WHITE PLAINS CITIZENETREPORTER SETS RECORD VISITS FOR YEAR 7,017,658 VISITS! 2,098,003 VISITORS MADE 6 VISITS A DAY EVERY DAY. 63,330 UNIQUE VISITORS MADE 133,730 VISITS IN DECEMBER. WPCNR AVERAGED 17,284 VISITORS A WEEK, VISITING 31,270 TIMES.

Hits: 128

Hits: 2

WPCNR COMMON COUNCIL CHRONICLE-EXAMINER By John F. Bailey. July 9, 2014:

It was a hot and steamy night Monday evening in City Hall rife with hot air, rancor, and downright confusion  during the opening hearings on the closing of Hathaway Lane and the French American School of New York Site Plan for the old Ridgeway Country Club.

The highlight of the evening was the French American School hearings which can be viewed in their entirety  (including a summary by FASNY attorney Michael Zarin on how the official new site plan was developed to meet City of White Plains objections raised previously by the Council Finding Statement on the environmental review of the project. The entire hearings may be viewed on the city website at http://whiteplainsny.swagit.com/play/07072014-786

Of the 31 speakers, 17 urged the Common Council to not approve the project, and 14 spoke in favor.About half who spoke in favor were connected with the French American School in some way.

Opposition to the project centered around the closing of Hathaway Lane that Zarin said was suggested to move entry to the school from Ridgeway, and prevent “cut-through” traffic from Bryant Avenue to Ridgeway. Denise Demarzo,  a resident of Hathaway made a compelling case that traffic even if encouraged to use the Hutchinson Parkway to travel to the proposed campus, would most likely use Mamaroneck Avenue instead and “cut-through” the cross streets of Gedney Esplanade, Heatherbloom, and Ridgeway to access north south residential streets (Dupont, Murchison, Seymour Place, to name just a few to get close in to the school, or avoid North Street backup. She criticised the lack of detail on the effects of heavier traffic on those narrow residential, no-sidewalk streets,  “in peak hours”calling for a more detailed traffic study. She drily noted that the site plan notes the traffic in those streets “might be an inconvenice.”

(WPCNR points out that the Hutchinson River Parkway northbound into White Plains and Southbound for that matter, is normally bumper-to-bumper between 7:30 A.M. and 9 A.M. during the week all the way from New Rochelle to White Plains.) Closing of the street, she said would generate  resident traffic exiting the Gedney Farms neighborhood to seek outlets on the residential streets to the west of the campus also adding to the traffic. Her comments were the most compelling of the evening.

Other opponents of the project demanded compensation to the city for closing Hathaway Lane, ignoring the fact that the city in working with the French American School as FASNY developed  the site plan in some way lead FASNY to come to the decision to suggest a site plan eliminating entrance to the school off Ridgeway.  Mr. Zarin indicated  the city role in crafting the site plan on his appearance on People to Be Heard, the White Plains TV WPCNR interview program, Monday night.

A speaker  against the project, Dan Seidel criticized Mayor Roach and Councilman John Kirkpatrick for taking political contributions from firms associated with the French American School saying the Mayor and Kirkpatrick should recuse themselves from voting on the project.  Another speaker John Sheehan said holding the hearing in the crowded confines of city hall the night after a return from the 4^th of July holiday was “a disgrace.” He challenged the Mayor in a fiery exchange to promise the September meeting would be held at White Plains High School in a larger setting. The Mayor did not. The Mayor said the city was not going to change its schedule and that was why Monday’s hearing was held.

Mayor Roach did his best to maintain order in the steamy hearing chastising rooters and booers and hecklers who interrupted and interacted. The Mayor did a dogged job in preventing personal attacks.

Other persons against the project, critcised the size of the buildings, urging they be scaled down since the student capacity of the campus had been lowered from 1,250 to 950. “Why do they need so much space?” one speaker commented.

Other comments were  more general, that the project was too big to put into a residential neighborhood; that it was only a matter of time that the school would attempt to expand; that home values had declined.

