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 CITY HALL CIRCUIT. March 1, 2006: Terrance Schreurs, Assistant Superintendent for Business of the White Plains City School District told WPNCR that the city did not provide total  tax roll assessment information or PILOT payment information to the School District yesterday as expected.

He said  the school district hoped for it today, Wednesday, when the roll  is due by law. The city has given the School District no indication as to whether last year’s total tax roll value of $304 Million has declined, stayed even or grown. The city Executive Officer felt “assessments might be even, slightly ahead, or a little bit behind.”

Paul Wood, City Executive Officer. Pictured at Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Breakfast, January, 2005.  Photo, WPCNR News Archive.

Paul Wood, City Executive Officer, told WPCNR Tuesday he could not release assessment information, but did say he felt it was “close to even, maybe a little behind.” He also reported that sales tax collection for the second quarter was running “about 2-3% ahead of last year,” but that three days were unreported by the state due to the New York City transit strike.

If the recently completely holiday season (with City Center fully occupied) ran 3% ahead of the 2004 holiday season, when the city collected $10,760,486, this would mean the city collected an additional 323,000 in October, November, December of ’05 for an estimated total receipts for the holiday season of $11.1 Million.

Add the $11.1 Million to the July-August-September first quarter receipts of 2005-2006 ($10,367,333), and to date the city has collected approximately $21.5 Million in sales tax the first half of the year.

 If the 2.5% -3% growth rate reported by Wood Tuesday, continues, WPCNR estimates the city should come in with a $43 Million Sales Tax total for the year. Should Wal-Mart eventually open in the fourth quarter this could help juice the final total for the year.

The city budgeted $42.5 Million in sales tax in the 2005-2006 Budget.

Wood said assessments were being affected “because we had a lot of certs (certioraris) this year.” Wood blamed certioraris on over assessments from previous years, though certioraris settled this year were for tax years during the Delfino Administration.

Wood, asked for city reaction to the State Comptroller Allan Hevesi’s report pointing out that White Plains was one of   28 New York cities which had run at a deficit from 2000 to 2004.

 Wood said he thought Hevesi’s report was “a good one.” He said the White Plains spending differential between revenues and expenses from 2000 to 2004 was due, in part,  to having to provide services for 250,000 persons during the day, and that the city’s population had grown. He said White Plains was thriving and on an upward trend.

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WPCNR SCHOOL DAYS. By John F. Bailey. February 28, 2006: The School District presented a revised Preliminary School Budget to the Board of Education Monday evening lowering the budget for 2006-2007 to $166,142,423, an increase of 7.4% over this year ($154,759,198) projecting a tax increase of 8.1% for residents in 2006-07.

The Board of Education Meeting Under Way Monday Evening at Education House. Three citizens, in addition to Superintendent’s Cabinet members and one reporter attended. Photo, WPCNR News.

The new $166,142,423 budget assumes the city tax assessment roll is the same as this year. If assessments are up, the tax increase will be less. If they are down, the tax increase will either  escalate, or other budget cuts would have to be considered.

The news on assessments and PILOTS  is scheduled to be delivered to the City School District Finance Committee today, according to Assistant Superintendent for Business, Terence Schruers. WPCNR asked the Mayor’s Office Tuesday morning for  an indication of whether assessments were even, up, or down from last year, and so far they have not have  responded.

The Cuts. Photo, WPCNR News.

Of the $1.3 Million cut from the budget presented last week, $320,000 in interest was saved by the district deciding to bond for certioraris after June 30, 2006, saving the interest. Schruers said it was the district information that no new certiorari settlements would be approved over the next four months, and that the $8 Million in bonding the district expects to do could be executed after June 30, allowing them to move the certiorari interest payment into the 2007-2008 year.

Another $513,000 in salries, benefits, and retirement contributions, was saved by reducing 3 Professional Staff positions, one in Highlands, and in Art, Music and Physical Education, and eliminating one non-instructional Special Education elementary position, one position at Highlands, and one clerical position.

$125,000 was saved by renegotiating payments to BOCES Technology; $58,000 on Transportation; $60,000 in Tuition (for outside placements of students); $50,000 in Capital Repairs was moved to next year.

The Revenues. Photo, WPCNR News

On the revenue side, Schruers presented a chart that showed the district was estimating $8 Million in PILOT payments in 2006-2007, and projecting $135 Million in taxes, up from this year’s $125 Million, indicating that at this moment, White Plains taxpayers can expect an 8.1% increase in their taxes providing the Tax Roll stays at the present $304 Million.

