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 ALBANY ROUNDS. From Governor Paterson’s Press Office. January 24, 2009: The Governor’s office has published the following transcript of Governor David Paterson’s introduction of Kirsten Gillibrand as New York’s new Senator replacing Hillary Clinton, as Mrs. Clinton moves on to Secretary of State. Here is the Governor’s remarks to the media Friday, with a detailed biography of Senator Gillibrand:

Governor Paterson does the honors Friday, introducing Kirsten Gillibrand

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WPCNR MARKETPLACE. From Johny Nelson,  Labor Market Analyst, New York State Department of Labor. (EDITED)January 22, 2009 UPDATED 5:25 P.M.:  As of December 31, 2008, according to the New York State Department of Labor,  there were  464,800 persons employed in Westchester County and 28,100 unemployed, an unemployment rate of 5.7%,  up from 5.2% in November, according to statistics provided WPCNR by Johny Nelson, Labor Market Analyst with the New York State Department of Labor. In Rockland County, the unemployment rate is 5.5% where currently as of December 31, there were 145,400 employed and 8,400 unemployed.

Early today, Gustaff Herman, Deputy Commissioner of Labor for New York State annnounced in White Plains that the New York State number of unemployed persons  statewide had risen by 49,300 persons to 7% in December , up from 6% in November, and 5.7% in November. Gustaf Herman, Deputy Commissioner of Labor for New York State told WPCNR that the Westchester and Putnam unemployment percentages were not broken out at this time.

Statistics circulated by Mr. Nelson to media late Thursday afternoon, report that the number of persons employed in the Hudson Valley Region which includes Westchester County, Rockland, Putnam, Dutchess, Orange, Sullivan and Ulster Counties decreased 9,500 or 1.2 percent, to 758,000 for the 12-month period ending December 2008. 

• Private sector employment at 758,000 is the lowest November job count since 2005. Industries that were once resilient at the onset of the recession has now begun to show some marked weakness.
  
• Despite all the financial woes, construction had continued to perform admirably up until 4^th quarter 2008. For December 2008, the sector recorded a mere growth of 0.4 percent. For the same period last year they posted a growth of 1.3 percent and 6.3 percent the year before last.
  
• Professional and business services sector which is highly sensitive to economic trends had also been performing well up until recent months.  The sector has now begun to show signs that it’s not immune to the National recession. Employment in the sector declined by 2.2 percent. For the same period last year they posted a growth of 1.4 percent.
  
• Meanwhile the financial crisis has begun to wreak havoc on the auto dealers in the region. Over the past year, five car dealers have closed operations as a result of tightness in credit.
  



Analyst observations:

Persistent economic woes- housing, credit and financial crises, along with a slew of layoff announcements at the end of 2008 and beginning of 2009 all point to a troublesome period for job seekers in the region. For December 2008, Private sector employment in the area declined by 9,500 or 1.2 percent. The construction and professional and business services industries which had been quite resilient in early 2008 have begun to show marked weakness, clearly a sign that the National recession is finally impacting the region.

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WPCNR COUNTY CLARION-LEDGER. From The County Clerk. (EDITED) January 22, 2009:  The rate of initiated foreclosure actions slowed over the last 12 months. Westchester County statistics  released by the County Clerk’s Office today show the number of initiated foreclosure actions have been steady the last two years and have kept pace in 2008  numbering 2,166 in 2007 and rising 2% to 2,206 more foreclosure actions in 2008.  The rate of foreclosures continued steady, but is down sharply from 2005, and 2006.  Foreclosure proceedings in the county grew 50% from 2005 to 2006 and 40% from 2006 to 2007.

Contributing to Westchester foreclosures slowing  were the foreclosure reform measures signed into law last August.  One part of the new state legislation requires lenders to send pre-foreclosure notices to borrowers at least ninety days before an action is started.  That notice encourages the homeowner to seek help and provides contact information for local government-approved housing counselors.

 “The measure not only mandates lending reforms for the future,” began Idoni,  “but also provides immediate help to residents in danger of losing their homes.”  And while 2008 statistics show an overall increase in foreclosure filings, they also reveal a significant drop in foreclosure actions filed in the last four months of 2008:

Filings       Jan     Feb     Mar    Apr     May     Jun       Jul     Aug    Sep     Oct      Nov    Dec  Total

2005            83       64      97      98       82         93       83     104    98        85       110    86      1083

2006           100    119   159     120    140       128     112    136    117    162       130    123     1546

2007           146    132    252     181   145       156     176    226    179     201       181  191      2166

2008           243    231    285     224   202        225     238    242      73    96          71    76       2206

“The slowing of foreclosure filings is good news, but Westchester residents are still losing their homes and need help,” warned Idoni.  “Without proper counseling, this respite will only be temporary.”  Idoni urged local residents at risk of foreclosure to contact Westchester Residential Opportunities (WRO),  a non-profit housing agency with offices in White Plains and Mount Vernon.  

 A trained counselor can be reached at (914)428-4507 or visit www.wroinc.org for more information.

