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White Plains Hospital cancer survivors reunite with Sandy Aurfiero, NP (far left) and Sara Sadan, MD, Director, Breast and Women’s Medical Oncology (center) during the White Plains Hospital Cancer Survivors celebration on June 4th at the Crowne Plaza hotel below.
All Photos, Courtesy White Plains Hospital, by John Vecchiolla with exception of the photo below.

The crowd of well-wishers, doctors and 200 White Plains Hospital- treated cancer survivors were in attendance. Photo by an attendee.

WPCNR HEALTH NEWS. From White Plains Hospital. June 6, 2017:

White Plains Hospital honored cancer survivors treated in the Hospital’s Center for Cancer Care at its annual Cancer Survivors Day brunch on Sunday June 4^th at the Crowne Plaza Hotel.

Now in its 30^th year, the event celebrates the courage and determination displayed by cancer survivors throughout the community. It also acknowledges the fight for the cure that doctors and the entire multidisciplinary team engage in every day.

Susan Fox, White Plains Hospital President & CEO; Nicholas Signorelli, Guest of Honor and Keynote Speaker; Una Hopkins, DNP, Administrative Director, Cancer Program at White Plains Hospital

The 2017 guest of honor and keynote speaker was Nicholas Signorelli of Mount Vernon who was acknowledged for his strength and courage throughout his cancer experience, as well as his longtime support of the White Plains Hospital Cancer Program.

Mr. Signorelli was joined by approximately 300 fellow cancer survivors, caregivers, physicians, nurses and other clinicians in the Hospital’s Cancer Program, which treats thousands of patients every year.

Oncologic Surgeon and Chairman of the Hospital’s Cancer Committee, Dr. Mark Gordon; Chairman of the Board of Directors Larry Smith; the Hospital’s President and C.E.O. Susan Fox; and Mayor of White Plains Tom Roach addressed the group and joined in the celebration, along with dozens of members of the Hospital’s interdisciplinary cancer care team.

: Laurence Smith, Chairman, White Plains Hospital Board of Directors; Susan Fox, President & CEO of White Plains Hospital; White Plains Hospital Physician Anthony Loiacano, MD; White Plains Mayor Tom Roach; Guest of Honor and Keynote Speaker, Nicholas Signorelli;White Plains Hospital Physician Carol Lederman, MD; Una Hopkins, DNP, Administrative Director, Cancer Program at White Plains Hospital; Mark Gordon, MD, Surgical Director of the Cancer Program at White Plains Hospital

“This is a day when we can step away from our professional roles and simply enjoy the company of our survivors,” said Dr. Gordon. “It gives us the opportunity to celebrate special milestones with survivors and their loved ones. It also inspires us to further our efforts in finding increasingly effective treatments so that the number of survivors can grow even larger.”

Former White Plains Hospital patients and cancer survivors join White Plains Mayor Tom Roach (also a White Plains Hospital cancer survivor) at the hospital’s annual Cancer Survivors Celebration Sunday.

In addition to a festive brunch, the survivors and their caregivers were offered the opportunity to experience massage therapy and healing touch by trained members of the Hospital’s holistic care team. They also learned about the scope of complementary care programs and services provided by the Cancer Program.

In 2016, the Hospital opened its new Center for Cancer Care, an expanded facility that provides comprehensive and coordinated cancer care in partnership with the Montefiore Health System.

You can view the WHITE PLAINS TV “PEOPLE TO BE HEARD” VIDEO TOUR OF THE CENTER FOR CANCER, WITH DR. UNA HOPKINS and PEOPLE TO BE HEARD’S JOHN BAILEY, VIDEO-TAPED IN JUNE OF LAST YEAR ON YOUTUBE AT

The new Center is double the square footage of the original Dickstein Cancer Treatment Center, which opened in 1999.  It encompasses the renovated Dickstein pavilion, an additional six-story outpatient physician oncology pavilion, two infusion centers, and ample space for complementary therapies and amenities designed for optimal patient comfort and an enhanced patient and family experience.  The Center for Cancer Care also offers a multitude of clinical trials and groundbreaking research opportunities for patients, many in collaboration with the Montefiore Einstein Center for Cancer Care.

