More Time for Whyatt to Prepare CCOS Answer

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WPCNR WHITE PLAINS LAW JOURNAL. March 14, 2003:
The City of White Plains Department of Law reported Thursday that the Concerned Citizens for Open Space Article 78 action with Judge Richard Molea presiding in New York State Supreme Court continues to await CCOS attorney Thomas Whyatt’s answer to City of White Plains motion to dismiss the suit due to lack of “standing” of the plaintiffs. City Corporation Counsel, Edward Dunphy, told WPCNR that Whyatt has been given another 30 days to prepare his “answer. The suit filed in September, 2002, seeks to stop the New York Presbyterian Hospital from building a biotech research/proton accelerator facility on their property on the grounds that it requires a zoning change.

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Amy Paulin’s Albany: Legislative Issues Coming Up.

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WPCNR AMY PAULIN’S ALBANY. By New York State 88th District Assemblyperson Amy Paulin. March 11, 2003:Ms. Paulin filed this report with WPCNR this morning:
The 2003 legislative session is proving to be a challenging one, as
anticipated, due to the economic downturn. The Governor’s proposed budget includes many cuts that are troubling me and to the interests of my constituents in the 88th Assembly district. In the coming weeks, during what promises to be one of the most challenging budget negotiations in history, I will be doing everything in my power to preserve aid to our schools, funding for health care programs and property tax relief for homeowners (STAR program) without shifting the burden to local property taxpayers.

Legislatively, my office has gotten off to a running start. I am especially
pleased to inform you that a bill that I authored, the Unintended Pregnancy Prevention Act has passed the Assembly Health Committee.

For more detailed information regarding pending legislation, please visit my page on the Assembly Web site at http://assembly.state.ny.us/mem/?ad=088&submit=Go

Amy R. Paulin
Member of Assembly

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Judge Requests New Briefs from Attorneys on Past Quo Warranto Case

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WPCNR WHITE PLAINS LAW JOURNAL. March 10, 2003: The Larry Delgado Quo Warranto action brought on his behalf by the New York State Attorney General entered a new phase Friday.

Judge Francis Nicolai, Administrative Judge of the New York Supreme Court, Ninth District, asked attorneys for Mr. Delgado and
Glen Hockley to submit new briefs commenting on the extent the court is bound by a successful quo warranto action that took place in 1988, and its treatment of sworn affidavits in that case.

Judge Nicolai instructed the attorneys to review an action in the County of Cattaraugus that involved two candidates for the Town Council of East Otto, New York: Ivan Eaton and James Ellis in 1987-1988. Mr. Eaton, a Democrat when all votes were counted had apparently defeated Mr. Ellis by 119 votes to 54. However the other Republican on the ballot, Martin Westfall had received 227 votes to Mr. Ellis’ 38 on the voting machine..

With a 100-vote spread between the two Republicans Ellis and Westfall, the voting machine was determined to be faulty. A manufacturer determined that a pinion had a broken part known as either a flange or gear.

The decision by Judge Edward M. Horey writes, factual findings which have beenmade together with the great variances in votes cast for the Republican candidate Martin Westfall on the voting machine…permits the inference that James Ellis received more votes than the Democratic candidate Ivan Eaton.”

The Judge based his decision on a 1933 case which ruled “that while a court may not act on conjecture it may act on logical inferences based on human probabilities in anaylzing the facts attending an election.”

Judge Horey noted that five cases established the “admissability of evidence of the electors as to how they voted.” His Honor Horey observed that Ellis’ original suit to have a summary judgment made declaring him the winner was rejected, at which point the Attorney General at the time, Robert Abrams initiated a quo warranto

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Adam In Albany: MTA Fare Hikes Should Not Be Business as Usual

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Adam In Albany. By 89th District Assemblyperson Adam Bradley. March 10, 2003: The Metropolitan Transportation Authority Board has approved fare and toll increases that will cost Westchester families, causing further financial strains during this already difficult time.
Thanks to Governor Pataki, the cost of living, working and commuting in New York just got a lot more expensive. The MTA Board – controlled by the governor – ignored the cries of Westchester families when it approved this outrageous fare hike Thursday. Let’s call this what it really is – a huge tax hike.

The MTA’s controversial vote means double-digit fare hikes. Subway and bus fares will be raised from $1.50 to $2. Metro-North riders will pay 25 percent more, and bridge and tunnel tolls will rise up to 50 cents.

The MTA’s action is just the latest in a series of poor choices that the governor and his appointees have made in recent weeks. Whether its transportation, education, or health care, the governor is raising fees and forcing our state and its localities to increase taxes, while decreasing services.

The timing of this decision needs to be questioned, when both New York City Comptroller William Thompson and New York State Comptroller Alan Hevesi are currently conducting audits on the MTA’s books.

