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 Quill & Eyeshade . By John F. Bailey. October 21, 2005: The City of White Plains finally responded to WPCNR’s repeated requests for year-end financials today, and released its preliminary financial report on 2004-2005 for the fiscal year ending three months and three weeks ago.

 

The report confirms the city did actually achieve a $1.4 Million surplus in 2004-2005 and according to Paul Wood, City Executive Officer, did not have to spend any of the $7,707,637 allocated from the city fund balance.

 

2004-2005 City Financials Confidential No More.  Photo by WPCNR News

Wood solemnly told WPCNR the release of the final year figures at this time was “unprecedented” and that the city auditors had completed their analysis of the White Plains only within the last two weeks. He said the snapshot was not auditor-approved, but he was “100%” sure the numbers would not change.

Wood has maintained that previous administrations prior to the Delfino years had not released such year end data until November when the final audited report is submitted to the Common Council.

Former Mayor Alfred Del Vecchio told WPCNR, he could not remember if his administration ever put out final year financials prior to November, because, he said when the final figures were released was never an issue, because “whenever anyone asked for something they got it.”

 

One Sheet Snapshot.

 

The one sheet snapshot faxed WPCNR Friday afternoon shows a $1,451,437 surplus, (previously reported by the city to WPCNR in August), was generated in part by an 8.6% increase in sales tax collections ($40,929,781) over 2003-2004 ($37,698,714) and a 40% increase in collections of mortgage tax, ($4,019,245 was collected in mortgage taxes in 2004-05 compared to 2,876,033 in 2003-2004). The mortgage tax is attributed to the booming housing prices in White Plains the last year.

 

According to WPCNR’s mid-year figures released by city hall, the city earned $20,878,181 in the July-December  04-05 and $20,051,600 in the second half of the year ending in June.

 

Fines, City Charges Big Gainers

 

White Plains more doubled its revenues on Charges for City Services generating $13,346,928 in 04-05 as opposed to $6,112,023 in 2003-04, a 118% increase.  In the original 2004-05 Budget, before the city absorbed the Parking Authority to erase a budget shortfall, Charges for City Services were budgeted at $5.8 Million. When the Parking Fees from the new Department of Parking were included in this sector, it appears, based on the final figures that the Department of Parking may have been responsible for $7,234,905 in additional revenue in this category in 04-05.

 

Fines & Forfeitures also had a robust year. In the spring of 2004, the Department of Public Safety launched its highway safety initiative. In 2004-2005, revenue from F & F

took in $5,079,371 new dollars as fines on parking tickets, and violations, among other sources were sharply increased. Revenue from fines increased 267% over 2003-2004’s paltry $1,900,776. Still the $6,980,147 actually collected in 2004 in F & F, was $992,073 less than projected.

 

 

The city took in $3,219,713 more in property related taxes ($37,315,925) in 04-05 a year-to-year, an increase of  9.4% over 03-04’s figure of $34,096212.

 

The city took in 27% more in Intergovernmental grants and payments receiving $6,304,171 in 04-05 over 03-04’s $4,960,939.

 

The city collected Revenues of $118,968,349 in 2004-05, $2,737,491 short of what was budgeted ($121,705,840), coming within 2.75% of projection.

 

Expenditures

 

On the outgo side of the ledger, Personnel costs ($61,976886)  rose $5,365,015 from $56,611871, a year-to-year increase of 8.6%.

 

Employee benefits rose 39% from $20,044,788 in 2003-2004 to $27,891,449 in 2004-2005.

 

Total expenditures including $7,475,031 of debt service, and a $4,766,482 transfer to the Library Fund  were $117,516,912, which when subtracted from the total revenues of $118,968,349, leaves a surplus of $1,451,437 as opposed to 2004-2004’s loss of $3,239,303.

 

Some questions.

 

Since Mr. Wood  ended our telephone call, WPCNR did not get to ask some questions about certain items such as the  bond proceeds item of $2,350,000 on the revenue side and the 126% increase in interest income in 2004-2005 of $932,039, up from a mere $412,014 in 2003-2004; and where the $2,569,808 in “Miscellaneous Funds” came from.

 

Hopefully Mr. Wood can get back to us with explanations of those items.

