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WPCNR WEST SIDE STORY. From The Mayor’s Office. August 1, 2006: Mayor Joseph Delfino announced today that the City’s planned revitalization of the
South Lexington Avenue from The Sidewalks of Winbrook.December, 2004. Photo, WPCNR News Archive.
“I am pleased to announce that the first step in the revitalization of the
Lexington Avenue Revitalization District. Winbrook complex is at top of area, Lexington Avenue runs diagonally through center. Photo, WPCNR News Archive.
“
City of
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WPCNR CITY HALL CIRCUIT. From The Mayor’s Office. August 1, 2006:The City of White Plains will offer expanded hours at the following facilities in an attempt to allow residents to beat the heat:
White Plains Senior Center
65 Mitchell Place
914-422-1424
Open till 6:30 PM
Gardella Pool located on Ferris Avenue, and Kittrell Pool located on the corner of Fisher and Bank will remain open till 7PM. For more information please contact Arne Abramowitz at 914-422-1345.
Tuesday 8/1 – Center will be open until 6:30 p.m. The bus driver will provide an additional bus run at 4 p.m. leaving from the Center to bring senior’s home.
Wednesday 8/2 – Center will be open until 6:30 p.m. The bus driver will provide bus runs at 3 p.m., 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. leaving from the Center to bring senior’s home.
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W PNCR County Clarion-Leger. From the Westchester County Department of Communications. July 31, 2006: County Executive Andy Spano held a meeting with Con Edison today, as solely reported by WPCNR, and after that meeting, the County Executive issued this the following statement. No other statements about Con Edison explanations and plans for dealing with future communications were made:
· At a meeting with Con Edison today, Spano was assured by the utility that it has already brought in extra crews and notified others to be on standby in the event there are any major power outages.
Spano reminded residents that if they do lose power to make sure they notify Con Ed of the outage by calling 1-800-75-CONED. Do not assume that the utility knows you are without power. If you see a fallen wire, you should notify your local police. In addition, everyone should own a basic phone (one that is not powered by electricity) as these are the only kind of landlines that will work during an outage.
· All county beaches and pools will be open for extended hours Tuesday and Wednesday until
· The county’s Department of Emergency Services has contacted all local governments in advance of any heat-related problems to offer assistance. The county is ready to open its
· To help residents cope with the soaring temperatures, the Health Department has a 24-hour “Stay Cool” Information Line, (914) 813-5620, which provides tips on how to stay cool in the summer heat and identifies air-conditioned locations such as libraries, shopping malls, movie theaters and senior centers throughout the county where residents can go to beat the heat. A listing of some air-conditioned community locations is available on the Health Department’s website, www.westchestergov.com/health.
· The county Department of Emergency Services is gathering information about where local governments have set up “cooling centers” for their residents. Currently, these are:
o Elmsford:
o
o
o Yonkers: Coyne Park Community Center, Nodine Hill Community Center, Cola Community Center, Chema Center, Congregation of the Sons of Israel, St. John’s Park Pavilion, Bronx River Road Community Center, Sacred Heart H.S. Cafeteria, Nepperhan Community Center
For specific hours and addresses, residents should call their local municipality.
“We are taking whatever steps we can in advance to deal with this weather,” Spano said. “I urge residents to use common sense when dealing with the heat. At our end, we remain ready to assist local governments and residents.”
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To help residents cope with the soaring temperatures, the Health Department offers a 24-hour “Stay Cool” Information Line, (914) 813-5620, which provides tips on how to stay cool in the summer heat and identifies air-conditioned locations such as libraries, shopping malls, movie theaters and senior centers throughout the county where residents can go to beat the heat. A listing of some air-conditioned community locations is available on the Health Department’s website, www.westchestergov.com/health.