Fourteen persons spoke in favor of the project. John Botti, a new resident of White Plains, who is on the Board of FASNY, flatout said that in the last six yuears  price per square foot of homes in the Gedney area were up, sales were up and sales volume were up.  Others pointed out how FASNY would add a great attraction to White Plains. Phil McGovern was the most positive saying addition of FASNY would be “transformational.”

The Hathaway Lane Closing hearing began approximately  8:30, and the second hearing on the site plan was opened about 10:30. Originally it was understood that both matters the closure of Hathaway Lane and the FASNY Site Plan and Request for Special Permit would run simultaneous. This is apparently no longer the case, with one hearing being opened first, adjourned around 10:30 and the second opened.

In other major action, the Council voted 6 in favor with Councilwoman Nadine Hunt-Robinson obstaining to declare a moratorium on issuing new cabaret licences after a public hearing on the resolution. Dan Coughlin, owner of The Colisseum made an impassioned plea not to declare a moratorium saying White Plains had within 1 mile of city  hall 160 vacant store fronts. He said he knew of  5 businesses recently attempting to establish wine and cheese bars, running afoul of White Plains cabaret requirements such as “cabarets must have full kitchens.” Mayor Roach tried to defuse and assure businesses the moratorium was being declared just so the city could work with cabaret owners to upgrade supposedly more liberal and modern regulations reflective of new trends. Roach assured prospective cabaret entrepreneurs proposals for cabarets would continue to be accepted and processed under the moratorium.

The city also voted to approve a new Air Pollution ordinance, moderated by suggestions proposed by the attorney James Glaathar, whose letter to WPCNR and the Mayor prompted the city tweaking of the ordinance. The Mayor gave Mr. Glaathar full credit for improving the processes apartments especially have available to them to change from Number 6 and Number 4 fuel oil. (More details to follow).

The city voted to spend $125,000 to fix the leaking and presently inert Renaissance Fountain and repair and create more effective chemical storage in the fountain. Milagros Lecouna said that an outside  fountain consultant will be retained to analyze the fountain and see if it could be saved and restored or whether another use could be found for it. She said the fountain should be working in about a month. Currently it is not working and has not worked since last summer.

The council scheduled a public hearing August 4 to hear comments on renaming the Traffic Commission the “Transportation Commission” and revise its membership requirements and duties.

Hits: 113

The Brooklyn Bridge — Opened in 1883 and still in service. Can we bring that bridge building contractor back to build the Tappan Zee Bridge before it’s too late? Behind the Brooklyn is the Manhattan Bridge — at least we know where those two bridges take you!

Hits: 180

The Old Ballgame:

No gloves, no steroids, no biting, flannel uniforms, no droopy pants and no tattoos. No electronic scoreboards, no out of town scoreboards, no runs just “Aces” and “Frames.”

No jingles before every at bat, no advertising bombasting you between innings, no $10 beers, no night games, just sunshine and a skyline as New York Gothams and New York Mutuals play a natural doubleheader on Governor’s Island last Saturday.

Wow was this fun and relaxing to watch. The shots went just as far almost reaching NY Harbor…the pitchers were crafty, the sweat was real. The game was so relaxing to watch. The rhythm so uninterrupted.

The two teams play by 1864 rules all summer long on the weekends. The admission is just right: Great baseball for free.

On America’s Birthday and no doubleheader in New York it is good to remember the roots of America’s Pastime.

For information on this great league, go to www.gothambbc.com

Hits: 140

Threatening, Grumbling Skies at 5:30 PM Wednesday, July 2. No Call from City Hall

Rain Drenching Haviland Manor at 6 P.M.

WPCNR NEWS & COMMENT.  By John F. Bailey. July 4, 2014:

All I can say after the fiascos of two days of government-administered fireworks in active thunderstorms the last two days, is that I do not understand the thinking or lack of it displayed by our County and City Fathers.

Wednesday afternoon,  with humidity massing, and weather forecasts all day predicting thunderstorms before  dark, The Mayor’s Office said they would send out a media advisory as to whether the White Plains High School fireworks were “on.”

