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 COMMUNITY BULLETIN BOARD. February 16, 2004: The Men’s and Women’s Choirs of Anchor House, the United Methodist residential drug rehabilitation program, will sing during the 10 a.m. worship service at Memorial UMC on Sunday, March 7.

After the service, the congregation of Memorial will host a covered dish luncheon for its Anchor House guests.

The Anchor House men’s program was established in 1967 in a former parsonage on Brooklyn Avenue in Crown Heights by the Rev. Alfredo Cotto-Thorner, then pastor of South Third Street United Methodist Church, who was working with addicts and saw the need for a residential facility. The program has been in operation continuously since, serving up to 21 men at a time.

Later, a new building was developed into a program for 50 more men, and a women’s program was started for 18 women. Another house has been purchased next door to the women’s house, and Anchor House is awaiting funds to renovate both buildings to serve up to 28 women.

Anchor – which stands for Addicts on Narcotics CHrist Oriented — House is a faith-based program. To graduate, residents must go through the entire program, which takes 18-24 months. They study to receive the GED diploma if they have not completed high school. They are then placed in a vocational track suited to their particular gifts, and graduate with a savings account, a place to live and a job.

Anchor House has been recognized by The United Methodist Church, the State OASAS division and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development as an outstanding program.

The congregation of Memorial strives to welcome and respect persons of every race, ethnicity, national origin, physical or mental ability, gender, family status, sexual orientation, age, theology, and economic circumstance. Its pastor is Rev. Joe Agne. The church is located on Bryant Avenue between North Street and Mamaroneck Avenue.

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WPCNR MAIN STREET JOURNAL. From Todai Restaurant. (Edited) February 15, 2004: Todai, a Japanese all-you-can-eat sushi and seafood restaurant will debut in the Northeast at the White Plains Galleria Mall in early March. The 350-seat restaurant will occupy 10,000 square feet on the first floor of The Galleria and will feature its signature 160-foot seafood buffet counter, offering 40 kinds of sushi. Learn more abotu Todai from their website at www.todai.com.

There’s a salad bar and hot entrée island offering more than 15 dishes, and a dessert bar featuring 20 different cakes and fruits. The restaurant will be located on the first floor of The 24-year old Galleria Mall, which recently was purchased.

The restaurant price range begins at $13.95 to $15.95 for lunch to dinners from $23.95 to $25.95. The salad bar features mixed greens, edamame, mixed seafood salad, green lip mussels, poached salmon, marinated mushrooms, seaweed and eggplant salad.

At the sushi bar, tuna, salmon, yellow tail, eel, sea urchin, spicy tuna roll, California roll and more delicacies will be available. At the “steam table,” seafood adventurers can select from grilled fresh salmon, shrimp and vegetable tempura, teriyaki beef and chicken, sukiyaki, baked green mussel, half-shell baked lobster, fried noodles and rice.

Todai first opened in Santa Monica, California in 1985 and expanded to 10 restaurants throughout southern California. Currently there are 25 Todais operating in California, Hawaii, Illinois, Oregon, Washington, Texas, Arizona, Florida, Nevada and Hong Kong.

Richard Lee, Director of Marketing, is quoted in the news releases, praising White Plains: “Our new restaurant at The Galleria will be the first in the Northeast, and we’re very excited about coming to White Plains. This is a vibrant city and we’re confident that this restaurant will be one of our most successful.”

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WPCNR’S ADAM IN ALBANY. By District 89 Assemblyman Adam T. Bradley. February 14, 2004: The New York State minimum wage of $5.15 an hour is a slap in the face to hard-working families. A full-time minimum wage worker in New York earns only $10,712. Clearly, a higher minimum wage is needed to help families make ends meet. A hard day’s work should be rewarded with an honest wage.

The gap between the richest 20 percent and the poorest 20 percent of families with children is wider in New York than any other state. Increasing the minimum wage will not only help working families get ahead, it will also help spur the economy since those families will have more money to spend.

That’s why I sponsored legislation to increase the state minimum wage – to $6.00 per hour on October 1, 2004; $6.75 an hour on July 1, 2005; and $7.10 on January 1, 2006.

Currently, food service workers receiving tips have a minimum wage of $3.30 per hour. That would rise to $3.90 an hour on October 1, 2004; $4.40 per hour on July 5, 2005; and $4.65 an hour on January 1, 2006.

Our neighboring states like Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut and Rhode Island all have higher minimum wages than New York. In New York we have not raised the minimum wage since March of 2000.

The bill I’m sponsoring will also allow an employee to bring a wage and hour complaint, and give the commissioner of the state Labor Department access to wage and hour records in investigating alleged minimum wage violations.

Creating a livable wage will go a long way toward helping our neighbors who work hard to put food on their families’ tables. We must ensure that a person working 40 hours a week is able to support his or her family, and my legislation helps address this inequity.

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WPCNR WHITE PLAINS LAW JOURNAL. By John F. Bailey. February 12, 2004: The Quo Warranto action begun in March 2002 by the New York Attorney General on behalf of voting machine jam victim, Larry Delgado, to remedy Mr. Delgado’s ill-fated run for Common Council in November 2001, moved forward this week.