There are too many questions surrounding the MTA’s finances to push through this fare hike. They should have postponed this vote. We need more evidence to justify these significant changes and we should be honest about what these increased fares are – hidden tax hikes.

Assemblyman Adam T. Bradley

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Fort Hill Players Reveal the Mysteries of The Real Thing

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WPCNR WHITE PLAINS AFTER DARK. On the Aisle At The Rochambeau. By John F. Bailey. March 9, 2003: Like the fall season on Broadway, articles on how theatre is dying, and how Broadway is overpriced come out. They came out in the Times just last week. But that’s poppycock. Theatre is not dying at all. It’s alive in community theatre. It came back to live at The Rochambeau Theatre in Fort Hill Players production of The Real Thing this weekend.



FILLING THE STAGE: Seven hard-working actors and actresses, interacting flawlessly, become real with a labyrinthine script inducing actor-actress combinations of sparks, emotion, and reality. So convincing, they earned four spontaneous applauses after precision- played scenes from a very mixed audience of 50 old and young patrons of the arts at the kindly Rochambeau stage Saturday evening.
Photo by WPCNR StagedoorCam


The Fort Hill Players “Oh so British and Proper” production of Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing Saturday evening is no exception, because it’s exceptional.

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Play begins with a scene from a play.

The audience did not get it at first, not realizing that the first scene is actually a scene from Henry Boot’s play, “House of Cards.” In scene one, the Netherlands native, Dirk Marks as actor Max conducts a cloying, clever supercilious, round-about interrogation of the droll strawberry blonde “Bacall-ette,” Syl Farrell, playing his wife. While the audience is struggling with the typical clipped British accents, Pinteresque in the extreme by Ms. Farrell and Mr. Marks, Marks inquires about Ms. Farrell’s business trip.

Farrell, looking progressively nervous, unwittingly gives up the evidence of her adultery on a trip to Geneva in the first scene. The scene switches gears on you when she is found out.

Lesson one: you commit adultery, it always gets discovered.

Farrell and Marks get the embarrassment, the triumph, and pain of discovery with expressions and body language that mirror exactly how it feels. Farrell particularly comes apart well in this scene with the stages of being discovered: expletive, shock, denial, realization, sense of loss – all in one scene. This young woman has a Lauren Bacall, Joan Collins voice that is icy, cool composed, and it’s a tour de force the way she comes undone. Farrell’s Charlotte on stage is the table-setter for the emotional swings you will experience in the rest of the play, and Ms. Farrell delivers. What the audience had seen as amusing is abruptly delivering pain.

Lesson two; Love feels so damn good.

Next, the scene switches from “a play within a play” to a real life Sunday afternoon, when Stanley Wexler as Mr. Boot and Ms. Farrell, as Boot’s wife Charlotte. Boot, filled with the ebullience of a man in love again, has invited Max and his wife, Annie who is an actress in Boot’s new play. Buxom, flamboyant redhead Lorna Whittemore’s entry as Annie is dramatic, and daringly suggestive when Max and Charlotte leave the room.

Ms. Whittemore plays the character as overwhelming and she is in love with Mr. Wexler’s playwright. She shamelessly flirts him in front of his wife just as a woman does when she is strong for you. That teasing sense of conspiracy is sweetly, shockingly done and not easy to play. All the actors stage movements here are realistically choreographed, switching seats, walking around each other, trying to ignore the obvious heat in the room.

It is a scene showing how in the beginnings of love it sweeps you away one day when someone comes into your life and makes you feel so damn good.

Lesson three: Love is pain.

The audience is understanding what is going on here now. From the compulsion of that first physical and personal attraction between Annie and the lovestruck Boot in the Sunday afternoon scene, they are jerked into the next phase. They witness Mr. Marks’ Max emotional confrontation of Annie with evidence of her infidelity with Mr. Boot.

Marks may not have that scene quite right here, but he may be fooling the critic. He’s close. He cries a little too quickly, moves through the scene a little too quickly, not quite the right inflection and pace in his lines, but he is close. Though this may be intentionally the way Marks plays this real life “discovery” scene. He is smooth when “acting” the discovery of the wife in the play in Scene One. But playing Max in real life, when the same thing happens to him he is not as smooth. He is ripped apart and you feel his pain and that is to his credit as an actor.

Stoppard’s play is tricky that way. Maybe that’s the direction here in Max’s part and Stoppard’s message: Plays are so well-acted, but real life, you don’t say your lines as well, because you’re making them up.