There are other warning indications of increasing heat stress that require immediate action. They include rapid heartbeat, a throbbing headache, dry skin, no visible sweating, extreme weakness, mental changes, dizziness, diarrhea, nausea, chest pains, vomiting, cramps and breathing problems. If you experience any of these signs of physical distress, call your doctor or seek medical attention immediately.
The Westchester County Department of Health recommends that residents protect themselves against heat stress by wearing loose-fitting, lightweight clothing; drinking a lot of water and avoiding hot foods, heavy meals and alcohol. If you have to be out in the sun, wear a wide-brimmed hat. It’s also important to remember that physical activity generates body heat, so it’s a good idea to slow down and take it easy as the temperature rises.
For further information on heat stress, contact the Westchester County Department of Health at (914) 813-5000 or visit www.westchestergov.com/health.
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WPCNR MR. & MRS. & MS. WHITE PLAINS VOICE. July 30, 2006: The power is back on but the memory of the chaos lingers on. After 9/11, millions were sent Westchester County for improved “emergency” communications. Dozens of meetings were held to improve county and cities’ coordinated efforts in a disaster. Last week, Mr. and Mrs. and Ms. White Plains saw how they worked when they called city hall and city hall did not know how many homes were out. They saw how they worked when they called the police department and could not find out what roads were closed and open. But, perhaps WPCNR is too harsh.
What does Mr. and Mrs. and Ms. White Plains think about how our county and city, and cities communicated with residents in an emergency — the first really big one we have had since 9/11?
Was the information authorities gave you when you called, or that you heard on the radio or read here on WPCNR adequate — because that is all we got. I only selected adequate and inadequate — because, it was not good. Our leaders said they were ready for an emergency and had communications programs in place supposedly for an Indian Point disaster or whatever. Well, July 18-19-20-21 was a test. How did the county the city do?
Send us your disaster stories — good and bad.
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WPCNR’S ADAM IN ALBANY. By Adam T. Bradley. July 28, 2006: This Legislative session, the Legislature took the lead to end Medicaid fraud and passed bipartisan legislation that I sponsored to protect taxpayers from millions of dollars in fraud (A.12015/S.8450). The legislation was passed by both houses of the Legislature and awaits the governor’s signature.
The Legislature’s aggressive strategy to combat Medicaid fraud includes more effective accountability measures via the creation of a Medicaid Inspector General and stricter penalties for offenders. Our bipartisan plan will help to eliminate waste and fraud in the Medicaid program by creating a system of checks and balances.
Increasing accountability through a Medicaid Inspector General
To achieve its goal of eradicating Medicaid fraud, the Legislature proposed creating the office of Medicaid Inspector General to detect and combat fraud, waste and abuse in the state’s Medicaid system. Responsibilities of the office include Medicaid auditing and fraud and abuse prevention. The Medicaid Inspector General will be appointed by, and serve at the pleasure of the governor.
The bipartisan Legislative agreement also creates five new crimes, including four felonies, to fight Medicaid fraud. These health care fraud offenses include corresponding fines and penalties that range from up to a year in jail to up to 25 years in prison.
Medicaid fraud wastes taxpayers dollars and robs our most vulnerable – the sick, disabled and the elderly – of needed care. Cracking down on these abuses will help protect both people who need care as well as taxpayers. I urge the governor to help us eliminate this costly burden on taxpayers and the health care system by signing this common sense measure into law immediately.
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WPCNR COUNTY CLARION-LEDGER. By John F. Bailey. July 27, 2006. UPDATED 11:32 A.M. E.D.T.UPDATED 4:45 P.M. E.D.T.: Donna Greene, spokesperson for the Westchester County Department of Communications, reported today that Westchester County Executive Andy Spano will hold a closed-to-the-public-and-press meeting with Con Edison officials Monday in the Michaelian Building to discuss Con Edison response to the three weather-related power calamities that afflicted Westchester residents in Yonkers, Valhalla and assorted communities, including White Plains, Scarsdale, Harrison, New Rochelle, Pelham and Port Chester last week.
