WHITE PLAINS CITIZENETREPORTER 3,374,995 VISITS IN ONE YEAR—65,000 VISITS A WEEK BY 985,281 VISITORS

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WPCNR GUEST EDITORIAL. By George Latimer. County Legislator, 7th District. March 24, 2004:  After extensive debate during our 2004 County Budget season, many County Legislators decried the proliferation of unfunded mandates from the State and Federal governments: Medicaid, Services to Children with Special Needs, State Retirement Benefits, etc. So two weeks later, the State Legislature now considers the next big new mandate ahead – HAVA – Help America Vote Act. Here we go again!

 HAVA purports to avoid the 2000 Florida debate by mandating electronic voting machines.  HAVA seeks the laudable goal of making polling places handicapped-accessible.  But who is going to pick up the bulk of the tab?  The County property taxpayers, that’s who.

New Voting Machines

 Westchester would need to buy 1,200 new electronic voting machines, at $6,000 per machine.  Total cost: $7.2 million.  Federal support expected – at best, $4 million.  State support expect – unsure, maybe zero.  County budget impact: $3 million at least.

Centralized Storage of Machines

 NY State Board of Elections is expected to require that the County Board of Elections take over costs and administration for all elections.  Good news for city, town and village budgets, which will drop such costs – but an incalculable expense on County taxes.  This takeover – unwanted by the County – means creation of a new central storage facility for electronic machines (which may require air conditioning and temperature control), and added transportation costs to ferry these machines to and from polling places.  No funding yet planned to offset these mandated County costs.

Polling Place Accessibility

 The costs of bringing every polling place into ADA – compliance is hard to estimate.  In many locations, a new polling place will be required; capital projects to correct these deficiencies in many places could trigger a massive expense.  No funding yet planned to offset these potential costs to the County.

Legislation has been passed by Congress to implement HAVA with hard deadlines – but minimal money ($200 million spread all across New York State).  So get ready; when the 2005 County budget comes around, remember the seeds were sown for a new round of mandated expenses under the umbrella of the much bally-hooed “Help America Vote Act”. 

 It is one more example of decisions forced on local governments during the course of the year, which voters only appreciate when the budget comes out at year’s end.

George Latimer

County Legislator, 7th District

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WPCNR SCHOOL DAYS. By John F. Bailey. March 23, 2004: Mario Scarano, Athletic Director for the White Plains City School Distric, Mario Scarano, proposed creating a new position, that of Coordinator of Health and Physical Education, giving up responsibilities for devising Health and Physical Education curriculum he has been handling for the District, last night.

A.D. MAKES CASE: Mario Scarano, Director of Athletics, second from right, making A.D. Split Play to Board of Education Monday night. Photo by WPCNR News

Harriet Ketover has been aiding Mr. Scarano in overseeing curriculum consistency in physical education and health in Grades 6 to 12,  since the deparature of Lyn Kahn from the district. However, now that New York State is imposing physical education & health Assessment Tests, Mr. Scarano said, the task of running both the athletic programs and the health curriculum across the district was going to be demanding and needed its own full-time coordinator.  He said the new position would cost the District $100,000. He stated he has not been handling the curriculum coordination piece, that Ketover had been handling it on a parttime basis, and only for the 6 through 12 grades.

Scarano said that dividing the position would enable him to concentrate on making improvements to the athletic program across the district. He counted down the following benefits:

1.) Closer supervision of coaches, developing their skills and effectiveness.

2.) More time to devote to improving District Modified Programs (Grades 7-8).

3.) More opportunity to develop “Outreach Programs” to Parents, whose children participate in sports. Scarano said he felt more interaction with parents would “eliminate some of the communication problems between coaches and parents.” Scarano said he had spent 3 hours on Monday afternoon with parents on phones discussing team issues.

4.) Increased liaison work with the YM and YWCA’s, and the Youth Bureau .

5.) More time to recruit new coaches

6.) Time to develop the final push to fund the new Loucks Field reconstruction (a $7 Million project) that he felt could begain within the next two years.

7.) Development of a new indoor field house.

8.) Establishment of a Coaches Advisory Council where staff coaches could contribute their collective experience to discuss coach issues, help new coaches, examine situations.

9.) Formation of an Athletic Member Council of Team Captains. Scarano said, “They (athletes) should have their say in what they already do.”

Scarano told Connors,  in calling for the splitting of duties between Athletic Directing and Currculum Coordinating, “I think I’m not doing either job the way it should be done,”

“What you have now is special,” Scarano said. “In health and physical education, in terms of athletics, what are the things we have to respond to and make happen. I want every child in the program to have a very enjoyable experience. Now, not every one is.”

Expand Middle School Teams.

He said he wanted to expand the Middle School Programs because of the positive affect participation in athletics has on student athletic performance. He said students who play on teams have 10 to 15 points better grades than children who do not.

He said he wanted to create more Middle School Teams, saying last year some 70 kids tried out for baseball, 60 children for soccer, and 40 for Lacrosse, and most had to be cut because there was only one team in each of the sports.

