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.

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WPCNR THE FBI WIRE. From the Federal Bureau of Investigation. May 30, 2014:

Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and George Venizelos, the Assistant Director in Charge of the New York Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), announced today the indictment of Juvencio Martinez-Martinez on hostage taking and alien smuggling charges. Martinez-Martinez was previously arrested in the Southern District of Texas and ordered removed to White Plains, New York.

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara stated, “As alleged, Juvencio Martinez-Martinez preyed on and held hostage an individual desperate to enter the United States from Mexico to join her family, threatening dire consequences if ransom was not paid. The woman he smuggled and held is safe, and Martinez-Martinez is now in federal custody facing federal charges.”

Assistant Director in Charge George Venizelos stated, “As alleged, Martinez-Martinez valued currency over human life when he abducted the victim who was attempting to enter the United States from Mexico. While he may have viewed this as an opportunity to make easy money, Martinez-Martinez did not anticipate the swift, coordinated law enforcement response committed to seeing the victim safely rescued. The FBI, along with its law enforcement partners, will continue to investigate and bring to justice those who seek to turn a profit by victimizing the innocent.”

According to allegations made in the indictment and other publicly filed documents:

Martinez-Martinez and others held an individual hostage in Weslaco, Texas, after they smuggled her across the border. While waiting for the victim’s mother, who lives in Fallsburg, Sullivan County, New York, to send them money in order to secure her release, they threatened to continue to hold the victim hostage and harm her.

During one conversation with the victim’s mother, the hostage takers threatened to cut the victim into pieces and send the pieces to the victim’s mother in Fallsburg, New York. Martinez-Martinez was apprehended at a business in Weslaco, Texas, shortly after he obtained an additional $1,500 from the victim’s mother. Law enforcement officers then discovered additional individuals at a building Martinez-Martinez controlled.

Martinez-Martinez, 20, of Weslaco, Texas, is charged with one count of conspiracy to commit hostage taking, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison and one count of conspiracy to commit alien smuggling which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison. The maximum potential sentences in this case are prescribed by Congress and are provided here for informational purposes only, as any sentencing of the defendant will be determined by the judge.

Mr. Bharara praised the outstanding efforts of the FBI, Fallsburg (New York) Police Department, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations, and United States Customs and Border Protection.

This case is being handled by the Office’s White Plains Division. Assistant U.S. Attorney John P. Collins, Jr. is in charge of the prosecution.

The allegations contained in the Indictment are merely accusations, and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

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WPCNR ALBANY ROUNDS. From the Office of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo (Edited). May 29, 2014:

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced an Unemployment Strikeforce, a new campaign to target areas of the State with the highest unemployment rates and boost employment.
The initiative will first be piloted in Bronx County, which has the highest unemployment rate in the state, according to state and federal data. After that, the Strikeforce will direct similar resources to the three other target counties.

In partnership with New York State, Empire State Development, the State Department of Labor and other partners, the campaign will be strategically focused in Bronx County, Jefferson County, Lewis County and Kings County respectively through the end of 2014.

“The Unemployment Strikeforce is the latest in a series of efforts this administration has undertaken to tackle unemployment in communities where it is most pervasive,” Governor Cuomo said. “This new initiative brings together major players from both the public and private sectors in order to assist New Yorkers in areas with the highest unemployment rates overcome barriers to finding work. This Strikeforce will go a long way toward connecting hard-working New Yorkers with job opportunities in their communities.”

Since Governor Cuomo took office, he has worked to streamline economic development, job training and job placement. The New York State unemployment rate has dropped from 8.2 percent to 6.7 percent, the New York State economy has created more than 440,400 private sector jobs and New York is one of only 17 states to have regained all of the private sector jobs lost during the recession.

New Skills at Work

Equipping New York trainers and workers with the skills that employers are demanding is a key priority of Strikeforce. JPMorgan Chase’s New Skills at Work Initiative was designed to address this issue in communities across the country, and the firm announced today it will invest $20 million in New York over the next five years. A critical component of this initiative includes sector-based, employer-driven training to give more New Yorkers the skills they need to get back to work.

“Although there is a significant number of Americans looking for work, we hear from clients every day about the challenges they face finding workers with the right skills for jobs that are open right now,” said Priscilla Almodovar, head of Chase’s Community Development Banking. “That’s why we’re working with community leaders across New York – technical training programs, community colleges, policymakers and employers – to help address these issues.”

In the Bronx, this investment will be aimed at connecting individuals to jobs and training in six high-demand sectors: Healthcare, Information Technology, Office and Administration, Transportation and Warehousing, Sales, and Hospitality.

Dedicated Strike Force staff will work closely with local elected officials and community-based organizations in the Bronx to connect jobseekers with local business opportunities.

“Often the most expensive part of doing business is job training,” said State Labor Commissioner Peter M. Rivera. “These partnerships will help businesses by reducing or eliminating that expense and help jobseekers by giving them an entry into a career. The Bronx is just the start and the place we know this type of program will have the biggest impact.”