Schruers also presented a three year projection of the budget that predicts a budget of $189 Million in 2008-2009. That budget projection assumes assessments hold steady at $304 Million, and do not decline. If assessments go up, tax increases should be modest.

 Schruers, speaking to WPCNR, said  the 2008-2009 projected budget includes a 4% pay raise  for the White Plains Teachers, which will begin to impact in 2007-2008. (The teachers’ contract expires in June, 2007).

The 2008-2009 projection assumes no additional bonding for certioraris or the capital improvements to the 9 school district buildings and two fields now being considered by the district. If the district decides to bond for those capital infrastructure improvements, (presently  $31 Million is being considered),  the debt service will increase the 2008-2009 budget about $2.5 Million to $191 Million. If more bonding is needed for certiorari refunds, the debt service will go up.

Bill Pollak, School Board Member, dryly observed the $1.3 Million in cuts for 2006-07, “was still bad news. The new projections (for 2006-2007) show a tax increase of over 8%.”

Donna McLaughlin, Board President, asked Mr. Schruers to project how the number of students (currently averaging 20 a class)  in classes would affect the budget in terms of eliminating teacher positions. Mclaughlin said she wanted the Annual Budget Committee to see how many teaching positions could be eliminated by reducing some grades from five classes to four, for example.

Timothy Connors advised that the budget was still a “work in process,” and that more savings might be found.

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WPCNR SCHOOL DAYS. February 25, 2006: The Board of Education has announced the retirement of Assistant Superintendent for Pupil Personnel Services, the dignified, tireless, meticulously articulate and forthright Joseph Casbarro, whose reasonable approach to policy making and fitting special needs and disabled students to outside services has had a knack for benefiting both student and district.

Joseph Casbarro. Assistant Superintendent for Pupil Personnel Services, at a recent School Board Meeting. Photo, WPCNR News Archive.

Casbarro’s steady and rational approach to forming difficult policies ranging from code of conduct and discipline procedures will be missed. Mr. Casbarro had major input into summer school procedures, the Newcomers Center, BOCES resources and budget refinement, maintaining the vital balance between paying for outside services and selecting services that provide adequately for special needs children.

Mr. Casbarro is the last veteran member of the former School Suprintendent Saul Yanofsky’s cabinet remaining presently on Superintendent of Schools Tim Connors’ staff .Casbarro has been with Mr. Connors for the four years Connors has been Superintendent of Schools. After July 1, when Mr. Casbarro leaves, the district will be going into the critical 2007-2008 School Budget Year with a new Assistant Superintendents for Business and Pupil Services .

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WPCNR STAGE DOOR. February 23, 2006: The invitations have gone out for The Three Phantoms Gala for the benefit of the White Plains Performing Arts Center, as it begins life on its own without the multidollar drain of the now defunct Helen Hayes Theatre as a handicap.

The gala will honor the stricken Councilman, Robert Greer for his many years of service to White Plains and Robert Feder, the principal of the law firm of Cuddy & Feder, Dan Tearno of Heineken, USA and Harumitsu Inouye of Shinnyo-En Foundation in White Plains and Bishop Iaso Ito of  the Bridge of Friendship Foundation, Inc.

The Gala features three actors who have played the charismatic “Phantom” in Phantom of the Opera on Broadway: Cris Groenendaal, Ted Keegan and the local favorite, Craig Schulman.

 Tickets for the presentation of The Three Phantoms range from $150 for an individual ticket to $25,000. Deadline for advertisements in the Gala Journal is March 1, 2006. The event takes place Monday, March 20, 2006 at the White Plains Performing Arts Center. For more information call 914-328-1600, Ext. 17.

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WPCNR ENVIRONMENTALIST. From Emmett Pepper. (Edited) February 23, 2006: Conservation groups cheered last week as the New York State Assembly passed, by an overwhelming bi-partisan vote, legislation – the Clean Water Protection/Flood Prevention Act (A.2048) – to expand protection of New York’s wetlands. The Assembly action proposes to protect wetlands under New York State law that are now unprotected as a result of rollbacks at the federal level. (1) Environmental groups and citizens statewide overwhelmingly support passage of the Clean Water Protection/Flood Prevention Act and call on the Senate to pass S.2081 in 2006.