The Mayor’s Office of White Plains, said upon learning of this meeting, that Mayor Joseph Delfino is preparing a letter to be delivered to the County Executive listing issues the Mayor wants Mr. Spano to address with Con Edison performance that affected White Plains during last week’s swath of destruction that ravaged White Plains neighborhoods. The Mayor’s Office said the letter is being drafted and will be issued this afternoon and delivered to the County Executive. As of 4:45 P.M., that letter from Mayor Delfino has not been received by this reporter.
Michael Kaplowitz, County Legislator, told WPCNR that as of 1:30 P.M., he had not been notified by the County Executive of the Monday meeting. Asked if he would attend if invited, he said he thought so. Asked what he, Kaplowitz, had thought of Con Edison’s policy shift in which they would not pay for food spoilage claims Westchester residents had suffered because of storm damage, Kaplowitz said he was “dissappointed.”
Asked if he thought Westchester County should attempt to reimburse its residents foir the $8.75 Million Con Edison would have been prepared to pay them if they honored storm damage, Kaplowitz said “No,” that Con Edison should be working with the county and try and come together with the county and make a gesture to the residents by paying the claims instead of hiding behind their statutes allow them to get away with (not paying food spoilage caused by storm damage outages).
Asked if the county should make an effort to reimburse its own residents like the county regularly bails out the Westchester County Medical Center, Kaplowitiz said the situation was different, that the Medical Center was non-profit and had improved its management, and that using county funds to reimburse was just taking from taxpayers. “It (the food spoilage claims) should come from the shareholders of Con Edison, a profit-making business, not the taxpayers of the county,” Kaplowitz said. Kaplowitz said Con Edison had failed to communicate, did not have enough repair crews (being that the company had to call in other companies for help), and did not provide adequate information on recovery progress as the power crisis unfolded last week.
The purpose of the Spano meeting with Con Edison Ms. Greene said is to look to the future to improve Con Edison communications with the public and to explore infrastructure conditions and the status of “feeder cables” and how Con Edison is equipped to handle future heat and power demands as well as weather-related powerline damage on the scale of last week’s third storm that devastated central Westchester. Ms. Greene said the meeting would be closed to the press. She had no explanation as to why the meeting would be closed, and whether other county legislators and public representatives would be in attendance.
Greene repeated that County Executive Spano feels that Con Edison “did a good job in its response,” but communications with the public were a key issue the County Executive wants to examine. Greene said Spano wanted to explore what new technologies Con Edison can use so their customer service representatives would be better prepared to provide estimates on when customers without power could expect electricity to be restored. Greene also confirmed, (as county news releases had advised residents last week), that Con Edison does not have the kind of technology monitoring equipment that instantly shows on a monitored screen when power has been lost to an individual customer, a street, a section or a city. The only way Con Edison knows if power is lost is if a customer or police call them, she said.
Greene said Con Edison, in the third storm that took place July 18 in the early hours of July 19 when an alleged “microburst” hit the County Seat (White Plains), Con Edison response began based on police information and customer calls. She said Con Edison personnel were called into the County Emergency Center and routed crews to down wires, where in cases they “stood guard” until the appropriate crews were dispatched to neutralize the live wire. Greene said the county did not have detailed information on how and when Con Edison deployed its crews during the first day of recovery, July 19 and the next, July 20. Greene said the larger emergencies were taken care of first, again based on police and consumer calls.
However, as any person calling in last week knows, the Con Edison voice mail menu, 800-75CONED is tedious, lasts about five minutes, before you can give your information, and does not give you response to a live person and is exasperating when you have an emergency situation. When WPCNR pointed this out to Ms. Greene, she said that was one of the issues the County Executive was going to look at, in addition to the County Emergency Notification System, which Susan Tolchin, Chief Adviser to County Executive Spano criticised in a letter to the Journal News today.
