side of Harmon Avenue and overlook Route 119, and remove several vacant houses now occupying the site. No price point has been set on the units. Planning Board was positive about the project, reservations were expressed about a fence that was planned to shield the parking at the rear of the building from the “parkland” below. This display shows how the complex would look on Harmon Avenue, and how the present location looks now.

The view from Route 119 is shown in the lower strip, and the proposed fencing for the rear of the Harmon Avenue Condoplex.

Overview of the Proposed Site. Top of picture is the park adjacent Route 119.

Gateway II on Harding and Central

The second condominium complex introduced was a project called Gateway II, a five story residential condominium and retail-restaurant complex of 15  2-bedroom condos, a restaurant and retail fronting on Central Avenue which would occupy the site currently where Fabric House stands at 239 Central Avenue. The Planning Board pointed out that the complex had to find offsite parking or make parking arrangements elsewhere or develop shared parking in order to comply with parking for the restaurant-retail operations, because they could not  “inherit” parking from Fabric House. The parking for Fabric House does not actually exist physically. It is believed they make shared arrangements with other surrounding businesses.

Gateway II — Design for 50 foot high condominium, retail and restaurant condoplex for the corner of Central Avenue and Harding Avenue, which would replace the Fabric House, which would be demolished.

The Overview of Gateway II: Parking lot is shaded in gray; Building is in brown.Harding Avenue is to the left.

Mystery Condo-Veteran Park Concept

Meanwhile, according to Patti Cantu, the President of the Battle Hill Neighborhood Association, the Mayor of White Plains, Joseph Delfino, Councilman Glen Hockley and Executive Officer Paul Wood presented a third Battle Hill development  to her association about a month ago in a private meeting.

According to Ms. Cantu, “I brought a few people together, you know we have been working towards a veterans’ park for years, and this was a way would get funding for the park. We are looking at this as an option. A developer, represented by a Mr. Limingello from the Gateway Condominiums who proposed building condominiums in the vicinity and would donate money for construction of the Memorial Park. I looked at it as a way to get funding.”

Cantu said no concrete plans had been presented, and said the Association was considering it as “an option” to fund the park, that was all.

  WPCNR has heard that Mr. Wood traveled to Albany to investigate how the city could arrange to demap a portion of parkland to execute that project, a call to city hall to confirm this has been made.

Marching up Post Road

A third mini-condominium project is an extension of the townhouses built on Post Road by Frank Cantatore, White Plains hometown developer. Mr. Cantatore  jump-started the White Plains boom by building Clayton Park, the first step in the highly touted “White Plains Renaissance,” through his spokesperson, Jeffrey Binder presented an expansion of Mr. Cantatore’s townhouses on Post Road started at approximately 313 to 311 West Post Road.

Cantatore proposes building 6 townhouse condominiums units that would house 12 units, including 6  duplexes  which would market for approximately $550,000 to slightly over $600,000; 3 1 Bedroom units which would price from the low $200,000 to mid-2’s; and 6 studios priced from $160,000 to $175,000. Binder said the previous townhouses had been very successful, and that the duplex concept was a new wrinkle in townhouse development.

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WPCNR Gasoline Alley. By John F. Bailey. March 20, 2007. UPDATED 3:20 PM EDT: It has been two weeks since Westchester County surveyed White Plains service stations in their monthly gasoline price survey.  On March 6, those prices averaged about $2.73 a gallon. Two weeks later they have ratcheted up  as high as $2.89 a gallon for regular octane, and over $3 for high test. The Department of Consumer Protection has no legal recourse to stop the  seasonal cash grab at the pumps, WPCNR has learned.

As of March 6 in the County Capitol City, the most inexpensive place to fill up was Petro Plaza  at $2.589 for regular at 592 North Broadway Plaza, and the most expensive was Getty at 190 Aqueduct Road at $2.71.9 for regular.

But the pennies per gallon have been going up all over town and county for two weeks.  The WPCNR Mobile Unit payed $2.88 for regular  in White Plains this weekend, at a station which was charging $2.70 a gallon two weeks ago. In contrast prices in eastern Connecticut Monday for regular right off I-95 in Milford – a 45 minute drive east — were $2.55 for regular.

Refinery Fires and summer gas switch

Gary Brown of the Westchester County Department of Consumer Protection said he was afraid there would be more price increases ahead as the spring and summer travel season approached. Just how much prices went up in White Plains and elsewhere will be determined by the April Consumer Protection Department gas survey.

Brown said the  10 to 20 cent rises were due to a combination of two refinery fires on the west coast restricting supply occurring at the same time refineries were transferring to the summer blends of gasoline which have ethanol added  to reduce emissions. He called this an “unfortunate combination of circumstances.” He also said Gulf of Mexico refining capacities were still not at full-strength.

The North County Times in San Diego reported February 28 on its website that a refinery fire at a Chevron facility in Northern California and a Valero Refinery in Texas causedf partial production shutdown last month. Prices in  San Diego are now at $2.81 a gallon — comparable to the White Plains increases we are seeing.  The national average was $2.38 a gallon as of this week.

