Westchester District Attorney Mimi Rocah Newsletter

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Wednesday, March 2, 2022 Mount Vernon Man Sentenced for Violent Sexual Assault The incident took place in a secluded area in Mount Vernon.Hasarn Myke used a knife to remove the victim’s clothing, sexually assaulted her & stabbed her in the face. He then forced her to walk naked at knifepoint toward his home. Read more »

Westchester Launches Opioid Response & Overdose Prevention Initiative (ORI)ORI was formed in response to a rise in overdoses & overdose deaths.The Initiative, launched with key stakeholders & law enforcement throughout Westchester County, will prevent overdose deaths, help people struggling with addiction & target those who perpetuate the opioid crisis. Read more »

Somers Resident Guilty in Fatal Drunk Driving CrashThe wrong-way, head-on collision killed an Ardsley man & teenager.Before the fatal collision, Jaime Paucar crashed into one vehicle & fled the scene. He then used the exit ramp to enter I-287 & sideswiped three additional vehicles before the final crash. Read more »

WCDAO, Moms Demand Action Host Gun Safety Forum The joint training session was part of the DA’s Safe Storage Program.The “Be SMART” training educated Westchester County parents & caretakers on safe firearms storage practices & ways to curb gun violence, prevent shootings by children & reduce the number of child gun deaths. Read more »

Family Arraigned in COVID Fraud Nursing Home Case The investigation was handled in collaboration with the NYS Department of Health.A mother, who is a nurse, & her two daughters were each charged for providing fraudulent COVID-19 Vaccination Record Cards to maintain & obtain employment at a Croton-on-Hudson nursing home. Read more »  

ADA Laura Murphy Receives Prestigious Morgenthau Award Murphy received the award from the District Attorneys Association of New York.Murphy was recognized for her professional accomplishments & exemplifying honesty, integrity & commitment to the fair & ethical administration of justice during her 34-year career with the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office. Read more »
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GEDNEY ASSOCIATION (SOUTHEND STAKEHOLDER) ARTICULATES VISION FOR WHITE PLAINS NY USA

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WPCNR THE LETTER TICKER. From Gedney Association March 2, 2022:

The City of White Plains is requesting your input for the Comprehensive Plan Update!

Please visit ONE White Plains and click on Participate.

Here you can review the Draft Vision Statement and Planning Goals that were based on feedback collected during Phase I of the Plan update. Participants can add comments and give a thumbs up or down to comments left by other participants.

Outlined below is the Vision Statement of the Board. The Gedney Association along with White Plains Council of Neighborhood Associations continue to urge the Common Council to reestablish the Committee Structure that was used in 1998, and institute a rezoning moratorium during the Comprehensive planning process.

Please email us with any questions.

The Gedney Association  
Comprehensive Plan Process Recommendations: 

Reestablish Committee Structure used in 1998 Update;Committees of a minimum of 8-10 persons focusing on a specific area;Committees shall report to a Management Committee;Management Committee shall summarize recommendations flowing from each Committee and report to Common Council;Initiate a Moratorium on any rezonings until completion of Plan update. 

Gedney Farms Vision Statement


Pertaining to Gedney Farms:

Preservation of low-density single-family zoning;Preservation of historic character of Gedney Farms;Encourage Open Space Preservation;Protection of Area Watercourses and Wetlands resources;Preserve natural areas that provide flood protection;Reduce cut-through traffic;Preserve R-30 single family zoning on golf course properties;Consider and manage flood risk; analyze properties at risk such as former FASNY property and other areas such as Gedney Park Drive.

Pertaining to South End of City:Protect low-density single-family zoning;Prohibit cut-through traffic on local streets;Prohibit multi-family apartments on existing low-density office parks;Limit retail to community related needs and limit to existing local retail centers;Maintain requisite fire and police services and consider future needs.