The obscure Tolchin letter on the Journal News oped page today was the first official reprimand of Con Ed performance by the County Executive other than Mr. Spano’s request for Westchester residents receiving equal food spoilage claims payments with Queens residents which he lobbied for Monday. Mr. Spano still has not responded to WPCNR’s questions on whether he will attempt to find other ways to compensate Westchester residents’ spoilage claims due to storm damage, (his Department of Communications said yesterday he would not). Con Edison, in an action first uncovered by WPCNR, subtlely refused to pay food spoilage claims for wind and downed power lines damage, after leading residents complaining of storm damage to believe they would during Monday afternoon’s public hearing.
Tolchin wrote that the county chose on Thursday afternoon (40 hours after the storm July 18 had concluded) “to implement CENS after a Thursday afternoon conference call with Consolidated Edison officials in which they told us that, beginning Thursday night, if the public called their customer service number, representatives would have the estimated restoration time for each address.” Tolchin’s letter responding to a complaint of Gabrel Farkas who complained that Con Ed could not tell him estimated time of restoration, said “there were others, who did not receive the information as Con Ed promised. There is no excuse for this failure, and points up serious problems with Con Ed’s communication to the public.” The letter states, “it will be one of the subjects the county executive will discuss when he meets with Con Ed officials to go over the outage.”
It will apparently be Mr. Spano’s first public discussion of performance issues with Con Edison because Mr. Spano according to a legislative aid did not attend Monday afternoon’s public hearing on the Con Edison performance held by County Legislator Tom Abinanti.
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WPCNR WEATHER SCOOP. By John F. Bailey. April 26, 2006: Assemblyman Adam Bradley of the 89th Assembly District in an exclusive interview, who himself had no power for three days in White Plains told WPCNR his feelings on the Con Edison decision not to honor food spoilage claims for Weschester victims of downed powerlines in last week’s Westchester “Mystery Storm.” He also said he was waiting for Con Edison’s response to his questions he has put to them.
“I’m tremendously dissappointed with Con Edison in that regard, because as someone who suffered for three days because of the blackout, because it is not fair to expect that consumers are going to know it was something defective in Con Edison’s transformer, or whether it had to do with a natural disaster. The fact is all of these problems were a mixture of both. There was a natural disaster and Con Ed’s lines did not perform perfectly. For the consumer to figure out which is the cause is outrageous.”
Bradley continued:
WPCNR: Do you feel the state legislature might look into some relief for the Westchester County area?
Bradley: The legislature is not scheduled to go into session. What is clear as a member of the legislature I am going to be inquiring of Con Edison in regard to their policies, and to discuss with them the need to change there policies, because it is absolutely unfair for them to pass along to consumers the cost of spoilage, when, as far as I’m concerned they assume the risk. They make a very substantial profit they have options as to what they want to do with their lines, they’ve chosen to keep them above ground because of the cost factor, but at that point they’re assuming the risk for the weather-related calamities.
WPCNR: Are you planning a state inquiry into this?
Bradley: I think it’s premature for me to comment at this juncture about whether there will be an inquiry be conducted. I think there’s a possibility depending on how Con Ed handles this prospectively for potential legislation to arise out of this.
WPCNR: Have you been in touch with Andy Spano on this?
Bradley: The problem I have with Con Edison is they piece meal everything. First they say only a $150 (per spoilage claim without receipts). Then they make the big effort to suddenly say, it’s $350 without a receipt, then they put the caveat but, after the fact, that’s $350 only if you can prove it’s not an act of God or weather-related problem. It’s ridiculous.
WPCNR: What are the county and various lawmakers thinking about now in regard to this?
Bradley: Well I think the county and the state are going to have to look at how Con Edison determines its policies in regarding these types of refunds. I have to say this, I’ve had dealings with other power companies like NYSEG, which covers a part of my district, and they don’t pay anything unless you can establish gross negligence on their part. Ironically, as crazy as it sounds Con Edison’s standard may be less than the standard used by many other utilities in the state. Most of them have a gross negligence. They’re both wrong.