The Westchester County Clerk is the Clerk for the Supreme Court where foreclosure actions are heard.  Please note that the commencement of a foreclosure action does not mean that a Westchester home will be lost to foreclosure.  Filing a foreclosure action in the Westchester County Clerk’s office is the first step of a process which could result in the loss of a home or building. 

 If a foreclosure is granted, the home or building is sold at a foreclosure auction and the proceeds of the sale are used to pay off the loan.  However, some homeowners enter into a repayment plan, secure a modified loan, refinance with another lender or sell their home on their own to avoid foreclosure.   The office of the Westchester County Clerk is located at 110 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd. in White Plains and is open Monday through Friday (excluding holidays) from 8 a.m. until 5:45 p.m.  For more information, please call 995-3070 or visit www.WestchesterClerk.com.

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WPCNR THE BIG EXTRA. News & Comment by John F. Bailey. January 19 2009:  I wrote this column in 2004. It still stands relevant today, Monday morning at 8 A.M. at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in White Plains, the man, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. will be remembered. His birthday was last Thursday.  I am not that familiar with Dr. King’s life, but I do know that he, like other great men of America who have their days, Dr. King’s name stands for a value that America holds dear.

In the pomp and partying surrounding the Barack Obama Inauguration binge that’s been going on the last three days, Dr. Martin Luther King — the man who made Barack Obama possible has all but been forgotten.  President-Elect Obama surely will mention him his speech Tuesday. If not, Mr. O, please put him in your speech now. Just a paragraph will do.

But let me revive this column, which began this way:

 George Washington stands for honesty.  

Abraham Lincoln for freedom

Columbus for discovery,

Dr. King’s name stands for Opportunity.

When I think of Dr. King, I think of the Selma marches, I think of Birmingham, I think of Little Rock, Arkansas, where he lead the African-American community in demonstrations asking for the right of equal opportunity in America: a seat on a bus wherever they chose; a restaurant or hotel of their choice; the right to apply for a job without being turned down because you were black. Blatant in-your-face- discrimination was publicized by Dr. King and America was shown it was not right.

It took fearlessness to do that. Who today has that fearlessness that Dr. King and his followers showed all of America?

Today, subtle discrimination denying equal opportunity, denying education, exploiting the poor and guaranteeing less opportunity are the evils that Dr. King, had he lived,  would be attacking today. 

When I write those sentences I just wrote, it seems incomprehensible to me that someone would deny another person that. When you think about it, it is an awful situation to think about. In the 38 years since Dr. King was murdered, the nation has come a long way in breaking down the visible barriers of racism based on creed and the color of one’s skin — and now, today, the language one speaks and where they are from. The education establishment with the exception perhaps of the Port Chester School District, as pointed out by the Journal News series on education running this week, continues to favor the English-speaking, the wealthied, and the well-situated.

Today the barriers to Equal Opportunity are more subtle and just as effective.

Barriers still exist: in the classroom. There is reluctance to deliver quality education to the black and Hispanic populations in America today. Last year, for the first time, the White Plains City School District has agreed to a pilot program of teaching English speaking and Spanish speaking students together in Kindergarten and the grades going forward. It is about time.

The only reason there is a concentrated effort to do so are the state achievement tests which showed the shame of our education programs for minorities. The Superintendent of Schools Timothy Connors is to be commended for pushing this program.

 On the other hand, there is the perception elsewhere that because your name and skin color are different, you automatically need help and are slow-tracked into remedial classes; the inclusion of the slower (read minority) children in one corner of a classroom so you can deal with the “problem children” all at once; the notion that it is all right to use millions of dollars meant for rebuilding poor performing schools with better buildings, better teachers, but is used to create educational  bureaucracies for the politically connected instead.

In the last ten years the products of this subtle unequal educational opportunity have been well documented and given a name: The Achievement Gap. The educational establishment invests millions in studies to fine solutions to it and they have learned a lot about it. It takes more School District heads to stand up and say like Dr. King, “we simply are not going to educate half the population any more.”  Timothy Connors, to his credit, did that last year.

The lagging of minority youth is blamed on the home and family breakdown. Well then you have to bring more attention to the family unit and those youngsters’ home environment, putting the education in there. It’s expensive but if you want to solve the Achievement Gap you have to do that. The City of White Plains and the School District are reaching out to do that with the Family Excell program reported in WPCNR (the only media to do so last year). How is that doing?

The argument that you have to speak English in the schools and learn through English is  racial superiority. Of course you have to learn to speak English, but really, Bilingual education is how we English-speakers learn another language. Port Chester has achieved this — and WPCNR pointed this out to the White Plains School Board six years ago. Why is this new?

Every new teacher being hired in the White Plains School District should be bilingual — that’s the first thing the new Superintendent just announced should work on when he comes in July 1. And how about for his new Superintendent’s cabinet a educator in charge of bilingual education and performance, just for starters.

Why not have teachers educate children in their own language with English simultaneously? It is proven to work in Port Chester and New Rochelle. It is time to stop the subtle prejudice that we do not want non-English speaking children in our towns and schools because they are too hard to educate and will cost us money to do that. They are children, you simply cannot throw them away because they do not speak English.