The API Institute Clarifies

The American Petrolium Institute in a news article published today, said the nation’s crude oil inventories fell 3 per cent due to a rise in gasoline demand of 4.5% over last year. The API reports that “scheduled maintenance and preparation for a switch to summer blend fuels pushed capacity utilization to fall to 85.4% — but said gasoline production was at an all-time high for February, 5.2 million barrels a day.

Ron Planting, a spokesperson for the API told WPCNR today that the fires and seasonal maintenance had diminished California capacity to 72%, but said that did not directly affect New York prices. He attributed the cost to two factors: the price of crude oil has moved from $50 to $56 a barrel in the last two weeks, and the cost of additives in the summer gasoline formula.

In January, he said, light crude was $60 a barrel. It declined to $50 in February, and now has gone up to $56 in the last 14 days.

He said that at this time of year gasoline is reformulated to reduce the rate at which it evaporates. To do that, Planting said, you have to take out octane and replace it with another ingredient. 

 He thought at the present trend of oil futures in April that the 10 to 15 cents to the cost per gallon we are seeing was in line with the price trend that coincides with reformulation process that takes place at this time of year. 

He said New York got most of its supply of gasoline, jet fuel, heating oil and diesel fuel via the Colonial pipeline from the Gulf of Mexico.  He said that the API’s most recent survey showed the Gulf supplies were running at 91% of capacity.

Can’t stop the Penny Flow.

Asked how service stations can raise prices on fuel already delivered and in their  storage tanks, based on anticipated prices, Brown said the County Department of Consumer Protection is powerless to step in under normal market conditions that apparently exist at this time.

Brown, speaking to WPCNR Monday said that gasoline prices in New York state are “basically unregulated,” and charges of gas gouging can only be brought under New York State business law if it can be proved that a gasoline station raised prices excessively “during any abnormal disruption of the market,”  meaning catastrophic disruption of the market.

The Attorney General of the State of New York did bring charges against My Service Center, Inc., of New Rochelle in 2005 and won its case in August of 2006,  using Westchester County’s Department of Consumer Protection paperwork and records, proving gas gouging in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Brown said.

The Gas Gouger Law Limits Gouge Reach.

The charges were brought under New York General Business Law 396-R and Executive Law 63 (12). The statute defines “abnormal disruption of the market”  to “mean any change in the market, whether actual or imminently threatened, resulting from stress of weather, convulsion of nature, failure or shortage of electrical power or other source of energy…” 

Gouger Not Required to Return Excessive Profits to State.

The Supreme Court of New York found for the Attorney General directing My Service Center, Inc. to pay the Attorney General’s Office a civil penalty of $2,000 – and the amount of the excess profit it generated by price gouging, Judge Lippman finding that “Without question, Hurricane Katrina created an abnormal disruption of the market as to trigger application of these protective provisions.”

However all the service station had to pay was the $2,000 amount because Judge Lippman  determined the consumers who purchased the “gouged gas” were impossible to locate.

Mr. Brown was asked why prosecute gas gouging if the offending service station was not going to be forced to repay their windfall profit. Brown said the station was also placed under an injunction not to price gouge in the future, and if they did they would be subject to more severe civil penalties.

The case considering it only cost the gas station $2,000 (including costs plus their own legal costs) for the state to prosecute it shows how much gas stations are profiting on every gallon, and this case is based on 2005 prices.

Pennies Per Gallon Profit Margin Is a Lot of Pennies.

Judge Lippman’s decision is instructive in showing just how much gasoline retailers mark up their wholesale gasoline.

Lippman based his decision on the GBL 396 language defining  price gouging as either “that the amount of the excess in price is unconscionably extreme; or that there was an exercise of unfair leverage or from unconscionable mean; or a combination of both factors…”

My Service Center, the court papers note, contended its prices “are only relative to the prices it receives the Exxon distributor, which on average are substantially higher than competing brands of lesser quality.” My Service Center,  said, the papers report, it “normally profits 8-10 cents per gallon but “increased the profit margin based upon the anticipated steady price increase from the supplier during the period leading up to and after Hurricane Katrina.”

However, based on Westchester County documents and invoices, the court determined that  

 “it is evident respondent (My Service Center) hiked its retail price to maintain its inflated profit margin, i.e., the difference in the price it paid its supplier and the pump price, subsequent to Hurricane Katrina. For example, immediately prior to Katrina, respondent’s per gallon profit margin was 67 cents, an amount, the Court notes, is in excess of its (My Service Center’s) asserted typical 8-10 cengt margin, which margin then jumped to a high of 99 cents a gallon on September 1, 2005. What this translates (ed) to is a retail pump price of $3.45 per gallon for fuel respondent purchased only the day before from its supplier for $2.46 per gallon. On September 7, 2005, the retail price at respondent’s station was $3.62, yielding respondent a per gallon profit of 88 cents based on its supplier’s wholesale price of $2.74 on September 3, 2005. Petitioner (Attorney General) declares that respondent’s assertion that its supplier’s price point justifies its elevated margin rings hollow in the face of these figures. Thus, petitioner categorically asserts that respondent’s price increases in the post-Katrina days run afoul of the GLB’s and Executive Law consumer protection prohibition. The court agrees.”