Ms. Whittemore delivers Annie’s concern at being found out, of feeling the blood of the relationship spilled for good, the devastation of what she has done to Max . She’s good. She showcases consternation, fidgety body language. You don’t quite know if she’s more unhappy at getting found out, or relieved, a very subtle emotion to show and Ms.Whittemore creates this dichotomy of feeling. (The two main feelings you get when an affair is discovered are guilt and relief.).She plays a very tricky gamut of behavior here. I mean this is dialogue folks, delivered the way it was meant to be with the hesitation, the anxiety of “the real thing.”

Lesson four: Love is a wonderful thing.

In the final scene of Act I, we view a day in Annie and Henry’s blissful first few weeks together, and together they just do this scene solid. From Henry’s above-being jealous attitude that Annie is frustrated at, represented by Henry’s line describing how young people feel about love: (“Love is happiness expressed in banality and lust”); to Annie’s funny flounce as she says, “You’re not jealous,” (a perfectly performed line, by the way), You see the loyalty, the allegiance, that really, really fine feeling that no one else matters.

This couple “works.”

Stanley Wexler and Lorna Whittemore are not Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck, they can act. They act real and represent real people. Ms. Whittemore’s touching rendering of Annie’s all-too-familiar insecurities people who have been in love know about, that Henry is not jealous of her are just so cute. This scene is one of the best played of the night. And the good scenes keep on coming all night from this “stage couple.”

As Intermission arrives, the audience is not quite certain as to what to expect next.

In Act two, we see Annie and Henry two years later. Annie has befriended a soldier jailed for rioting in a demonstration when she and Henry first met. He is in prison and has written a play. She wants Henry to fix it.

Wexler, as Henry, really warms to his character here delivering a hilarious critique of the prisoner’s very bad play. Wexler, who gets all the best lines in this play, rarely loses a punchline to his British accent, something very hard not to do. He slows the punchlines, with the timing of a master comedian. He gives you the appropriate accompanying body emotion writers have, moves that I, as a writer, can assure you are very typical.

The lines Stoppard gives him are priceless “slice-ups” of bad writing. (“It’s not literary and it’s no good.”) (“Writing rotten plays is proof of rehabilitation?”),and his soliloquy about comparing a good play to a cricket bat, is something a good writer will relate to, and the audience found amusing. You’ll begin to loosen up from the emotional endomorphens when you see this scene. Henry sends Annie off to Glasgow to do a show which starts a new cycle

Enter the Supporting Actors

Good words have to be keyboarded in support of the supporting actors. Billy Zane lookalike, Kevin Rishel is in his stage debut as Billy, a young actor. Billy meets Annie on the train and echoes a scene in the prisoner’s “bad play” which Henry is back at home writing.

Rishel has that lovestruck puppy look combined with raw lust that appeals to older women and he shows that off in the scene that starts Annie on an affair with him. Rishel as Billy delivers some intentionally bad Shakespeare to impress her, baring his abs, which he has. Rishel has the seductive look that can set women on the roller coaster ride to affairland, yet captures the one-track mind of the younger lover. Every man can see himself as being like Rischel’s character, and Rischel has him down.

Paging Cyndi Lauper

Bernadette McComish does a cameo star-turn as Debbie, Charlotte and Henry’s daughter, who is about to run away with a rock musician. Ms. McComish delivers a Cyndi Lauper image right out of the “Achin’ 1980s” the time of the play, complete with splayed red hair sprout, holes-in-her stockings punky look, and snotty superiority. Ms. McComish, a very poised and professional young lady in real life, transforms herself into the rebellious young daughter. Farrell as her mom, discusses her first experiences, and Wexler’s Henry intellectually spars with her about what “The Real Thing” is. Wexler accuses Debbie of “building bridges on incomprehension and chaos.” His second soliloquy on words is one of the great appreciations of writing and self-expression, while opening up insights into the love beyond mere sex.

Here again, Wexler as Father, McComish as daughter and Farrell as mom nail it. Every father will identify with Wexler’s delivery and emotion and earnestness and perhaps file it away for future reference.

Just the right edge

Jac-que Robinson as the prisoner playwright, Brodie, appears in the final scene to watch his rewritten play on television. Robinson, a veteran young actor around the county, masters the body positions of a rebel. The audience does not like him. Mr. Robinson has perhaps the worst written part in the play but he makes lemonade with it. Stoppard stopped working when writing these lines, in my opinion, but that is not Mr.Robinson’s problem. In his verbal sparring with Henry, he shows his ingratitude for what Henry has done for him. Robinson’s seething insolence has fire, meanness, and self-pity that’s real. He demonstrates to Annie the realization of how we often go wrong by clinging to romanticized, preconceived notions about others.

Shades of Sheridan Whiteside

If you’re thinking the play is worth going to see for seeing Stanley Wexler, you’re thinking right, Mr. and Mrs. White Plains.