According to the NYS Cancer Registry, more than 100,000 New Yorkers are diagnosed with cancer every year. The American Cancer Society estimates that there were nearly 14.5 million cancer survivors in the United States in 2014, up from 9.8 million in 2001 and 3 million in 1971.

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WPCNR WHITE PLAINS LAW JOURNAL. By John F. Bailey. June 3, 2017:

City Court Judge Elizabeth Shollenberger

The Chief of Administrative Judge of the Courts for New York State, has reassigned all cases previously assigned to new White Plains City Court Judge in an Administrative Order issued May 2. The order appears below:

“Pursuant to the authority vested in me, effective immediately, I hereby direct that 1) all judicial matters currently pending before the Hon. Elizabeth Shollenberger, City Court Judge of the City of White Plains, shall be reassigned to such other judge or judges as the Hon. Michael V. Coccoma, Deputy Chief Administrative Judge of the Courts Outside the City of New York, or his designee shall direct; and (2) no additional judicial matters shall be assigned to Judge Shollenberger until further order of the Deputy Chief Administrative Judge.”

Leonard K. Marks

Chief Administrative Judge of the Courts

Lucien Chalfen, spokesperson for Chief  Judge of the New York State Court of Appeals, Janet DiFiore, confirmed Ms. Shollenberger’s removal from the cases to WPCNR Thursday, telling WPCNR, Ms. Shollenberger has been told to remain at home until she is able to return to her duties. Chalfen said she has not been removed from the court and is still a judge on the City Court. He said no date has been set for her return. It is WPCNR’s information that the reason for the order concerns a personal health issue.

Shollenberger was appointed Judge to fill the vacancy left by the Barbara Leek retirement by the White Plains Common Council in December. A long time Chair of the White Plains City Democratic Committee and Treasurer for Mayor Thomas Roach’s Campaign, Shollenberger joined the court in January.

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(Editor’s Note: if you had troubles receiving clear crisp reception of White Plains Week–light floating bars floated ghostlike across the screen, during its cablecast Friday evening on Altice-Cablevision Channel 76 in White Plains, you can see this must-see program on the internet on YouTube, www.whiteplainsweek.com  and www.wpcommunitymedia.org. The “ghost bars” continue to affect Altice-Cablevision cablecasts today.

THE WHITE PLAINS NEWS NO OTHER MEDIA TELLS YOU

WHITE PLAINS WEEK THE JUNE 2 SHOW

JOHN BAILEY

PETER KATZ

ON

THE CITY BUDGET PASSES, 5-2

THE WHITE PLAINS DEVELOPMENT PLAN: WHY THE MAYOR THINKS IT WILL WORK — THE STRATEGY

THE STRENGTH OF THE BUDGET.

THE CITY RAISES PAY OF COMMISSIONERS AS WELL AS THE UNIONS

THE SHOLLENBERGER SHOCKER

THE SALES TAX TAKE DECLINES FROM 4 YEARS AGO

PLUS ANOTHER EDITION OF TRUMP THE PRESIDENT– PETER KATZ’S WEEKLY REPORT ON THE TRUMP PRESIDENCY

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Big May and Big June Needed to Meet, Beat Last Year’s Sales Tax Numbers…Currently $800,000 Behind

WPCNR QUILL & EYESHADE. By John F. Bailey, based on data from the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance and the City of White Plains Budget. May 31, 2017:

The April Sales Tax Revenues for White Plains continue soft down $375,129 from the same month a year ago ($3,521,122 in April 2017 compared to $3,896,251 in April, 2016.

April is the fourth straight month of slight declines in White Plains sales tax collections year to year. In the first four months of 2017 the City collected $15,748,892 in sales tax. In the first four months of 2016, it received $16,568,444. The $15,748,892 figure this April represents a decline of $819,592 or .049% (1/2%).

Westchester County in contrast is 1/2% ahead in its Sales Tax Collections.

According to the Department of Taxation and Finance monthly sales tax report, through April, the 10^th month of the city fiscal year ending in June the city has received $41,311,596 in sales taxes compared to $49,436 in 2015-16., a decline of .07%.