Pertaining to City-Wide Issues:

Protect the delicate balance between Downtown and surrounding single-family neighborhoods;Consider impacts and limits on City Infrastructure (i.e. schools, sewers, roads, traffic congestion, fire & police services and parks and recreation services;Return to lower height restrictions of residential and office properties in Downtown zoning;Limit multi-family housing to Downtown;Assess the decreasing role of retail facilities Downtown;An Open Space Plan should be a key component of a revised Master Plan;Examine the decline and changes of the office market downtown.
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WALKING BACK COVID FOR GOOD

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THE MASKLIFT AHEAD: WESTCHESTER HAS LOWEST COVID POSITIVES IN WEEK IN 8 MONTHS—597 FROM  FEB 20 TO 27, 85 NEW PERSONS TESTING POSITIVE A DAY. 1,208 NEW CASES TWO WEEKS AGO INFECTED  597 PEOPLE LAST WEEK, 50% Spread Rate

WPCNR CORONA VIRUS MONITOR. From the New York State Covid Tracker and School Covid Case Report. Analysis and Commentary by John F. Bailey:

8 MONTHS AGO–55 Positives in Westchester on July 17, 2021

Westchester County had its most effective week in containing covid since the week of July 11 to 17  when just after Westchester began its resurgence of Covid’s second wave that built in a huge December surge in cases with masking in place.

WPCNR COVIDSTOPPERS NOTEBOOK; WESTCHESTER SATURDAY
REPORTED 55 CASES OF COVID MID-HUDSON REGION REPORTED
129 CASES FOR ALL 7 COUNTIES. 9 COUNTIES SURROUNDING NYC
REPORTED 280 CASES COMPARED TO NEW YORK CITY’S 362.

The Saturday covid figure for Westchester County in yesterday from the state recorded 55 new persons testing positive bringing the total for the week of February 20 to 27 to 597 new cases or  85 new cases a day.

WPCNR COVID LOGBOOK FOR FEBRUARY.
STEADY EROSION OF NEW COVID CASES FOR 4 WEEK
FROM 172 A DAY DOWN TO 85 A DAY LAST WEEK

When you look at the infections two weeks ago from February 6 to 12 there were 1,208 persons in Westchester County who tested positive, who two weeks later have spread the virus to  597 other people. This means positives in the last two weeks spread the disease to 50% more people (597 divided by 1,208 is .49 –50% each infecting half a person).

The hospitalizations reported yesterday by County Executive George Latimer as of Monday was 85 down from  677 a month ago. So this tells us people may be getting infected with covid but getting less sick.

Now the one factor that schools opening tomorrow without a state-required masking mandate have to be wary of is how many students will be sent back to school not wearing masks. Or those with masks, not keeping them in place correctly.

In the case of the White Plains Schools we have track record provided by the State School Covid Report. (Similar records are available for every school district. ) They are instructive.

According to the February 28 State Schools Covid Report White Plains schools saw 1,738 students, teachers and administrators–  22% of  the district 7,964 universe of 6,792 students, 699 teachers and 473 staff  employees since September when students, teachers administrators were masked, socially distancing, teachers, administrators 80% vaccinated or more, In 6 months of school in a highly covid-protective environment, you had 1,738 covid positives or 289 a month, 72 a week.

The number of students testing positive in 6 months through February 28 is 1,412 of 6,792 (21%). A total of 985 elementary students tested positive. In Middle School, 173 tested positive and in the high school, 254.

Teachers who tested positive numbered 179. Staff testing positive totaled 147.

What that tells us is that masking did a lot to limit infections, but still infections persisted.  It might be argued that there might have been a lot more if there was no masking;

Going ahead, Superintendent of Schools Joseph Ricca and the school reopening committee have to decide if they can without violating state directives whatever they may be, what protocols to keep according to Department of Health regulations.

Testing, for example there has to be a lot more to see the effects of the socialization the next 6 weeks of socializing March, 4 full weeks of school to see whether or not infections are on the upswing quickly or confirm that spread of the disease is at least even with the present rate. The schools in White Plains will have to test more The school only tested 66 Monday.

The 22% infections over the first 6 months even in a community-supportive environment indicates this  policy of masklifting by the state is a gamble to please the public and do what so many parents want. It has not worked in the last 4 waves.

The last time the leaders in Albany and the then governor opened this up, covid started up again in July and has not let up even with masking.