WPCNR: Were you happy with the county and city emergency information response?
Bradley: I think this was an unheralded storm. I’m not someone who wants to run around casting blame. This storm took everyone by surprise by the gravity of it. It certainly White Plains I’ve never seen anything as devastating as this storm was. My neighborhood Rosedale was cut off from other places. I saw a lot of people working very hard in very difficult situations. I don’t want to sit here and act like the whole system failed, I believe there were a lot of very hard working people in the county and the city, even Con Edison.
WPCNR: Nevertheless, since 9/11, the county and city were supposedly putting together emergency systems and procedures where everybody in a surprise situation would know what was going on. Quite frankly, no one knew what was going on for 48 hours last week.
Bradley: I certainly like many others did not know what was going on and certainly did not have a lot of help with my emergencies, including a tree that was about to fall on my house. I would hope there were better lines of communications in the future. People are without telephone service, especially with cordless phones, they’re plugins. People without cellphones cannot charge the batteries. (Assemblyman Bradley suggested a 48-hour battery pack for cellphone users).
WPCNR: What’s the next step?
Bradley: I’ve spoken to some folks at Con Edison, expressed my concerns, I’m waiting to hear back from Con Edison as to what they plan to do differently and how they plan to address the situation.
WPCNR: Is Mayor Delfino still around in the city. He isn’t making any statements at all, I’ve asked him for two straight days
Bradley: I have not heard from the Mayor. I haven’t spoken to him since this incident. I did speak to the Public Works Department. They worked tremendously hard during this storm. There’s only so much the Mayor can do. I think the city worked as hard as it could.
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WPCNR WEATHER SCOOP. By John F. Bailey. July 26, 2006: By WPCNR estimate, Con Edison’s decision not to reimburse Westchester citizens for storm damage related power outages last week is saving Con Edison $8,750,000, based on a minimum of $350 spoliage claim reimbursement and a reported 25,000 customers out. In White Plains, 7,000 customers who were outted by the alleged “microburst” mystery storm last week, are out $2,450,000 by Con Edison’s sticking to their Public Service Commission agreements to the letter.
Moments ago, the Department of Communications for Westchester County, asked if County Executive Andy Spano is considering ways for the county to reimburse its citizens, told WPCNR there are no plans to have the county reimburse residents.
The spokesperson said nothing in the way of county relief for the food spoilage damage alone is being considered. The spokesperson also said the County Executive had no statement on the Con Edison policy that was not spelled out at a county legislative hearing Monday afternoon.
Country Executive Spano asked as of last week for the disasters to be consider simultaneous for the county to get infrastructure repair aid, but this was before Con Edison took five days to restore Scarsdale and White Plains to full power, resulting in massive food spoilages at apartments and private homes.
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WPCNR WEATHER SCOOP. By John F. Bailey. July 26, 2006: Nancy Fisher of Assemblywoman Amy Paulin’s office told WPCNR moments ago that the Assemblywoman Paulin attended Monday afternoon’s hearing on the Con Edison outages and demanded that Con Edison answer the following:
Fisher said “The issues Assemblywoman Paulin raised with Con Edison were (what were their) plans and adequate funding for capital improvements and infrastructure, adequate staffing during periods of expected over usage and emergencies, both weather-related and internal (that means storm related damage and equipment failure), (the state of) availability of backup supplies and response time …in other words how far they have to go to get a new transformer, do they have it in stock, and the appropriateness of the priority system, which is what you are talking about…who gets the utility crews first.”
Fisher, asked if Ms. Paulin had a reaction to Con Edison’s “clarification” yesterday they would not pay food spoilage refunds to Westchester residents who lost power due to storm damage, Fisher said she would ask Ms. Paulin about that. Fisher said it was unclear whether Ms. Paulin was aware of that at the hearing.