Judge Francis Nicolai, the Ninth Judicial District Administrative Judge, decided he himself would handle the Delgado quo warranto case, and not have the court clerk assign it to a new judge, as moved by Mr. Hockley’s attorney.

CONSIDERING APPEAL OF NICOLAI’S TAKING THE CASE: County Legislator Tom Abinanti, attorney for Glen Hockley in the longrunning Hockley-Delgado disputed Council election of 2001 in White Plains, is exploring appeal options to get the quo warranto case filed for Mr. Delgado assigned to a new judge. Photo from WPCNR News Archives.

Thomas Abinanti, the attorney for Glen Hockley, said Thursday evening to WPCNR, he was considering appealing that Nicolai decision to take the case himself. Mr. Hockley has been serving as White Plains Councilman since March 15, 2002, when the Court of Appeals ruled against the Appellate Court call for a citywide election between the two, ruling Mr. Delgado’s only remedy was quo warranto action by the attorney general on behalf of Mr. Delgado.

THE PHANTOM COUNCILMAN: LARRY DELGADO:  The jammed voting machine in District 18 on the night of November 5, 2001, he feels, cost him 103 votes, and the Councilseat now occupied by Glen Hockley. The Attorney General is calling for Judge Nicolai to make a summary judgment to instate Mr. Delgado onto the Common Council and remove Mr. Hockley. Photo from WPCNR News Archives.

Mr. Abinanti is defending Mr. Hockley against the Attorney General’s quo warranto action, told WPCNR he is considering his options to appeal Judge Nicolai’s ruling.

Meanwhile, Jeffrey Binder, a legal strategist for Larry Delgado said the attorney general was preparing papers for the next phase, which papers he said would be filed in two weeks.

Attorney General “Judge Shopping.”

Abinanti told WPCNR Thursday night that, in his opinion, the Attorney General is “judge-shopping” by requesting Judge Nicolai handle the quo warranto action.

“We moved to ask to send this (quo warranto) case back to the Calendar Clerk for reassignment. We believe the rules of the court apply. We’re considering our options on how to appeal this Nicolai decision (for Nicolai to review the case) to the Appellate Court.”

Abinanti said “Where a case is related to another case, it may be assigned to a judge handling  that case, or related to an existing pending case to eliminate duplication of testimony and assure consistent rulings, and the expertise a judge might have. None of these conditions apply to this (quo warranto) case.”

Abinanti said the quo warranto is a completely separate new case, that should be randomly assigned because the original Delgado action against Mr. Hockley and the Board of Elections was thrown out by the Court of Appeals in March, 2003. Abinanti pointed out the quo warranto was filed eight months after the Delgado vs. Board of Elections case was decided.

MARCH 14, 2002: Glen Hockley, left, with his attorney, Adam Bradley, who successfully fought the Judge Nicolai and then the Appellate court ruling for a citywide election to the Court of Appeals and had it reversed by the state’s highest court forcing Mr. Delgado to request the Attorney General to mount a quo warranto action on his behalf. Mr. Hockley was sworn in as Common Councilman the next day, the Ides of March. Photo From WPCNR News Archives.

“The Attorney General is judge shopping, trying to dodge the appropriate procedure, demanding it be referred to Judge Nicolai.” Abinanti said. “This is why we want to go to trial. This is not necessarily a slam-dunk for Delgado. I don’t want to tip our strategy, but how sure are these people (103 persons who signed affidavits that they voted for Mr. Delgado, the crux of the Attorney General’s evidence)  that they really voted for Delgado?”

Summary Judgment Could Come Any Time.

Abinanti said he would be moving quickly to determine the way  to appeal the judge assignment decision by Nicolai, because he said, when the attorney general filed his final papers within the next two weeks, Judge Nicolai could rule at any time.

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WPCNR STARS AND STRIPES. By John F. Bailey. February 12, 2004: Today marks the birthday of Abraham Lincoln, whose Presidential performance during the Civil War (1861-1865) was perhaps the most troubled of any American President. He had to create things as he went, dealing with a complex political issue: slavery, while deciding to fight a war to preserve a divided nation. How did Abraham Lincoln handle pressure and political opportunists? He did not have press agents and spinmasters and talk show hosts critiquing his every move and loading him up with advice. Let’s take a look.
In the days of Lincoln, media coverage was simply print media, however, the amount of reporting on the burning issues of the day was far more detailed than today with dozens of newspapers presenting the chronicles of the burning issues. For Lincoln’s presidency was the presidency of the nation’s greatest crisis in its eighty-five year history: The Civil War. It is interesting to note how President Lincoln conducted himself in dealing with America’s interests, its factions, pulling him to free the slaves.



When Lincoln was running for the Presidency in 1860 at the Republican Convention in riproaring Chicago, he was up against James Seward, a powerful New York politician. However, the western states at the time were highly distrustful of the New York political machine. Lincoln won over support by taking a position of what was good for the nation as a whole.