 

 

Wood on Certiorari Payments: 60% of Payments are for Years Prior 2000.

 

Mr.  Wood at the request of WPCNR responded on another matter that has been raised against the city management of finances: tax certioraris.

 

Wood said the City Assessor, Eyde McCarthy advised him that of the city tax refunds given for tax years 2000-2005 so far in the year 2005, 60% included negiated settlement amounts from years prior to 2000.

 

The city according to Common Council records paid back $2,961,859.63 in certiorari refunds through April 2005. Add to that the $347,492 approved in certiorari refunds since then, and you come up with $3,309,351 in cert refunds in 2004-2005.

 

Using Wood’s 60% figure, that would mean $1,985,610 in refunds covers years prior to 2000, and $1,323,740 in refunds are based on taxes paid  for tax years 2000 to 2005.

 

The rash of certioraris began in 2004. Only $228,677 in certs was paid in 2003.

 

Clearing  the Docket: 1,300% Increase in Cert Payments in 22 Months.

 

Wood said the Delfino Administration had inherited a backlog of 1,700 certiorari cases when it took office in 1997. Wood reports that 1,400 of them have been settled and 300 are pending, and that is why there has been an increase in certiorari payments. “We are clearing the slate,” Wood said, “we do not want to leave this hanging for future administrations.”

 

Asked if the city would consider jawboning or inform possible certiorari filers of moves that the city would take if obviously successful organizations continued to file certioraris because of the equalization rate, Wood said he did not think that was fair. Wood pointed out that to fight a suit and lose would be more expensive in the long run for the city.

 

 

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WPCNR MR. & MRS. & MS. WHITE PLAINS VOICE. October 21, 2005: Don Hughes contributes these observations over the “televised” debate at the high school Wednesday evening. Though the debate was planned to be videotaped, an air date has not been set. WPCNR was on assignment in the Adirondacks and could not attend. Any other comments on the debates todate would be welcomed!

On Wednesday night, the League of Women Voters
sponsored a debate between Joe Delfino and Dennis
Power.  Please make an effort to watch it when it
airs on cable.

When talking about accomplishments, Mr. Delfino
took full credit.  As he ran through the catalogue
of items he is proud of, he seldom mentioned that
many of them were the result of state and county
initiatives, or that some, like the search that
found our outstanding Commissioner of Public
Safety, were done over his objection.  This
insular attitude is also seen in his campaign
materials, none of which mentions the Republican
Party, or any of his Republican running mates.

He was amused and critical when Dennis said that,
as Mayor, he would search for creative ways to
solve our parking problems, or to manage our
explosive growth.  In this case, Mr. Delfino
pointed out that his was only one of seven votes
on the council and that he did not even have veto
power.  If there were better solutions out there,
then surely the Council would have already come up
with them.  But, things are not equal.  The Mayor
is the only full time council member, he is the
only one with access to the commissioners and
staff,  the background research and documentation
the Council depends on when studying agenda items
is prepared by his staff and will reflect his
agenda.  The council members do not even have
their own secretary to answer calls or type
letters to constituents for them.

Don Hughes.

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WPCNR White Plains Law Journal. Commentary By Doris Sassower. October 17, 2005:

President Bush’s recent nominations to the U.S. Supreme Court of Harriet Miers and John Roberts reflect serious flaws in the federal judicial nominating process, commencing with the so-called “vetting” of the nomination before it is made public by the White House.

 

Ms. Miers and for that matter now Chief Justice  Roberts, however qualified, and apart from any ideological considerations, could not be deemed unquestionably entitled to the lifetime jobs to which they were nominated, let alone the best qualified, as CJA believes our taxpaying public is entitled to. Our citizenry should not have to finance “on-the-job” training of a judicial nominee, simply because she or he is a friend of the President and closely allied to his right-wing conservative views.

(More)

 

With all due respect, the People, have a right to expect that the Chief Justice of our nation’s highest court would be chosen from the ranks of the U.S. Supreme Court pool itself, if not from the pool of Circuit Court Chief Judges throughout the country, with seniority gained from long years of experience deciding federal cases involving constitutional questions.