Westchester has covid at low tide again.

The White Plains School District has made masks “optional.”  The schools will respect parents’ decisions on whether to send their students in with masks or without.

Human behavior is the key to keeping covid where it is and continue its decline.

If we do not behave responsibly in the way we recreate, socialize, shop, eat out, attend events, and celebrate in this spring socializing season coming up a 5th wave will happen. That’s the history of this Red Plague.

Westchester has stopped covid four times, each time relaxing and letting Covid come back again. Let us keep it stopped with responsible behavior.

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COUNTY EXECUTIVE LATIMER ON THE GREAT “MASKLIFT”: NO COUNTY MANDATES FORESEEN IN IMMEDIATE FUTURE. MASKS ARE NOT REQUIRED FOR CHILDREN BUT ARE STILL REQUIRED IN HOSPITALS AND NURSING HOMES AND COUNTY MASS TRANSIT.

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COUNTY EXECUTIVE GEORGE LATIMER TODAY ON THE STATE OF COVID IN WESTCHESTER COUNTY: GOOD! MASKS LIFTED FOR SCHOOLS, VERY LOW INFECTION RATE (1.7%) , HOSPITALIZATIONS AT 85 HEADING INTO RETURN TO SCHOOLS WITHOUT MASKS REQUIRED.
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FLASH! “THE MASKLIFT” MASKING ON BUSES, IN WP SCHOOLS “OPTIONAL” WEDNESDAY IN WHITE PLAINS.

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WPCNR SCHOOL DAYS. From Dr. Joseph Ricca, White Plains Superintendent of Schools. February 28, 2022 UPDATED WITH GOVERNOR HOCHUL “MASKLIFT” STATEMENT:

As a brief update, we are told to expect detailed guidance from the NYS Department of Health pertaining to COVID-19 mitigation and health/safety requirements within the next 48 hours or so.

While we know that masking in schools (and on district transportation) will become optional on Wednesday, there are still outstanding questions pertaining to the other mitigation strategies that run concurrently with masking.

(Editor’s Note: ) Governor Hochul annnounced the Masklift Sunday afternoon in this news release: “Today we are going to be announcing that we’ll be lifting the statewide mask requirement in schools, and that’ll be effective this Wednesday, March 2 

This came out at the end of the day, Friday, we took the entire weekend to work with our Department of Health and our team here at the Chamber, as well as reaching out to the teachers, the PTAs, talking to school superintendents, and even our Commissioner of Education, Betty Rosa, who’s been embedded in this issue with us and what an amazing partner she has been.” 

“We’re at our lowest point in pediatric cases since July of 2021, and that was before the school year started. So this has been our trend over the school year. So as you can all see, looking at the data and the evidence that we follow, that we are in a much, much better place.” )

(Dr. Ricca’s statement continues:) It is our understanding that these items will be addressed in the forthcoming guidance update. Once we receive this information, we will be sure to share the same with you.

Additionally, our Reopening Committee will meet this Wednesday to review all recommended changes from the NYSDoH. As always, we will share the recording of this next meeting with our community.

Throughout the pandemic, the WPCSD has worked hard to support all members of our community. We will continue our support efforts moving into the future. We recognize and respect that every member of our community is unique and that feelings and comfort levels with regard to the pandemic differ.

We recognize, and respect, that members of our community will choose to employ personal mitigation strategies, such as masking, into the future.

We as a community will respect all decisions and support all members of the community, masked, or not. We must also make certain that this level of community respect is mirrored in our school environments. Regardless of each individual’s decision to wear a mask, or not, all must be respected.

Thank you, as always, for your continued support and flexibility as we begin to navigate this next phase of the pandemic.

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WESTCHESTER COVID CONTAINMENT CONTINUES

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WPCNR COVID MONITOR. From the NYS Covid Tracker. Analysis by John F. Bailey. February 28, 2022:

The only good news I have for you this morning is that Westchester County continues to walk back covid numbers to the under 100 per day level seen in mid-July, eight months ago.