“New York State’s economy has been revitalized under Governor Cuomo’s leadership, thanks to strategic partnerships, smart investments, and innovative initiatives like the Unemployment Strikeforce,” said Empire State Development President, CEO & Commissioner Kenneth Adams. “This campaign will help job seekers tap into many opportunities and connect New Yorkers with companies that are looking to hire in their area.”

Hostos Community President Félix V. Matos Rodríguez, said: “It is an honor to be part of the first-ever statewide jobs initiative in the Bronx being launched by Governor Cuomo. I commend him for making the Bronx a central part of this effort. Hostos remains committed to working with community-based partners, employers, state and city agencies to connect students and job seekers with jobs, and provide the education and training needed for them to be ready for the workforce.”

“Montefiore is proud to work with Governor Cuomo and our partners – JPMorgan, Phipps and Hostos – to develop a healthcare workforce pipeline for Bronx youth,” said Steven M. Safyer, President and CEO, Montefiore Health System. “With a workforce 23,000 strong, Montefiore is the largest employer in the Bronx. Our collective efforts will both ensure a promising future for Bronx youth and a workforce that will advance Montefiore’s excellence in patient care.”

“Phipps Neighborhoods is delighted that Montefiore Medical Center and Hostos Community College have partnered with us to offer the Career Network: Healthcare, which is helping young people in the Bronx pursue a career in a growing industry that leads to financial independence,” said Dianne Morales, executive director and CEO of Phipps Neighborhoods. “Each partner brings their expertise and deep commitment to this initiative, and key support from JPMorgan Chase helps make this work possible.”

Anyone looking for a job should visit their nearest Department of Labor Career Center, which can be found here: www.labor.ny.gov/career-center-locator.

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WPCNR EAST SIDE STORY. May 27, 2014:

Urstadt Biddle, owners of the White Plains Pavilion, has posted on their website architect’s renderings of a city-within-a-city they envision to be built on the site of the sparsely rented White Plains Pavilion.

The developer, according to Mayor Tom Roach, in remarks first reported by WPCNR March 25, envisions apartments, a hotel and a series of shops leading up from the Crowne Plaza Hotel. Architect’s renderings presented for the first time publicly were spotted by a CitizeNetReporter without any significant written description on the Urstadt Biddle website.

At that meeting, March 25, Mayor Roach noted:
The Mayor told Rotary, the owners of the Pavilion are requesting a zoning change for mixed use to redevelop the site.  He noted the zoning change has not been approved by the Common Council yet.

However, the Mayor told Rotary about a design that would have a threshold reminiscent of Rome’s Spanish Steps leading up from the Crowne Plaza Hotel that from the sounds of it would be totally unique in the metropolitan area.

On the north side of the steps, Roach said would be a series retail and restaurants, perhaps at the top of the steps a hotel, and fronting on Maple Avenue would be residential buildings, he said would compliment the new apartments going up on DeKalb. The idea appeared created a buzz in the audience.

Here is the Urstadt-Biddle vision, as it appears on the Urstadt-Biddle website:

The White Plains Pavilion today.

The new “City-Within-a-City” seen from across the street from the Crowne Plaza sees what the Mayor called “a series of Spanish Steps” leading up to the new complex.

A pedestrian walkway, shops, boutiques at pedestrian level, apartments above.

View from across Maple Avenue. At far right is Crowne Plaza Hotel.

A closer look at the above view.

Automobile traffic would circulate into and out of the complex.

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WPCNR PARKING NEWS. From a White Plains CitizeNetReporter. May 26, 2014:

A WPCNR-er phoned in a report  at noon Monday that White Plains Parking Enforcement Officers are “swarming” Mamaroneck Avenue, Greenridge Avenue and Post Road ticketing unsuspecting motorists who are unaware that White Plains enforces metered parking on holidays including Memorial Day.

A string of approximately six cars on the metered portion of Greenridge was caught and ticketed late Monday morning while an event was going on at The Hebrew Institute.

2 Cars and and the van below were Red-Ticketed on Mamaroneck Avenue. However, walking around the complete Martine, Court and Main Street area between 12:45 and 1:15 PM. WPCNR spotted expired meters with cars parked at them which had not been ticketed, raising questions whether Parking Enforcement Officers were only blitzing during Memorial Day Parade hours Monday morning until noon.

This van parked in front of Sam Ash, got Ticketrashed.

East Post Road was worked too. There was even a “boot” applied to a car on Mamaroneck Avenue.

Sidestreets were not spared either. Though I did not see one ticket on cars parked on Mitchell Place, while American Legion Hall wss holding their veterans’ reception. Again, this raises the issue of whether Parking Enforcement was targeting visitors during parade and ceremony hours.

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“What amount of ill will is going to be generated by this ticket blitz?” our correspondent asked, exasperated that his city was welcoming Memorial Day Parade attendees with a $20 rememberance they will always remember, and won’t come back. “I know it has to be the biggest parking ticket day of the year for the city, but is it worth it? They complain about the sales tax, and their decreasing parking ticket revenue?”

It should be pointed out that most cities and towns do not enforce street parking regulations on holidays.