 

It surely must be demoralizing to all those judges that someone without such expertise should be chosen for so pre-eminent and life-determining a position. Even more so in the case of Miers, who has no judicial track record at all, no constitutional law specialty, and whose obvious prime qualification is her longtime friendship with Southern Methodist University classmate Laura Bush, which gained her the position of  counsel to the President, a job encompassing the so-called “vetting” of all White House judicial nominees, her own included. 

 

 Unfortunately for our citizenry, the “vetting process” does not work, mainly because the President has arrogated too much power to himself in making nominations for the many vacancies that occur on the federal district and appellate courts, as well as the District of Columbia courts. He has no right to abuse that power by politically-motivated choices which by any objective standard are contrary to the best interests of our taxpaying citizenry. Neither do the Senate Committees involved in confirmation of presidential judicial nominees have the right to just “rubber-stamp” those nominations, based on superficial information, as they are all too prone to do.

 

A glaring example of the abject failure of the “vetting” process to protect the public from unfit judicial nominees is seen in the case of President Bush’s appointment of Brian Fernandez Holeman, then 46 years of age, to the DC Superior Court on April 22, 2003, the very same day  CJA Coordinator, Elena Ruth Sassower, (a resident of White Plains) was handcuffed, arrested and locked up in the DC Jail for exercising 1^st Amendment rights by respectfully requesting to present “citizen opposition” at a US Senate Judiciary Committee Public Hearing considering the President’s nomination of Richard C. Wesley to the 2^nd Circuit US Court of Appeals.

  

The lawyer whose duty it was to “vett” the Holeman nomination was none other than Harriet Miers’ predecessor White House counsel Alberto Gonzalez, recently rewarded by the President with  appointment as our U.S. Attorney General. CJA checked into Judge Holeman’s background after his barbaric on-the-job performance as the judge presiding over the case of USA v. Elena Ruth Sassower, in which he sentenced CJA’s patriotic and valiant Coordinator to a jail term of six months on a transparently trumped-up criminal charge of “Disruption of Congress. Background documentation is available from our website at http://www.judgewatch.org/DisruptionofCongresscase.htm

 

After then White House counsel Gonzalez had endorsed the “vetting” of Holeman’s nomination, it was unanimously confirmed at a pro forma Senate Committee Hearing, where he was introduced as “well-qualified,” by a respected DC Congresswoman – notwithstanding Holeman not only had no judicial experience, had never clerked for a judge and had no law school distinctions, but also no criminal litigation experience as a practitioner.

 

More than that, our research showed that Holden had lied about his credentials in ways any reasonably competent investigator could have uncovered.  This included the fact that Holeman was not licensed to practice law in California, was not an Associate at the prominent law firm there, as he claimed, which did not list him as an Associate in that firm’s professional directory listing. After two years at the firm, Holeman went to work for the next four years in a non-legal position as claims man for the firm’s insurance clients, supportive of the belief that he did not pass the California bar.  The data Holeman himself provided in advance of his nomination showed also that he had nine (9) different legal employers in 17 years after law school graduation, winding up as a sole practitioner at the time of his appointment.

 

 Is it any wonder that one so beholden to the President for his clearly unmerited judgeship would be biased and abusive toward anyone whose name is synonymous with public interest advocacy dedicated to ending such flagrant perversion of the judicial nominating process?   

 

The numerous well-documented complaints by CJA and others against Judge Holeman, filed with the DC Commission on Judicial Tenure, for his flagrant misconduct as a judge and as a judicial nominee, that tax-funded public agency designed to police the conduct of District of Columbia judges and judicial nominees, resulted in their typical  “hands-off” dismissal of the complaints as “beyond the statutory authority of the Commission. So much for the “vetting” process as a mode of judicial selection and for judicial misconduct commissions which, rather than redressing legitimate citizen complaints of judicial abuse, are complicitous in the misconduct complained of.

 

 Doris L. Sassower, Director

 Member U.S. Supreme Court Bar

 

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WPCNR CAMPAIGN 2005. By John F. Bailey. October 17, 2005: John Carlson, candidate for Common Council accused the City of White Plains of  managing its budget in an “Enron like atmosphere” based on the city’s refusal to provide him with any form of final fiscal 2004-05 budget numbers. (To date, the city has said publicly they made their budget with a surplus of $1.5 million, thanks to increased mortgage taxes, but the city has not released even a preliminary spread sheet to the public or the media showing the final 2004-2005 results, even though asked by media. The city has also not published first quarter 2005-2006 results.)