This hurt baseball, Scarano said, because the high school could not field a freshman team this year because only 7 tried out, since many had tried out for middle school and not made the team.

Comments from Board

Connors asked him what were the budget implications of equipment and new coaches, and Scarano said he would have to work that out. Connors cautioned “that (middle school team expansion) will not happen without expanding the budget.”

Donna McLaughlin, President of the Board of Education, told Scarano that one item missing from his list of things to do to improve the athletic program was evaluation of coaches, beyond that of “self-evaluation.”  Scarano defended his evaluation of coaches because he said he does discuss with the coaches their performance. McLaughlin was persistent, asking Scarano to develop a more exacting process. He said he would.

Ms. McLaughlin added that any new Coordinator of Health & Physical Education Curriculum, and Mr. Scarano, should develop better drug and substance abuse programs at the Middle School Level. (In the public comment period, a citizen asked Superintendent of Schools Connors about the WPHS Rochester drinking incident, and Mr. Connors declined to spell out details, because federal law prohibited describing penalties.)

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WPCNR White Plains Law Journal. By John F. Bailey. March 23, 2004: Assemblyman Adam Bradley, speaking to WPCNR, from Albany Monday afternoon said he was hoping to get his own Election Law Reform bill, into effect by the next city wide elections which would be in November 2005. Bradley’s is the second effort to reform Election Law to allow New York Judges to rule in general election disputes.

The Attorney General’s Office presented its Election Law Reform Bill within the last week. Mr. Bradley said yesterday that he did not agree with the broadness of the Attorney General’s bill, but was willing to work with the Attorney General to develop a bill. Bradley said the Attorney General’s bill had no sponsors in the Assembly.

“I have a number of sponsors for it, so we’ll see. I’m actually now negotiating to see what we can do.” Bradley told WPCNR. Asked what the timetable was, Mr. Bradley said. “That depends. The first thing is, we have to see if the (New York) Senate puts in a bill, this bill or another bill that does this. I’m working with some staff on the election law committee here in Albany, and a lot of this is in dealing with what I believe is the best way to allow for elections to both have integrity and to also be final.”

Asked who in the senate was going to take up the bill, “I’ve spoken to a couple of senators. Right now, nobody has done anything to my knowledge. But, it’s still early considering that I only put this in two weeks ago. I’m currently actually working on some other issues with some of the people that work for the election law committee here which may lead me to amend the bill a little bit or tinker with it, or work with another member on a bill. My goal is to make sure we do something. That’s what I’m working toward.”

Asked if the bill might be put into law in time for the November 2004 elections, Bradley was skeptical, “There’s a chance, I’m not counting on it. It’s less likely that it might be something that would matter in the presidential election. My  concern candidly is that this becomes much more of an issue during the next local election cycle. I like to see us do something as soon as possible I’m a realist about how things operate up here. I’m not going to say it can definitely be done this year, but I’d really like to see that we do something hopefully in time for the next set of local elections. That’s where those things are most important.”

“This last year there were a number of races that were close that had broken machines throughout the state. It’s not a unique problem. There are elections that arem’t that close that had broken machines that don’t matter.”

I’m ironing out some details with the Committee on Elections right now to see if we can get some consensus. There are some, who for instance want have a right to jury trial which we do have in some special proceedings. I may have to make some changes there. Some minor changes to the time frames. (Some would want 10 days after the recanvus, others 20 days.  I’m working to get something this year.”

“I’m very open minded as far as those types of things. I think the most important things are:  we want to be clear that there is a right to call a new election in a general election, and we want to make that the standard for doing that though is  a very high standard.”

Queried as to what that standard might be, Bradley said: “Here’s the thing. We don’t want judges deciding elections for us which is why I think we prefer not to have judges declaring winners. We want to make judges are held to a fairly high standard before they can disrupt the election results. I think there was a consensus among those I spoke to that the standard of clear and convincing evidence was the best standard.”

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WPCNR WHITE PLAINS VOICE. March 22, 2004: It’s all over town. It’s being laughed off all over town. Teens drinking on White Plains High School-sponsored trips. From an indiscreet pre-prom drinking session in a posh home in the Highlands, resulting in a teen’s getting her stomach pumped, when regurgitating in the downstairs of a popular restuarant,  to a free-wheeling open bar on a high school ski trip, to an embarrassing encounter with security guards at the New York Distributive Educational Clubs of America convention in Rochester, a week and a half ago, resulting in another stomach-pumping, teens continue to do it.

Some White Plains teenagers seem to think it is their mission to drink illegally. Adults and officials WPCNR speaks to about these incidents will not reveal details, however, one reaction is common, chuckles and laughter are their reaction when queried. WPCNR suggests this is not a laughing matter. In the interest of perhaps curtailing this obvious, clandestinely documented problem, WPCNR suggests the penalties for teen-drinking on school sponsored functions are obviously not strong enough. What penalties on the list do you think would matter the most to teenagers as a deterrent? Pick your choice of penalty. And vote on all you feel will be effective. You may vote more than once.