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WPCNR SOUTHEND LIFE. By The American Grillman. Reprinted from The CitizeNetReporter Archives. July 5, 2008: 

It’s the come home day of another Memorial Day Weekend in White Plains, coming home for that Memorial Day picnic. After Monday’s Memorial Day Parade starting at 10 AM in downtown White Plains tomorrow,  it is time to usher in summer officially.

Thanks to the chimney charcoal starter and its glowing orange coals, the backyard American barbeque DNA macho in the amateur chef is once again the equal of the overpriced steak cooked indoors at any restaurant.

Steak was raised outside, it was born to be cooked outside, and the barbequed steak on orange charcoal’s glow puts the Cartier- priced steakhouse in its place!

In this griller’s opinion, ourdoor grilling proves once again to be the equal and superior to the overpriced artificial-tasting steak that sleek decor and atmosphere cannot duplicate backyard orgins. The economy may be a press secretary’s fantasy, your home price declining, your taxes going up,  but remember,  even the hobo can grill!

To do real steak right , you have to do it outside on charcoal.

The instinct of generations of the American backyard barbeque tradition passed up from  the cave, enjoyed at Valley Forge, bit into by cowboys  around chuck wagons on the prairie and up from the Southland  barbeque inbred and passed on from American father to American son – cutting across nationality and station – gives you real steak – not $100 technology  enhanced cuts. Flaming charcoal makes steak a living thing in your mouth!

I think America can pull itself out of this temporary hiccup in the American economy and “anything-but-the-issues-politics”. as long as the American grilling tradition is handed down, the pioneer “can-do” spirit lives!

Why pay $100 for a  steak dinner unless your company or your political contributor  is paying for it, when you can tap your inner griller and say I can cook steak better?  The difference is the air, the smoke, the way marinade just drips down into the coals and gets into the meat. It’s chemistry!  Fire and flame and meat become one in a mystical, before time experience.

What is it about the American Grillman that’s so special that his or hers backyard cuts beat the insider  professionals’ inflation-friendly ostentatious steaks?

It’s the unique chemistry of being American and charcoal flame.  You’re not really part of America unless you’re grillin” like an American.

And on Independence Day Weekend coming up, it’s not July 4 unless you’re grillin’.

There’s just something about the searing intensity of glowing charcoal combining mystically with the testosterone and instinctual synergy between red meat and the dedicated outdoor griller —  it beats in taste, juiciness and texture the contrived technology of the most expensive restaurant equipment.

No matter how tasty the megabuck meat is in the swank sticker shock steak palaces, there’s always that articificialness packaged taste that marks the indoor steak. The butteryness. The soft crust of the black topped surface of the indoor steak just does not have the nubile grizzled roughhewn flamed yield of the outdoor one-on-one grilled steak that fights your bicuspids every cillemeter.It is like a showgirl seen from a distance who looks older the closer you get.

Only one whose money is easily parted would pay $50 and up for a buttery indoor steak dinner when you can do it yourself in the backyard even in 20 degree weather even in the rain – the steaks done to perfection with the juices sealed  in.

The chimney starter – the secret to the hot start. No more charcoal fluid needed. Take a copy of The Journal News and scrunch up the news section or the sports section in the bottom of the Chimney Starter. (Experience shows that copies of the Journal News — any Gannett paper — burn better than the New York Times which is very slow-starting)

Pour in a helping of those ultimate black beauties, Kingsford charcoal briquettes into the chimney top. Fifteen minutes before the wife has the sides ready, take a wooden match to the aperatures in the base of the starter and light up the edges of the newsprint. Within 10-15 minutes you’ve got coals a firey orange red. You’re ready to outcook the pros.

Eat Your Heart Out, Mr. or Ms. Professional Food Designer and Celebrity Chef!  After the Griller’s wife has marinated the meat –  these Stop and Shop trimmed New York Strips sizzling in the caressing deep searing heat of glowing orange briquettes – 3 minutes a side and deft turning and surgical rareness checks – the seasoned grillista simply has a feel for the meat – passed genetically down from generations of American grillers. The combination of cauldron, flavored steel grill rods coated in the char of former grillings, and perfect licking flames create the branded grillmarks that deliver the natural taste of the backyard steak – impossible to achieve for any price in the tehnologically nuanced, high tech steam tables of today.  No one can do a great cut like you can, Mr. America!

FEEL THE BURN!

As any redblooded American Grillman will tell you when doing a steak – you can’t deliver a steak by manual or instructions. You have to feel the meat. Feel it cook. You just know its time.

Every cut is not the same. The American Grillman becomes one with the meat. With eye and knowledge of the hue of red – you just  know  by instinct when she’s done. Cooking is slowed down by moving the meats to the side off the heat to keep the American beauties warm

With the wife’s deft presentation, sweet potato fries, corn pudding, fresh beans and mushrooms without the sog of infrared glare, the Grillman’s natural art relegates the indoor steak out of the taste sweepstakes.

Gentlemen, start your grils and   fire up to get that taste of summer you cannot get in any indoor steakhouse no matter how much you pay.

And–gas grills, are you kidding me?

Only charcoal does it the American Way!