 

JOHN CARLSON Holding News Conference at City Hall today. Photo by WPCNR News

 

Carlson said the Budget Department refused to give him 04-05 preliminary final budget numbers, quoting a Budget Department spokesperson as saying “We don’t do that.”

 

A call to the Mayor’s office asking when preliminary financials would be released, and if they would be released before Election Day (November 8) has not been returned.

 

Carlson, describing himself as a corporate banker professionally,  said this kind of “Enron-like atmosphere,” not reporting city financials in a timely, public manner did not make him feel comfortable. He criticized the city for not making three year expense budget and revenue projections. He said it was the Common Council’s job to ask for those numbers and scrutinize them.

 

In a wide ranging critique of city financials, Carlson accused the city of smoke and mirrors accounting, citing the city take over of the parking authority, and fund balance drawdowns, and increased parking fees and fines and ticket blitz as budget fixes, with no long term financial budget projections. He accused the present Common Council of being “bobbleheads” for not demanding and scrutinizing city budget trends, and allegedly accepting whatever city hall wanted to do.

 

Criticising the ballooning certiorari settlements the city has made, Carlson said the city Mayor’s Office should be more proactive in challenging the certiorari suits and make it clear to businesses filing for certioraris that these suits were not welcome. He did not say how he would do that. He did say that if he were on the Common Council he would with his other councilman members go toAlbany to lobby for legislation to make the taxation of commercial and residential properties equal.

 

Carlson questioned the city’s claims in a campaign brochure circulated by Mayor Joseph Delfine that crime was down 38%, citing Federal Bureau of Investigation statistics released this morning that violent crime in White Plains was up in 2004 over both 2003 and 2002. WPCNR is attempting to acquire those statistics released by the FBI to discuss them with the Department of Public Safety for clarification.

 

Carlson when asked by WPCNR,  said he had not called Commissioner of Public Safety Dr. Frank Straub to discuss the reasoning behind the Police Department statistics and the reasons why, (in Carlson’s opinion), the FBI says violent crime was up, and White Plains says it was down. Carlson said that by the city’s own information arrests were up which he said did not indicate to him that crime was down. Carlson said he wanted to know what was the truth.

 

 

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WPCNR SCHOOL DAYS. By John F. Bailey. October 16, 2005: After waiting a month, the Board of Education approved tax certiorari refunds totaling $1,146,969 last Tuesday evening in Executive Session, according to Terrance Schruers, Assistant Superintendent for Business. The board approved the refunds, $712,118 for Brook Hills Condominiums 1,2,3; $198,498 for Heritage Towers; and $236,353 for Crystal Towers.

 

The refunds brought the total amount of tax refunds the School District has had to pay back to businesses and condominium/coops (including Westchester One,  Bloomingdale’s and Nordstroms)  by the School District this year to $8,473,059 since January, 2005.

The latest round of certriorari settlements were approved by the Common Council of the City of White Plains in August. The School District tabled the approval of the settlements last month, pending discussion with counsel. However,  in Executive Session last Tuesday night approved settlements in those amounts

 

Schreuers said the refunds covered the last five years for Brook Hills, the percentage of taxes refunded ranging from 0 to 30% of taxes paid from 2000 to 2005;  refunds of taxes from 1998 to 2005 for Crystal Towers showed refunds of 6% to 34%; and 3% to 18% for Heritage Hills from 1997 to 2005. Schreurs reported the reductions in assessments will cost the district $226,000 in tax collections a year.

 

Schruers said the refunds were caused due to the lower rate at which condominiums are taxed as opposed to the residential tax rate. He added that there a number of condominium certioraris in litigation with the city that he expected would have a significant impact on the district budget, by forcing the school to bond more monies to pay for the larger certiorari amounts in refunds from previous years, plus loss of revenue in future years. Schruers said he expected more condominium settlements and applications for certioraris in 2006. The School District is allowed to bond without citizen approval for amounts up to $10 Million.

 

Based on previous payment policies established by the board earlier this year, the current certioraris will be paid out of money set aside and money raised from a  bond offering approved with the 2005-2006 School Budget.