The elegant Stanley Wexler, an opera singer for twenty years is suave, smooth, and pompous as Henry Boot the playwright, but when it comes to his craft, his Henry Boot is uncompromising. He delivers his Henry’s romanticism endearingly and his remarks on 60s music flavor the show. I liked his believable bit on how Bach stole his music from Procal Harem’s Whiter Shade of Pale . (Boot loves music of the 1960s, and songs by The Ronettes, Neil Sedaka, The Everly Brothers, among others serve as segues during the blackout scene changes). The audience loves him more throughout the play.

Wexler’s Henry uncannily finds himself reliving the play scene we have already seen in the first scene of the play, and he and Whittemore’s Annie do it well.

Wexler is distraught when Annie has not returned on the overnight train. In an accelerating, disbelieving manner, he finds himself conducting an eerily similar interrogation of his Annie.

The humor of Wexler’s logical, precise, up-and-down-the-vocal range interrogation of Annie is worthy of Sherlock Holmes. It is funny, but has a sarcastic edge to it. As he discovers his lover’s secret fling, he drives home the somber realization in the audience how slippery is the slope of adultery. It always is found out. Line by line, we see his hurt crack, spread and break out on the stage. The audience sees the playwright experiencing pain of discovery he had written about in the “House of Cards” at the top of the show. Though funny, it, too spills the blood of infidelity that stains a relationship and will not come out.

Wexler, the center of the action most of the time, handles the part of a fastidious and self-important Brit part (first made popular and since duplicated and rewritten many times by the Sheridan Whiteside character in The Man Who Came to Dinner) like a virtuoso in the acted word with range, pitch, articulation never out of pitch, never overacted. A tremendous body of work by Mr. Wexler in this production.

Strong support from the redhead and the blonde.

I have to compliment and give a rose to Ms. Whittemore on her getting the indignation and casualness just right as Annie tries to explain chatting with a friend in Houston Station to Henry. Her flouncing, her defensiveness, the humorous “explain aways” Stoppard (the real author of this play) gives her are just right.

Farrell as Charlotte and Whittemore as Annie, are mirror images in the emotions of women “fancying” and getting found out in the way they play it in body language, voice and inflection.

When Director Carin Zakes told me she had to work with actors individually then in pairs before going to full scenes to get the details right, I now see why. Ms. Zakes has formed a team of a cast which understands the play, is meticulous in detail and every action, who bring out the best in each other. It’s what theatre is all about: being a team, delivering a playwright’s message.

The set was designed by Anthony Fabrizio. Lighting, subtlely setting the scene since there is no curtain (whatever happened to curtains in theatre anyway?), was designed by David Ullman. I especially liked the bringing up of two table lights to begin scenes. The Real Thing was produced by Joan Charischak.

You, Mr. and Mrs. White Plains have two more weekends to catch this show, it’s just going to get better. The emotions will be worked harder. The lines timed even better. The soliloquies more moving, and it’s already good. It runs Fridays March 14 and 21 at 8; Saturdays March 15 and 22nd at 2 and 8. Tickets at $14 and well worth it are available by calling 421-0008.

Seeing this play tells us that “theatre” always lives. It reveals mysteries of life to each of us: writers to actors, actors to audience. The audience takes these guideposts and insights back to their daily lives and just perhaps, plays them better when the moments come along for them in real life if the plays are good. This spirit lives in local community live theatre where they act for fun.



Photo by WPCNR StageDoorCam

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St. Patrick’s Day Parade a Rousing Success and You Are There.

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WPCNR IRISH GAZETTE. March 8, 2003: White Plains’ sixth consective St. Patrick’s Day Parade marched off promptly and crisp clear sunny skies at 12 noon today, and for an hour and 40 minutes, the populace lined Mamaroneck Avenue and Main Street as bagpipers, bands, floats, Brownies, Boy Scouts, hockey players, dance groups and luminaries marched with White Plains Finest and Bravest in a salute to the Irish.



GRAND MARSHALL JOE DAVIDSON & PARADE COMMITEE CHAIR, JOHN MARTIN, turn the corner at Mamaroneck and Main Street today after being preceded by a motorized cavalry of White Plains Finest at the sixth consecutive White Plains Saint Patrick’s Day Parade.
Photos by WPCNR ParadeCam



WESTCHESTER COUNTY EXECUTIVE ANDY SPANO(L) AND WHITE PLAINS MAYOR JOSEPH DELFINO, lead the Common Council of White Plains and other dignataries to the City Hall Reviewing Stand.
Photos by WPCNR ParadeCam