Taking a Position and Working To it

Lincoln first gave notice of his potential for the Presidency when he impressed Horace Greeley, influential editor of the New York Tribune with a fiery speech at the Cooper Union in February, 1860, delivering a sharp criticism of the South, hard on the heels of South Carolina’s secession from the Union. The speech included these words,

You say you will not abide the election of a Republican President. In that supposed event, you say, you will destroy the Union; and then, you say, the great crime of having destroyed it will be upon us! (The northern states) That is cool. A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, “Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!”

Greeley printed the speech in his Tribune the next day, scooping the other New York papers, by simply asking Lincoln for a copy of the speech. The subsequent printing in the popular Trib, sent Mr. Lincoln on his way. As William Harlan Hale’s biography of Mr. Greeley (Horace Greeley: Voice of the People)describes the scene at “The original Trib’s” offices, as remembered by Amos Cummings, a young proofreader:

Amos Cummings, then a young proofreader, remembered the lanky westerner appearing over his shoulder amid the noise of the pressroom late at midnight, drawing up a chair, adjusting his spectacles, and in the glare of the gaslight reading each galley (of the Cooper Union speech) with scrupulous care and then rechecking his corrections, oblivious to his surroundings.

A Comeback President

Lincoln had been a highly successful politician from Illinois in the 1830s and 1840s. He was three times elected to the state legislature, and The Kunhardts’ The American Presidency reports he was “a recognized expert at forming collations…he learned how to keep secrets, how to trade favors, how to use the press to his advantage. And he cultivated his relationship with the party hierarchy.”

Graff’s book writes that Lincoln was described as “ruthless,” that he “handled men remotely like pieces on a chessboard.” Humor and frankness were character traits.

Lincoln was elected a congressman, only to serve just one term.

Lincoln had been practicing corporate law privately and had lost interest in politics by 1854, until the repeal of The Missouri Compromise, which had restricted slavery to the southern states. Lincoln felt stirred to come back. He spoke out against the spread of slavery, running for the senate in 1858 against William Douglas, unsuccessfully.

Saving the Union His Mantra

As the furor over slavery and the South’s threats to secede grew, a crisis of spirit and purpose in this nation which makes today’s concerns about terrorism as a threat to America, pale in comparison, Lincoln realized that the Union was the larger issue. He expressed this in response to Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, an influential figure at the Republican (Whig) Convention in Chicago in 1860. Greeley was the kingmaker at the 1860 Chicago convention who eventually swung the western states for Lincoln, giving the man from Illinois the nomination on the third ballot over William Seward, the candidate of the Thurlow Weed “New York Machine.”

Greeley then tried to influence the President-Elect to free the slaves. (Lincoln was being lobbied by the still-powerful Weed-Seward faction to compromise with the southern states on the issue of slavery).

Standing Tall Against Pressure.

Lincoln refused to free the slaves as one of the first acts of his presidency, standing firm to hold the union together, when he announced his attention not to do so, on his way to Washington after being elected. His words in this time of international tension, are worth remembering as America considers starting a war for the first time. Lincoln said:

I have often inquired of myself what great principle or idea it was that kept this Confederacy (the Union, he means), so long together. It was not the mere matter of separation of the colonies from the motherland, but that sentiment in the Declaration of Independence which gave liberty not alone to the single people of this country, but hope to all the world, for all future time. It was that which gave promise that in due time the weights would be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all should have an equal chance.

Seeing the Big Picture.

After Fort Sumter was fired upon, Lincoln was pressured harder to free the slaves. Still, Lincoln held firm. Mr. Greeley published a blistering open letter to the President, he called “The Letter of Twenty Millions,” meaning his readers (slightly exaggerated)in The New York Tribune. Greeley’s letter took the President to task for not freeing the slaves now that the Civil War was on, writing, “all attempts to put down the rebellion and at the same time uphold its inciting cause are preposterous and futile.”

President Lincoln responded with an open letter which Greeley published in The Tribune. President Lincoln’s letter is instructive as to how a President moves in crisis, when a nation is ripped apart to calm and state his position. He begins with a conciliatory tone, calming Greeley’s bombast:

…If there be perceptible in it (Greeley’s letter) an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend whose heart I have always supposed to be right.

As to the policy I “seem to be pursuing,” as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt. I would save the Union. I would save it in the shortest way under the Constitution.

The sooner the national authority can be restored the nearer the Union will be – the Union as it was.

If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them.

If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them.

If I could save the Union without freeing any slaves, I would do it – if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it – and if I could do it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that.

What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save this Union, and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.

I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I believe doing more will help the cause.

I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors, and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be new views.

I have here stated my purpose according to my views of official duty, and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free, Yours

A. Lincoln

Wearied by War

Horace Greeley described the toll the Civil War had taken on Mr. Lincoln, seeing him in person shortly beforeGeneral Lee surrendered. Greeley wrote:

Lincoln’s face had nothing in it of the sunny, gladsome countenance he first brought from Illinois. It is now a face haggard with care and seamed with thought and trouble…tempest-tossed and weatherbeaten, as if he were some tough old mariner who had for years been beating up against the wind and tide, unable to make his port or find safe anchorage…The sunset of life was plainly looking out of his kindly eyes.”