The court in denying reimbursement of such excessive profits notes there were no invoices or receipts supplied “to calculate the amount of excess profits subject to disgorgement.”

Brown told WPCNR though the county has no power to regulate gas prices, its monitoring of gas prices serves to give consumers a way to find the lowest gas prices. WPNCR did exactly that last night, refueling the Mobile Unit for $2.76 at Shell on North Broadway as opposed to the robber baron who was charging $2.89 a gallon less than a mile away.

Going to the County Department of Consumer Protection gas survey will show you the current price range of stations in White Plains as of March 6.

The gas price survey may be viewed at http://www.westchestergov.com/consumer/

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WPCNR SCHOOL DAYS. March 19, 2007: .At last week’s Board of Education meeting, Michele Schoenfeld, the Clerk to the Board of Education reports today that the Core Team running the district’s Strategic Planning project had met and provided district objectives now available on the school website, www.wpcsd.k12.ny.us. Connors also said the “Measurement Team” has begun its meetings and that “Action Committees” would be formed last week. Connors again invited community residents to join the Action Committees and to contact him to express their interest.

Ms. Schoenfeld’s Report notes that the district received the first $250,000 from the Cappelli Foundation for the White Plains High School Loucks Field renovation.

On the academic front, Dr. Margaret Dwyer said that because “progress has been excellent” eliminating sixth Grade Basic Math, that consolidation of the math classes would begin in the seventh grade next year. Dwyer said the District will “support this process through differentiated instruction,” installed in the sixth grade in 2006-2007. Dwyer said teachers reported a “positive cultural change,” and the Curriculum Committee agrees with that assessment.

Ninety-six student athletes from seven winter sports “Scholar-Athlete” teams which averaged 90 or better as a team — Ice Hockey, Wrestling, Women’s and Men’s Track, Men’s Swimming and Diving and Women’s Basketball  were recognized as Scholar-Athletes. Local awards were also given to the Cheerleading Squad — also Scholar Athletes — though not recognized as a sport. The Tiger “Growlers” will be recognized a sport next year by Section 1. Athletic Director Nick Panero saluted one student from the Men’s Basketball Team whose average was over 90.

Panero said every sports team from White Plains High School qualified for Sectional Play. Sue Adams, the Women’s Basketball Team Coach, thanked the public for their support of the team as they played into the Class AA State Regional Finals this month.

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WPCNR Photographs of the Day. By The WPCNR Roving Photographer. March 18, 2007: It was stingy. It was  sleety.  It was heavy. It was wet.  It was crusty. It was drifty.  It stopped Air Traffic. It was the St. Patrick’s Day Snow — unfortunately not green. Residents had to bang at it, chip at it, pant over it, and bash at it to get it onto a shovel, then they had to lift the unwieldy ice cubes. Where was global warming when you needed it Friday night? Seldom has 5 inches of snow caused so much inconvenience.  But, it sure was pretty.

Winds of up to 30 Miles Per pelted fine sleet bee-bees against windows all Friday night and piled up drifts on eves and porches. The below freezing temperatures caused the sleet to turn to ice, locking cars into parking spaces and creating the heaviest 5 inches of snow this reporter has ever lifted off blacktop.

Residents had their cardiologists on standby as White Plainsians chipped away, extricating cars immobilized in the frozen white tundra. Photos by a WPCNR Roving Photographer

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WPCNR STATEHOUSE STANDARD. From Assemblyman Adam  T. Bradley’s Office. March 15, 2007: Assemblyman Adam Bradley (D-White Plains) announced he voted against A.4303-B and A.4307-B, the two education budget bills that the Assembly passed on Monday, because they failed to provide sufficient funds to Westchester schools.  Bradley explained that while he supports the more transparent and simplified school aid formula, his schools are getting shortchanged.  Under the new formula, counties are classified under Regional Indexes based on cost-of-living factors.
  “I have serious reservations about the Governor’s and Assembly’s education proposals,” said Assemblyman Bradley.  “The school aid formula in each budget plan shortchanged Westchester schools and as a result, will further burden local property taxpayers.”

In the governor’s education proposal, accepted by the Assembly, Westchester is grouped with the following counties: Dutchess, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, Sullivan and Ulster.  The cost-of-living in these counties is much lower than the cost-of-living in Westchester County.  Bradley is advocating for Westchester to be included in the more comparable cost-of-living group with New York City and Long Island.  Placing Westchester in this group will accurately reflect the education costs of the county and ensure that districts in the future receive more state funds.  All but one school district in Westchester is in the hold harmless category, which limits the amount of aid they receive.  “I am afraid that without the correct cost-of-living factor, all our districts will remain in this category for many years to come, severely limiting their ability to receive the state funding they deserve,” said Bradley.

“Westchester loses under this classification and our schools will receive less aid than they are entitled to,” continued Bradley.  “Losing vital state aid will have a negative impact on local property taxpayers.  I will fight during joint budget conference committees to reclassify Westchester County and to make sure our schools receive the funding they need.”

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