CITY AND COUNTY DIGNATARIES REVIEW THE MARCHERS on the steps of City Hall. Mayor Delfino is in the white sweater. To the Mayor’s left is George Latimer, County Legislator. In the brown hat is Councilman Robert Greer. The second from the left of the Mayor is Councilman Glen Hockley, and to left of Mr. Hockley is Common Council President, Benjamin Boykin. At the far left of the picture, partially hidden is Councilman Tom Roach. Also on the stand in the green cap, behind the Mayor is County Legislator William Ryan.
Photo by WPCNR ParadeCam



MOTORIZED CALVARY OF WHITE PLAINS FINEST SIRENS WAILING turn the corner down Main Street heading up the parade.
Photo by WPCNR ParadeCam



THE GREEN BERETS, THE WHITE PLAINS PROFESSIONAL FIREFIGHTERS salute the reviewing stand at City Hall.
Photo by WPCNR ParadeCam



SHADES OF COUNTY CLAIR: The young ladies of O’Rourke Academy of Irish Dance cut a fine jig for the City Fathers.
Photo by WPCNR ParadeCam



PTAS, BOY SCOUTS, GIRL SCOUTS celebrated the great green day. Here George Washington Elementary School PTA, Brownies and Cub Scouts parade past the Grand Stand.
Photo by WPCNR ParadeCam

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Witt Explains:Chides Media, Public Focus on Terror; Regrets Plume Gaffe

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WPCNR County Clarion-Ledger. Excerpted from Final Witt Report. March 8, 2003: James Lee Witt Associates has included a special Appendix to its Final Witt Report released Friday that scolds the conclusions being reached by the public and the media and their focus on the terrorist aspects of their report.

In brief, the appendix admits that faster and larger releases based on terrorism was something they did not mean to imply, but did. The statement speculates new scenarios that could hamper the evacuation plans. It says the present evacuation plans should be used, but improved. It clarifies and corrects the impression given by their Draft Report and admits Indian Point is in full compliance with NRC and FEMA requirements.

Witt’s men question nuclear experts wanting to hold Witt Associates to a scientific standard of proof and imply nuclear people criticising the report, do not have their (Witt) expertise in emergency management. They say closing the plant would not remove the need to protect the plant. The statement adds that they were not supposed to evaluate the possibility of a radioactive release to the public as part of their job. Here is that appendix, as it was released to the media Friday afternoon:
Issues with which we agree, but did not emphasize or clarify sufficiently in the draft.

JLWA is aware of the public and political reactions that have resulted from the issuance of the draft report. The issuance of the draft for public comment is evidence of our concern that our report not be used in a way that would mislead or misinform the public. We are also concerned about possible misrepresentation of the report. As a consequence we feel it both necessary and appropriate to emphasize some issues we may not have accentuated or clarified sufficiently in the draft.

1. Closing Indian Point would not remove the need for improvements in emergency preparedness. We believe most people recognize that closing the plant would not remove the source of radiation and that special provisions for the protection of people, common to all nuclear plants, would need to remain in place. We are concerned that decision makers and the general public not lose sight of the need to make improvements. This will require federal, state, local, business and citizen support, including financial support, as those responsible struggle with some very difficult issues.

It is possible that visible improvements would be of value in raising public confidence about the degree of protection available, and that that enhanced public confidence may result in behaviors that improve the effectiveness of a response.

2. The existing plans should be followed during an emergency. Our intent was not to discredit the plans, but to improve them. Our experience leads us to believe public safety is enhanced by adherence to the recommendations of public authorities charged with the protection of public safety. Those authorities should use the plans they have, adjusting them according to circumstances and their best judgment. A plan should be viewed as a living document that is constantly evolving and being improved.

3. The media and others are focusing on the terrorist threat to the plant itself. We have not focused on any possible threats to the plant. The draft report identified a variety of significant issues that need to be addressed, regardless of a terrorist threat. We are concerned that the issues that exist independent of a possible terrorist threat are not getting the attention they deserve.

4. Both Millstone and Indian Point meet current NRC and FEMA standards. The NRC has stated as recently as November 18, 2002, that FEMA’s preliminary assessment of the capabilities of, and compliance by, the State and its jurisdictions, based on the September 24, 2002 exercise, indicates the off-site emergency plans are adequate to protect public health and safety. Although we may come to different conclusions regarding adequacy apart from the standards, and believe NRC and FEMA requirements need revision, we recognize that those requirements are the product of many years of serious thought and strenuous effort dedicated to the public well-being.

Related to this issue is the high standard to which we hold ourselves. In other words, is there anything short of perfection that will satisfy us? We neither expect nor require perfection in a plan. We note in the draft that disaster experience shows how people can rise to an occasion, how responses can be effective in spite of defective plans, and how plans for one event can be used for other events.