This discrimination Dr. Martin Luther King would find hard to take.

He would bristle at lowering standards for minorities, because he would see right through that argument, saying:  when are you going to raise the standards for my people because you don’t have to work any harder at educating them if you do not raise your expectations for them.

I think Dr. King would look around today and appreciate how Blacks and Whites, Hispanics and Jews, Catholics and Protestants, Muslims and  other races mingle together in today’s America.

I think he’d observe we are all becoming more appreciative and respectful of each other. But, I do not think he would like today’s buzz word :”diversity” and our smugness about our diversity.

He would say that’s nice, but let’s keep our eye on the prize, to borrow the wonderful motto of the White Plains Department of Public Safety, let us treat all with integrity, professionalism, respect, and to that add opportunity.

Now, let’s think how Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would handle the present homeless situation in White Plains. Where souls were used for political posturing and to appeal to the fears of the citizens and not their sense of fairness and justice.

I believe Dr. Martin Luther King if he were in White Plains today would bring the homeless 40 or so  spending nights in the woods and overflowing at 186 West Post Road at the warming shelter to breakfast with him.  He’d have them camp out in tents at Andy Spano’s house or on the island at Renaissance Square. He would not let it pass. He’d run as many warming shelters as he felt necessary and get that television coverage when they were going to be closed down.

Dr. King was not  only politically incorrect, but  politically uncooperative.

He’d introduce the “feared 40” all around to the rich and the powerful and the well-connected and show them the people whom they are treating like cruel political pawns by our leaders on the county and the city level – all over this county.

He’d ask each  to tell their stories at his breakfast. He’d prey for compassion from us the wealthy, the powerful and the decent, and the respectable to have compassion for the weak, the misdirected, the addicted and disturbed, and the mortgage-ravaged.

He’d ask White Plains leaders to accept the responsibility of leadership and by reaching out personally to the homeless to provide them meals and, perhaps jobs during the day, to welcome them in to White Plains somehow. To help them make a new start in White Plains in a firehouse, a church, or a vacant hospital. To challenge businesses to weave these persons into the fabric of the downtown, instead of telling them they are not welcome.

He’d challenge us  to step up our humanity,  as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. did when no one else would 39 years ago.

He’d shame  the two governments, county and city, for not treating the homeless with simple human respect and adhering to the constitution, which prohibits you from being jailed for no reason – a policy incredulously being pushed by politicians who should read the constitution just once to reset their minds.

And about our gangs: Dr. Martin Luther King would go out to the streets of Yonkers, Mount Vernon, Port Chester, New Rochelle, Peekskill – the cities where gang activity has been reported – and  speak to them about where they are going. (Perhaps he’d simply speak to White Plains youths, since we have been assured by our officials there are no gangs in White Plains.)

It is difficult to say Dr. King would say to the gang members of our area. But, I assure you he’d be in their midst confronting this problem and admitting it exists.

As we honor Dr. Martin Luther King Monday. Ask ourselves what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would think of the way we have treated the homeless on the Warming Center issue.  What he would think about how we have “reached out?” Would he approve of the way we are working with our youth, our Hispanic population, about how dollars are being used for affordable housing and why it cannot be built faster, about how dollars are being spent in school districts whether on educating people or creating buildings or stadiums; how dollars are being spent by organizations supposedly helping the afflicted, and how they are really doing, and what are they doing with the dollars.

He’d excoriate the variable and below prime mortages now being foreclosed as a new form of financial redlining invented by the financial establishment to exploit. He’d ridicule the efforts of the government to “save” billion dollar financial institutions while allowing homeowners to lose their houses.

Would Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. approve?

He’d remind us that Jesus Christ chose to minister to the “hardcore” of his time. He went into their midst. He  healed them and made them fishers of men.

The way to honor Dr. King tomorrow  and at the “celebrated” holiday  next week is to honor the afflicted, help the troubled with dignity, not humiliate them, not shun them, not “throw them out.”

The way Dr. King would view our world today?

He’d observe that “we need work.”

That the lynchings and the shutting of school doors are gone, but the attitudes remain.

And he’d point that out with that his long and finger pointing right at us.

He’d say, “I still have a dream.”

And he’d be celebrating Barack Obama’s election but pointing his finger at him for the pomp and party atmosphere that will exist Tuesday, and calling upon him to keep his eye on the prize and not on the power, the prestige, and the people who would steer him away from what needs to be done.

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WPCNR POLICE GAZETTE. January 17, 2009: A fire broke out in the basement of 60 Lake Street opposite the Getty Service Station Saturday afternoon. Deputy Commissioner of Public Safety Daniel Jackson describes the incident:

There was a “Fire in the basement of a 1 story commercial building. Knocked down quickly. 

Adjacent building evacuated as a precaution for about 30 minutes. No injuries.

Believed to be caused by someone using a torch earlier in the day to unfreeze a  pipe. 

Good quick job done by fire personnel.