WPCNR learned by following and exposing  the White Plains Silver Lake pollution coverup last August by Harrison and White Plains officials, that neither the Department of Environmental Conservation nor the Department of Health (in Westchester County) do not monitor tributaries on a coordinated regular schedule. The Mamaroneck River outletting from Silver Lake, is  shown here as it looked in mid September, 2005, at the height of the raw sewage pollution dumped into the Lake July 19. The tributary, one of hundreds is not monitored on a conscientious basis, only according to a lax schedule prepared by the state, meaning that on-going dumping into tributaries can go long periods of time, polluting wetlands without being detected. Photo, WPCNR News Archive.

“Friends of the Bay applauds the New York State Assembly for their prompt consideration and passage of this significant environmental legislation,” said Friends of the Bay Executive Director Kyle Rabin. “Now the Senate must take action. As an organization on Long Island, we know how important wetlands are to protecting our drinking water and cleaning up the polluted runoff that threatens our bays and estuaries.”

Under current state law, the NY Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) can only regulate development and other activities that threaten wetlands when the wetlands are included on New York’s Freshwater Wetlands Maps.

New York law directs DEC to map only those wetlands that are 12.4 acres and larger, or that are determined to be of “unusual local importance.” In practice, very few wetlands of “unusual local importance” have been included on the maps. By comparing the state maps with maps produced by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), Sierra Club determined that the USFWS shows 281,216 wetlands in New York, while DEC reports that it regulates 15,625 wetlands. (2) This leaves hundreds of thousands of wetlands in the State subject to federal protection alone. On this score, federal records demonstrate that, since the rollback began in 2001, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (ACOE), the primary federal agency that regulates wetlands, has not applied federal protections to hundreds of New York State’s wetlands. Currently DEC gets no warning when ACOE determines that a wetland is not subject to federal regulation.

“New York clearly cannot rely on ACOE to protect important smaller wetlands,” said Leila Goldmark, Staff Attorney for Riverkeeper, Inc. “The New York State Attorney General’s Office recently reviewed all wetland permit determinations available from 2001-2004. The AG’s Office has stated that fully 45 % (562) of the applications received were found to be non-jurisdictional by ACOE. Of those, only one application was found that qualified for regulation under state law. All of those wetlands went unregulated and were destroyed.”

Last year, the Assembly passed A.2048 and the Senate Environmental Conservation Committee released S.2081 with a nearly unanimous 11 to 1 recommendation, but the Senate leadership refused to allow the measure to go to the floor of the Senate for a vote.

“Every year we delay results in additional wetlands going under buildings, malls and parking lots, resulting in increased non-point source pollution, increased flooding and poorer habitat,” said Don Riepe, Director of the NE Chapter of the American Littoral Society. “It’s time for the Senate to end the delay and stand with the Assembly and Governor in taking responsibility for protecting our most vital resource.”

Wetlands perform important functions in natural drainage systems. By capturing and holding water runoff from rain-storms and snow melt, they filter out contaminants and reduce potential for flooding. Water held in wetlands is then released slowly to streams, rivers and groundwater. In this way, wetlands purify the surface waters that many public water supplies rely on as a source of drinking water and provide steady flows of the cool clean water that fish and other aquatic animals rely on. Due to the critical nature of these functions, every other northeastern state regulates activities that threaten wetlands much more comprehensively than New York State’s current law allows. (3)

“New York has a long tradition of leadership on environmental issues that is even more critical today given that the federal government has abandoned any pretense of protecting the nation’s environment for all Americans,” said Brad Sewell, Senior Attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council. “On wetlands, New York is far from the leader, and we ask that the state catch up – our smallest wetlands are frequently our most valuable, and they are being destroyed as we speak.”

“The public understands and appreciates the value of protecting New York’s remaining wetlands,” stated Dereth Glance, program director with Citizens Campaign for the Environment (CCE). “We continue to find overwelming public support for urgent legislative action–this session–to protect New York’s vulnerable wetlands.”

“Fish and many wildlife and waterfowl live in wetlands, and their protection is critical,” stated Wally John, Legislative Vice-President, New York State Conservation Council.

Governor Pataki’s budget this year included, in addition to measures intended to address this loss of federal wetlands protection, funding for much needed staff in the state wetland protection program run by DEC.

“We appreciate Governor Pataki’s proposal to increase DEC staff dedicated to wetland protection and to expand the reach of New York’s wetland protection program. The Assembly has taken the first step in moving a regulatory proposal. We call on the Senate to now follow their lead. It is critical that both members of the Senate and members of the Assembly insist that expanded wetland protection measures be achieved in the budget process for fiscal year 2006/2007 and in passage of the Clean Water Protection/Flood Prevention Act,” said John Stouffer, Legislative Director for Sierra Club – Atlantic Chapter.