Through 6 days, Sunday February 20 through Friday February 25, Westchester was reported by the state as finding 542 new persons coming down with Covid for the week, 90 per day, with 70 persons testing positive Friday. The Saturday figures completing the week should be out this afternoon.

Across the 7-County Mid Hudson region including Westchester, Orange, Dutchess, Ulster, Rockland, Putnam, and Sullivan Counties, approximately 1,363 persons were founded to be tested positive. Nassau and Suffolk Counties continued to average over 100 cases per day.

In comparison with New York City 5 boroughs, the 9 Counties surrounding New York City reported 362 new cases of covid, compared to New York boroughs total of 681.

Now the New York metropolitan area returns to normal at the conclusion of the winter school vacation, and resumption of socializing and 4 full weeks of school in March.

Below are the totals for Friday as well as the 15 most covid active areas in Westchester County as of Thursday.

WPCNR COVID STOPPERS NOTEBOOK
15 Westchester Areas with most covid Positives.
Daily new cases rates going down.
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IT’S NOT WHAT THEY SAY. IT’S WHAT THEY DO.

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IT IS ALMOST 100 YEARS SINCE THE BEER HALL PUTSCH

WPCNR The Sunday Bailey. News & Comment by John F. Bailey. February 27, 2022:

There are 10 months to go before the November Mid-Term elections.

The Republican Party is counting its flipped seats already. They are licking their chops.

They see incredible power almost assured by congressional majorities and more winners across the country. In three years they see a clear way to return of their peerless leader to the White House.

The country is on edge over what policies and actions will capture the voters’ whimsy, desires and wishes.

Liberals, Conservatives, Centrists, Nazis, Freedom Convoy Drivers, Rights Advocates, fake news commentators and commentators with the brains to know better, anti vaxers, pro-vaxers, no-mask people and mask advocates, So much anger and venom.

What will stop the Republican Party from taking back both houses of congress? Democrats are wringing their hands over the Republican poll numbers. The American Oligarchs funding the pro-white surge, the anti-immigrant, anti-Black, white wealthiests restoration of rule are directing Midas donations to take back Washington.

What promises can be made to prevent the fat cats from taking back congress and restoring the First American Reich?

How can the Biden presidency be saved? It won’t be saved if the Democratic Party does not start thinking.

How can Donald Trump be prevented from coming back to office from his January 6  Capitol Hill Putsch, after four years in exile, to restore  the Trump rule of indifference to what is right and wrong?

I have read so many columns on what the Democrats have to do. How Biden has to be this, has to be that. How the nation has to change. How the mindset of grumbling Americans has to change and be more loving and not hating.

All the reams of columns will not do a bit of good. Certainly not this one because they have to change their whole mindset.

As any baseball fan knows, if you use the same lineup and strategies with your team each year without changing the lineup, bringing in better players, instead of the same losers who are losing for you this year, you will have another losing season. (Unless you cancel the season over money).)

Let us look at the reality of politics for hundreds of years:

American Politicians are created by party leaders who try and find appealing, right(or left) (or centrist), or just the right race balance  to maintain what they believe is the right image and traditional message that has worked over the years. 

The overriding influence of selecting and grooming new party members is not achievement it is the ability to play well in the sandbox.

I propose a new way of building the Democratic and Republican Parties. Look for people with integrity, concern, empathy, and commitment to what has to be done. That would be a switch.

Do not look at possible members of the party as having prominence in the community, or well-heeled who can contribute money, listen not to what they say, but

 Look at what they do.

Are they good at their profession? Are their employees loyal? Are they upstanding family people? Have they persevered  up from poverty and prospered honestly (I know that is a tall order for a politician), do they work well with minorities? Do they do more for a party than make calls at election day? Find persons who are not always from legal or financial professions who tend to be pragmatic and “winning” oriented, and not always in favor of what is right, but more in the self-interest of their business or clients.

Look at what they have done.

Scout them like a baseball player. Does he or she work hard at every facet and involvement their field is in?  Do they improve? Do they care about how they achieve success? Are they fair? Are they morally upstanding? Are they honest?