Well it started thunder-rumbling around 5 PM…and raining by 5:30. I received  a phone call from a citizen at 5:40 P.M. asking me if the fireworks were “on,” considering thunder in the air and rain hitting the ground. I called the police and they said the fireworks were “on,” and there was about a “50/50” chance they would be on.

Did City Hall activate their Garbage Day Advisory Phone Call-out system to advise citizens in White Plains what to expect? No.

There were no media advisories sent to this reporter during the entire evening of White Plains fireworks.

No one was coming over to the Haviland Manor neighborhood to park and walk into the fireworks. The public was not notified the amusements were cancelled at 7 to this reporter’s knowledge. An e-mail perhaps? How inept, how lazy, how unthinking. How irresponsible!

The grounds at the high school were good and wet.

By 8 PM it was raining very hard and lightning was flashing regularly through the rain clouds and thunder was heard. No cancellation.

But at 8:30, a half-hour early, they started the display. So if you were coming out working with a 9 o’clock start, you missed it!  How utterly inexplicable. Again…no media advisory.

City Hall yesterday did not respond to this reporter’s inquiry on why the fireworks were not cancelled or couldn’t be cancelled and how much it cost the city to put on the show that few saw.

More to the point, the  clean up of the fireworks put police and fire and DPW personnel at risk in the lightning cleaning up the display after the show that no one saw went off.

I understand the forecast was just as bad for Thursday night, the rain date. It is being reported that the city felt they could not do it Thursday so had to do it Wednesday. So kill it. Don’t compound an error of judgment just to feel good about yourself that “we got through it.”  That is Custer’s Last Stand thinking.

Just to show you leadership or what passes for it is the same every step on the political food chain, Westchester County fireworks at Kensico Dam faced a more dire forecast Thursday night,

By 8 PM it was raining cats and dogs with thunder and lightning at the dam and the hundred or more so cars that were parked, were being directed out. Not too much thinking by the county on that either. The forecast was much worse and they were parking people anyway. By 8 they were moving them out.

Well, this is so typical of government. They do not think. They react. Into the Valley of Lightning rode the six hundred.

For White Plains not to have cancelled their Wednesday display recklessly endangered their city personnel on the scene not too mention folks who came out.  It is reported  folks who came out were housed in the auditorium (the lightning was frequent).

This is lame.  The city is guilty once more of not providing timely information to the public, blindly pursuing a course of action or a policy that is not people friendly or people-concious, or mindful of safety.

They need some kind of public relations savvy because who ever is running it now – and this goes directly to the Mayor’s Office, whoever is making decisions there is apparently overwhelmed with the responsibility with no grasp that communication is not bad, it is essential.

Now, fireworks manufacturers do have wrappings and protective packaging to protect fireworks from rain before shoot-off.

How about a giant fireworks staging tent over the assembled ordinance? My grill stays dry, why can’t the same tarp/tent contraption extend over the fireworks?

Why didn’t the county and the city call their shows off, run them either next week, or Friday, Saturday or Sunday? Oh, I guess they did not want to pay overtime or miss their 4^th of July plans.

So if the fireworks display is only acceptable during the week before July 4, why do them at all? Why pay $25,000 or more for a show that few people see?

However – I do have a suggestion for the relentlessly innovative administration in White Plains:

Move the site downtown to the now dry (forever) Renaissance Square Fountain, badly needing $125,000 of repairs and dry as Death Valley.

The city shoots off fireworks down there for the New Year’s Eve Celebration in White Plains.

If you shot off the July Independence Day fireworks in Renaissance Fountain at Main and Mamaroneck—if it rained or lightninged the populace could just duck into the restaurants and bars.

The city could make a fortune in parking tickets – and since we already know we can do fireworks in the downtown without burning down the city–we do it every December 31 thanks to the relentlessly innovative Mayor Joseph Delfino, that would be the solution.

I can already see the dollar signs lighting up in the Mayor’s eyes at this suggestion.

Just a reporter, trying to help.

The city and county were lucky last night no one was struck by lightning at these dual fiascos of feckless management.