Nevertheless, we have not seen a plan that had no room for improvement, and our task was, in part, to recommend improvements whether or not the plans met current requirements. In so doing we needed some standard to measure the effectiveness of protective measures. We used the EPA Protective Action Guideline as the one most applicable, recognized and defensible. The result of these considerations and our review was a set of recommendations that do involve a high standard of protection. We do not consider that standard impossible or unreasonable, but readily recognize that some in our profession may disagree.

5. There are some unique aspects of terrorism that off-site planning and exercising should address. There may be some planning and response considerations that are not addressed in “tried and true” planning and exercising. For example, there may be impacts on the thinking, emotions and reactions of the population and responders when the report of an accident says “radiological release” and “terrorism” in the same sentence. Although we do not know for certain what those impacts are, they should not be ignored using the argument that the off-site response to a terrorist-induced event would be the same as the response to any other event.

Another example is an incident that involves multiple, nearly simultaneous obstruction of evacuation routes in addition to those that would occur in a “normal” evacuation. Because these obstructions can be assumed to be deliberately designed to cause disruption, they may also be more difficult to address than normal traffic problems.

Another example would be actions that target responders.

An additional question that needs to be explored is whether there would be higher levels of convergence (arrival of people into the area) in a terrorist event than has already been documented for radiological events such as Three Mile Island. We expect, too, that spontaneous evacuation may be more of a problem than it would be in a non-terrorist event.

The bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995 demonstrated how the presence of a crime scene significantly changes the communications and coordination aspects of a disaster response. Those who are responding to a terrorist assault are no longer available for normal event law enforcement activities, such as the safe evacuation of the affected populace.

In the response to a terrorist event at Indian Point or Millstone, it may well be that news media, law enforcement and/or others reduce the degree of control over the content and timing of information that the plant authorities would otherwise have. Agencies, such as the FBI, will likely insist on involvement in both on-site and off-site activities in ways not contemplated in existing plans and exercises.

6. We attempted to take no position on whether a terrorist act could cause a faster or larger release. On page 240 we stated, “When considered together, however, it is our conclusion that the current radiological response system and capabilities are not adequate to overcome their combined weight and protect the people from an unacceptable dose of radiation in the event of a release from Indian Point, especially if the release is faster or larger than the typical REP exercise scenario (often called “design-basis release”) (emphasis added). On page viii of the Executive Summary, we shortened the highlighted phrase to “… especially if the release is faster or larger than the design-basis release.” We considered these to be equivalent statements. Nevertheless the phrase in the Executive Summary caused confusion, and charges that we assert a terrorist attack can result in a faster and/or larger release, an issue upon which we intended to take no position. Consequently, we have changed the wording in the Executive Summary.

7. We were asked to provide our observations and recommendations as experts in the field of Emergency Management. We did not attempt to adjudicate disputes among scientists, such as the probabilities of a release. We disclaimed such intentions on page 19 of the draft. Nevertheless, some have attempted to discredit us and the draft on the basis that it is not scientific.

We are confident that our emergency management credentials qualify us to present our findings, conclusions and recommendations. We would suggest that nuclear engineers and others who take us to task for inadequate scientific rigor in what we say about emergency management might first consider their own qualifications in our field. They are entitled to disagree, as might some of our colleagues in emergency management, but they should not scorn our findings, conclusions and recommendations on the grounds that they lack scientific demonstrability.

8. Emergency management is not the only issue involved in the debate about nuclear power plants. We made it clear in the draft that alternate sources of energy and economic considerations are important, even though we were not asked to address them. Most public enterprises involve some degree of risk. Although we have questioned the degree to which the public is protected in the event of a release, we have not addressed the degree of risk people are willing to accept in exchange for benefits they receive, which is another legitimate aspect of the debate.

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Witt-Lashed: Final Witt Report Concedes Error in Terror Event Impact

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WPCNR COUNTY CLARION-LEDGER. By John F. Bailey. Updated 4:00 PM E.S.T. March 7, 2003: WPCNR has learned that the Final Witt Report on the Indian Point Emergency Plans concedes that Witt Associates made a major mistake in saying the Indian Point plans do not take into account the effects of a “fast-moving” terrorist event. The Report, due to be released today admits that a plume released during a terrorist event would travel no faster and reach residents no more rapidly, than a non-terrorist-caused plume leak. This assumption was a major contention of the first Draft Witt Report, repeated many times. However, in the Final Report, Witt admits they only assumed a larger release because people thought there could be a larger release, not because it was factually possible.

In a statement just received, the Witt Associates organization affirms that Indian Point is operating in conformance with all NRC guidelines, and even if the plants were closed, there would still be need for changes in the evacuation plan. The organization also says its opinions should not have to conform to science to be valid.