(That’s tough for politicians to be—honest–—just look at congressional gutless performance this first Biden year—the nation needs another infrastructure bill—the nation needs a voting rights protection law—do they vote them? No! They instead make excuses.  You know who you were.  The result congress is creating a post-Civil War ‘new Jim Crow’ suppression of the vote going on across the nation. They weren’t honest or for the right. They were for themselves by not voting those bills.)

I would like the Campaign for America as I am going to call it this year) and the parties that will be speaking to you to concentrate more directly and picking heroes not “Yes People” to come to vote for heroes not promise mongers.

Parties need to deliver heroes  and heroines who formulate their own policies not listen to political voices of past campaigns who to try and sell the same stuff. And not cave in on principle.

If we had more heroes and heroines running this year I would run a campaign exploring who was the candidate to do what has to be done to get all America moving because he and she has a record of doing it.

Examine actual performance to show the voter- suppressers have hurt their states. Talk how the anti abortion efforts have been supported by efforts to enhance sex and burth control (they never do that enough) go for their record and what you would do that would work out better for all.

I’d like to see locally parties that will not fail to nominate persons to run again because they want another person to run because they do  not like how a person performed in his present term. This has happened a lot in the last 22 years of White Plains CitizeNetReporter covering politics:

Arnold Bernstein, Glen Hockley, Bill King, John Kirkpatrick. All those councilpeople were elected by the voters and never had a chance to let the voters decide because the party failed to renominate them. Some attempted third party and other party attempts to run, but failed. This practice is totally undemocratic no matter what party does it.

Up in Albany and Washington, Senators and Assemblypersons and Congresspersons have also staged coups without bloodshed, ousting Eliot Spitzer, Al Franken, Andrew Cuomo for alleged harassment  and no conviction, just hearsay..

Gerrymandering: The Democrats who are complaining bitterly about the redrawing of districts across red states to create white majority districts, here in Westchester they have done the same thing creating majority white districts out of two districts  with freshman black incumbents. So much for the Democratic Party in the state being pro minority.

Now if the Democrats or the Republicans cannot improve the quality of personnel they offer the voters  the Campaign for America will be won by the loudest voices, the politicians who promise the triumph of the will of the people, and character assassination, Biden-baiting and the same old cries of “Do-nothing Democrats.”

People vote for persons because they believe in them, maybe for the wrong reasons, but they believe it anyway.

To get them to believe in you have to fight the lies with the truth which unfortunately neither party does well – and present persons who are more believable than their party’s dismal performance.

I close with a warning. This year, 99 years ago Adolf Hitler staged his Munich Beer Hall Putsch. It should have been the end of this man. But it was the beginning. Let me give you Wikipedia’s recap of the Adolph Hitler Putsch:

The Beer Hall Putsch, also known as the Munich Putsch,[1][note 1] was a failed coup d’état by Nazi Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP) leader Adolf HitlerGeneralquartiermeister Erich Ludendorff and other Kampfbund leaders in MunichBavaria, on 8–9 November 1923, during the Weimar Republic. Approximately two thousand Nazis marched on the Feldherrnhalle, in the city centre, but were confronted by a police cordon, which resulted in the deaths of 16 Nazi Party members and four police officers.[2]

Hitler, who was wounded during the clash, escaped immediate arrest and was spirited off to safety in the countryside. After two days, he was arrested and charged with treason.[3]

The putsch brought Hitler to the attention of the German nation for the first time and generated front-page headlines in newspapers around the world. His arrest was followed by a 24-day trial, which was widely publicised and gave him a platform to express his nationalist sentiments to the nation. Hitler was found guilty of treason and sentenced to five years in Landsberg Prison,[note 2] where he dictated Mein Kampf to fellow prisoners Emil Maurice and Rudolf Hess. On 20 December 1924, having served only nine months, Hitler was released.[4][5] Once released, Hitler redirected his focus towards obtaining power through legal means rather than by revolution or force, and accordingly changed his tactics, further developing Nazi propaganda.[6]

The former president for the last year has been working on his message building his base just as Hitler did.  He is doing a very good job of it.

It is time to meet this man and would-be Trumps with Men and Women who can.

Women and men who do, not just talk.

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