If the city collects the same sales tax revenues in May and June, the last two months of the fiscal year, ($8,124,636) the city will collect $49,436,232 in sales tax revenues to conclude the 2016-2017 fiscal year. That $49,436,232 is down from the $51,856,187 the city collected in 2013-14 (an all-time high).

Over the last 5 years, the city sales tax handle has eroded, not keeping pace with inflation:

2011-2012:   $50,972,671

2012-2013:   $49,913,997

2013-2014:   $51,856,187 (All-time High)

2014-2015:   $50,972,589

2015-2016:   $49,791,542

2016-2017:   $41,311,596 (10 Months),

                       $49,436,232 (Projected if May June Sales Tax Collections meet last year’s totals. 

Westchester County Sales Tax Collections for the first four months of 2017 are up $906,805 through April 2017, $163,231,109 to $162,324,304, a pace of ½ percent UP over last year.  This, despite being lower in the month of April Collections over last year by ½% (.04)

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Women Hold Majority of College Degrees and Debt — and Take Longer to Pay It Off

WPCNR SCHOOL DAYS. Special to WPCNR from the American Association of University Women. May 30, 2017:

(WPCNR’S John Bailey has often pointed out that student debt is one of the main reasons why the real estate market is not recovering as swiftly as expected, so it was with interest that Mr. Bailey received this report from the AAUW over the weekend which shows a little known fact about student loans, two thirds of all student debt is held by women.)

 A new American Association of University Women (AAUW) report, Deeper in Debt: Women and Student Loans, estimates that women hold almost two-thirds ($833 billion) of the country’s $1.3-trillion student debt while men hold $477 billion. The research shows that those with the scarcest resources bear the brunt of student debt in the United States.

“It’s encouraging that women are enrolling in college more than ever before, but at the same time they are taking on larger amounts of debt to pay for their dreams,” said Kevin Miller, Ph.D., the senior researcher for AAUW. “Because of factors like the gender pay gap, debt that could be manageable ends up becoming unmanageable, particularly for women.”

More than half of graduating U.S. college students have financed some or all of their education with student loans.

Women now earn 57 percent of bachelor’s degrees from U.S. colleges and universities, and AAUW estimates that women take on average two years longer to pay off their student debt than men do.

Black women take on more student debt than do members of any other group and ultimately struggle the most to pay it off.

“Women face a catch-22: go to college and take on student loan debt but get a higher paying job or, alternatively, forgo college and avoid the debt, but be locked out of higher-wage careers. We need to do better,” said Miller.

Following graduation, women repay their loans more slowly than do men, in part because of the gender pay gap.

Women with college degrees working full time make 26 percent less than their male peers, which leaves women with less income on average to devote to debt repayment.

And thanks to student debt, women are more likely than men to experience financial difficulties:

Thirty-four percent of all women, 42 percent of Hispanic women, and 57 percent of black women who were repaying student loans said they had been unable to meet essential expenses within the past year.

“This isn’t just a student problem, it’s a gender inequity problem and it impacts us all,” said Anne Hedgepeth, senior government relations manager at AAUW. “As a nation, we rely on women to add to and strengthen our economy. That can’t happen under mountains of student debt.”

AAUW advocates safeguarding and expanding Pell Grants for low-income students as well as providing nontraditional students with the resources they need, such as on-campus child care, to successfully complete college degrees. Solutions to the student debt problem should also include supporting income-driven repayment approaches that reflect borrowers’ realities.

And our support for students should address the additional costs students face beyond tuition: books, supplies, and housing, to name a few. Congress can take leaps toward closing the gender pay gap and bolstering women’s economic security by passing legislation like the Paycheck Fairness Act and the Pay Equity for All Act.

“The status quo is untenable for women with student debt,” said Hedgepeth.

“Imagine if there are cuts to Pell or to other financial aid programs. Women’s $833-billion problem could become even worse. The solutions are diverse, and they tackle the challenges students face before and after attending college.

It’s time for policy makers, institutions of higher education, and us as a nation to commit to fixing this problem for women and for all student borrowers.”