This information, comes from a source who reports that the Final Witt Report has been leaked to The New York Times in advance apparently of other media, and is where he got his information. When asked by WPCNR for a copy, since the New York Times has one, Witt Associates said it would be on the website this afternoon. br>
The Final Report says, according to the Times article, “few changes in the draft were required due to factual errors,” and that, “We make no assertions that a terrorist attack would cause a faster or larger release.”

Really?

The draft report is filled with the images of larger releases and how they could affect evacuation, and “what ifs?”

On page 19 of the draft version of the Witt Report in Chapter Three, The Witt Team wrote:

“There may be significant differences in the release characteristics that will drive the type of response required. The most obvious difference is the amount of time available for response. Many accidental release scenarios acknowledge that some amount of warning would be given to the licensee and therefore the surrounding public before any radiation escaped the containment area. Accidental events would tend to progress more slowly due to numerous redundent safety systems that fail one after another (sequentially). Radiological emergency preparedness exercise scenarios at Indian Point have traditionally used a scenario that progresses in this fashion. Various stakeholders (persons Witt interviewed) have postulated accident scenarios (for example terrorist-or sabotage-initiated events) that would progress more rapidly. In such cases, the length of forewarning would be reduced considerably with potential impact on the success of protective action measures. The point here is not to debate the credibility of such rapid escalation scenarios. Rather it is to highlight the protection impact if one occurred and ask the question “Has such an impact even been considered in planning?”

Final Report Says We Never Said That.

FEMA objected strongly to this contention of the Witt team implying with paragraphs like this that a release will travel more quickly if terrorists cause it. FEMA in their critique criticised Witt’s experts scathingly for taking as fact what “stakeholders” postulated and giving it credibility by speculating what havoc it would cause if speculated scenarios occurred. This paragraph, quoted referring to stakeholder’s theories, is Witt’s defense of considering the larger release scenario so extensively in their Final Report.

The Final Report admits, without saying it, that they gave credibility to a larger quicker release, because officials thought that it was theoretically possible. Who those officials were, WPCNR has to read the report to find out.

A spokesperson for Witt Associates said the Final Report is to be released this afternoon and will be available on the company’s website at www.wittassociates.com.

Witt Associates Findings: Opinions Do Not Have to Agree With Science.

An official news release from Witt Associates remarks the following as their final findings and reaction to the storm of criticism from FEMA:

· Closing the plants would not remove the need for improvements in emergency preparedness.

· The existing plans should be followed during an emergency. Our intent was not to discredit the plans, but to improve them.

· While much of the public debate has recently been focused on terrorism, almost all of the inadequacies that we pointed out would exist without the terrorist threat, and should be addressed.

· The plants and those with responsibility to protect the population in the adjacent communities meet current NRC and FEMA regulatory requirements. FEMA and NRC regulations are in need of review, however.

· There are unique aspects of a terrorist caused incident that should be considered in planning and exercising.

· We were asked to provide our observations and recommendations as experts in the field of Emergency Management. Some have attempted to discredit us and the draft on the basis that it is not scientific. We do not agree that our observations and conclusions lack validity unless they can be confirmed by science, or a search of the academic literature.

Our source remarks the Witt team stands by its assessments of the evacuation plans, but the report admits that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was correct in pointing out that a terrorist-event would be handled no differently than any plume release, because the plume would move at the same speed. Whether or not the 135 other errors FEMA experts identified in the report have been corrected remains to be seen. (For a partial documentation of those errors see the exclusive WPCNR story, headlined “Witt-Washed.”)

Errors Do Not Affect the Conclusion.

James Witt defends his report, in The Final Report by dismissing the over 135 other errors of fact in the draft report in this manner:

“The comments that addressed major, substantive issues were not sufficiently compelling that the draft’s major findings, conclusions, and recommendations needed to be changed in the final report.”

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Council Mulls a Not So Grand Cappelli-Bland; Webb Productions Presents

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WPCNR COMMON COUNCIL CHRONICLE-EXAMINER. March 6, 2003: The Common Council had Louis Cappelli and Frederick Bland visit Wednesday evening and saw models of how a lower, not as grand- Cappelli-Bland Hotel would fit into the city landscape. The city’s theatre consultant presented his preliminary business study for the city’s Performing Arts Center being created in the Cappelli City Center.



SPELLBOUND by Duncan Webb’s numbers, the White Plains Common Council, from clockwise upper left: Rita Malmud, Tom Roach, Mayor Joseph Delfino, Robert Greer, Benjamin Boykin, and Glen Hockley, minus William King (who did not attend the meeting), takes in the show Thursday evening. Webb presented numbers and managerial strategies for the Performing Arts Center. His complete study is promised to be available “within a few days” according to George Gretsas, Executive Officer.
Photo by WPCNR ArtsCam


According to Jim Benerofe who observed this portion of the meeting, Mr. Bland and Mr. Cappelli presented model aspects of a 23-story hotel, using a model of the downtown. Bland made the point that one has to have significant “caps” on these buildings, and noted to the council how lowering the heights of hotel building reduced its attractiveness and appeal.

Theatre Previews

Duncan Webb of Webb Services Management Corporation, presented a 50-slide audio-visual show outlining how his organization saw the White Plains Performing Arts Center operations coming together.



NEXT ATTRACTION: Duncan Webb said that his company had identified 15 managing organizations, both local and out of the area, who might be interested in operating the theatre for the City and he expected half of them to apply to run the theatre once the city’s Request for Proposal is published.
Photo by WPCNR News,


Webb told WPCNR that at this stage his company has not identified the ratio of professional entertainment events to community amateur groups in the theatre’s programming mix. He said that that was an issue for the city to consider once the theatre managing company has been selected.



WP PERFMORMING ARTS CENTER BY THE NUMBERS: Webb’s proposed business plan envisaged six full time employees plus a theatre manager. His proposal presented vast statistics indicating the theatre would draw upwards to $1,000,000 ($740,000) in spending in the White Plains area that would be generated by Performing Arts Center patrons.
Photo by WPCNR News


Webb anticipated a Friends of the Performing Arts Center Foundation to aid in generating fundraising to endow the theatre, and a Community Board to approve the programming directions of the theatre management organization.

Webb said that one of the constraints on local groups using the theatre was limited rehearsal time, saying that they would have at best 1 or 2 days before performances scheduled there.

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School District Cuts Budget $1MM to $135.2MM, up 6.6%, 7.9% Tax Increase

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WPCNR SCHOOL DAYS. By John F. Bailey. March 6, 2003: The Annual Budget Committee wrapped up its work last night at Education House with Superintendent of Schools Timothy Connors and Assistant Superintent for Business, Richard Lasselle presenting a tentative budget of $135,258,258 for the school year 2003-04.

This is most likely the budget that will be presented to the public on Monday March 24 at 7:30 (at Education House, 5 Homeside Lane) in the first official 2003 Public Hearing on the budget. It reflects an additional $990,000 in cuts taking the budget down from the $136.2 Million level presented February 12.

Superintendent Connors said the budget reflected good suggestions by the citizen-based budget committee reflecting the concerns of the community. Richard Lasselle said the process of having 30 persons from the city review the budget with the district worked very well this year in giving the Board and the District direction as to how the community would accept initiatives as well as specific cuts.

Savings on Teacher Positions, Fuel, and Figure Massage

The major cuts were made from the February 12 budget were the elimination of 1 new teacher at the high school and 2 new teaching positions in the Middle Schools, saving $217,500; cutting the substitute teacher budget $100,000; recalculating fringe benefits costs saved $524,200; and $100,000 in fuel savings by taking back the purchase of fuel from the White Plains Bus Company (which needs to be approved by the Board of Education); maintenance was reduced $200,000; reallocation of Special Education student evaluations to grants saved $95,506; copier rentals were reduced $21,055; the field trip initiative, Summer School program allocation and curriculum & staff development were each reduced $20,000.

These cuts were impacted by having to add $200,000 in expected increased utilities costs, and $230,400 in line-by-line salary projections. A total of $990,125 in cuts lowered the total of the budget to $135,258,258.

Very spare in New Initiatives

The cost to maintain all programs from 2002-03 in the coming year is $134,652,964, according to papers released to the Budget Committee last night, and to that the School District has retained $605,294 in “New Initiatives.”
Half of this figure is invested in preserving Pre-K-Experimental Kindergarten and Pre-K Universal programs, that account for $292,894 which previously had been paid by New York State. The ABC Committee strongly supported keeping this program. The balance of new initiatives are 2 new positions accounting for $145,000, $20,000 for maps and globes, and $100,000 for Enrichment Programs after school and in Summer School to upgrade academic performances of elementary school students who need more remediation.

7.9% School Tax Increase

As the budget sits on $135,258,258, the city School Tax would rise 7.9%. According to the School District this would cost the homeowner of a house assessed at $15,000, an additional $389. Such a home paid a school tax of $4,898 in 2002-03, and the total School Tax would go up to $5,287 in 2003-04, according to figures provided by the School District.

If the home would enjoy a STAR exemption (capped at $1,550) the tax would be $3,737.
Contingency Budget Introduced

The District introduced the Contingency Budget which is the budget the School District would have to cut back to if the voters do not pass the proposed school budget.

The contingency budget would cut an additional $5,459,483 out of the proposed budget, lowering it to $129,798,775.

State Aid Assumed Static

Richard Lasselle told WPCNR that one of the advantages of not having a lot of state aid in past years, is that the district has not had to rely on it as much, making the district budget increases this year substantially less than other school districts.

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