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 Battle Hill Patriot. By John F. Bailey. October 10, 2003:  Councilman Robert Greer called Republican Candidates Tim Sheehan and Jeff Binder on the challengers’ charge that the Common Council has had nine years to enact the Poughkeepsie Zoning defining a family and that they have not raised fines for running illegal rooming houses since 1989 last night at the Candidates’ Forum.

Quoting from Common Council minutes of May 1, 1995, Greer said the Binder-Sheehan assertion was inaccurate, pointing out that the Council set minimum fines for repeat offenses by landlords, not less than $250 a day, nor in excess of $500 or imprisonment not exceeding 15 days, or both.

For violations after the second violation, occuring within 5 years of the first conviction, they raised the stakes from a fine up to $350 to a  fine not less than $500 a day nor in excesss of $1,000 a day or imprisonment not exceeding 15 days or both.

Greer said the council moved because judges at the time were not fining the landlords very large amounts.

Greer, though said he supported the Poughkeepsie ordinance promoted by Messrs Sheehan and Binder placing the burden of proof they are living as a family on groups of persons of 4 or more living in a home who are not related, should be enacted.

We talked to George.

Greer  accused the Republicans of stealing the idea, telling this reporter that Democratic Councilmen Tom Roach and Benjamin Boykin had gone to George Gretsas privately “about two months ago” and suggested the Poughkeepsie “Family Definition” ordinance to Gretsas, and Gretsas had passed the suggestion on to the Safe Housing Task Force.

Greer said he has not heard any report back since that time from the Safe Housing Task Force on the fate of folding the Poughkeepsie ordinance into the White Plains anti illegal housing arsenal.

Benjamin Boykin, Common Council President, said the city had to be “very careful” here enacting the Poughkeepsie statute because  there were human issues involved, and that the city could not rush such legislation for fear of its being unconstitutional.

Sheehan said that was a totally wrong approach that the legislation was needed now. The audience agreed with him. He said the Poughkeepsie ordinance was tested in Appellate Court in 1994, and upheld and has not been appealed since.

“It’s been proven constitutional,” Sheehan said. Sheehan said since unscrupulous landlords are purchasing homes specifically for the purpose of converting their purchases into illegal rooming houses, that the legislation was needed now “to cut off the head” of illegal housing, and discourage landlords from purchasing homes just for that purpose. He cited the recent Building Department discoveries of just these kind of purchases on Holland Avenue and North Broadway as why the Common Council should enact a Poughkeepsie ordinance clone as soon as possible.

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WPCNR PRESS BOX. VIEW FROM THE UPPER DECK By John “Baseball” Bailey. October 9, 2003: Reading all the talk about curses and noting the columns and claptrap being written by columnists and spouted by Commissioner Bud Selig about how great the Wild Card is, I have to weigh in.

OLD COMISKEY PARK. Circa 1975. Photo by WPCNR Sports

First, the Wild Card Sham: the playoffs in baseball make the regular season meaningless. The media covers the quest for the Wildcard in each league. Teams shoot for the Wildcard position…witness the Red Sox and the Marlins pursuit of 2nd place because they did not…repeat did not…have a good enough club day in day out to overtake the Yankees or the Braves on the basis of consistency. More ink was written on the Wild Card Chase than the Pennant Races. Races were covered from the Wild Card eligibility standard.

The Red Sox even admitted they had concentrated on the Wild Card all along.

This is fundamentally wrong. The A’s and the Yankees outlasted the opposition over 162…and now are getting ousted by teams with inferior records?????  This is not right.

In baseball and fastpitch softball, anyone watching the game knows that every game is a toss up, depending on what the pitcher brings with them that day.

A Curse? No Way.

There is no such thing as a curse. A curse is superior pitching on any given dayt. A curse is the inability to make a play, and that can happen at any time. A curse is the inability to put the ball in play when you absolutely have to do. A curse is the inability to make good pitches.

Nowhere was this more evident than Wednesday in the Bronx about the inconsistency of performance that can turn a short series around, and turn superiority around.

Knuckleball specialist Wakefield gets a humid night in mid October. Students of the knuckler know that humid weather is ideal for knuckleball floats…Hoyt Wilhelm no-hit the Yankees in 1958 on a 100% humidity, drizzly day in Baltimore.  This does not excuse Mussina’s rustiness. It shows that the playoffs change the dynamic…if you threw the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in for a fast 5 games…they might be able to take the Yankees, too, or the Red Sox…that’s the way baseball/fastpitch is.

Let’s All Play for Second Place.

For Selig to say how great the wildcard is pathetic…it rewards the mediocritists. The best of 5 series is designed to benefit the Wildcarder.

That being said, the A’s let the Red Sox off the hook. The A’s also have to blame their lack of concentration, allowing personal anonymosities towards the Bosox to allow them to miss the plate twice. How bad is that? Whenever you lose your concentration and will to execute because of emotion, you are doomed.

There are no curses. There is just execution or failure to execute.

I cannot abide by the Wildcard system. I think baseball either has to make it so every team finishes first….to get into the playoffs, but no second places. It is just a double-standard that makes the regular season one long exhibition season with 6 teams deciding they are going to put forth the effort to win, and about 8 other teams figuring they are going to shoot for the Wild Card.

Throwing Hand Grenades.

Now, if no one knew the baseball was juiced, they know it now. Six homers Tuesday night. More homers last night. Come on. Did they put in new balls just for the playoffs to hype the ratings?

It looks like it. And, how about the anti-Marlin sentiment in the press. How can you write the Cubs are in control when it is 1-1 after two games?

First Game the Most Important? Forget About It.

The most pivotal game in a best of 7 is the 4th game, where someone goes either 3-1 or 2-2, or staves off a sweep.

Then each game is more important. The most meaningless game is the first game.

However, if you like History…Replay 1918

That being said that there are no curses, and no important first games, if you are a student of history, the Cubs and Red Sox should meet in the series to replay their series of 1918, when the Red Sox beat the Cubs, 4 games to 2.

That series was played in early September because the major league season had been shut down because of the U.S. World War I effort, and major league players being drafted.

 Babe Ruth shut out the Cubs, 1-0, in Game One at Old Comiskey Park  on a six-hitter. In this series, the Babe set a record for consecutive scoreless innings thrown by a pitcher (29-2/3) which stood until Whitey Ford broke the record in 1961.

These Red Sox featured a big four of submarine thrower, Carl Mays (21-13) (30 complete games), Sad Sam Jones (16-5, 16 complete games), Bullet Joe Bush (15-15, 18 complete games), and the Babe, a svelte 23 years old with a 13-7 record, 18 complete games.

The Cubs frontlined with Hippo Vaughn at 22-10 with 19 going the distance; Claude Hendrix, 20-7. 21 complete games, Lefty Tyler, 19-8 and Phil Douglas, 10-9.

Henry Frazee’s Sawks lineup had The Babe in left, when he was not pitching, and the kid hit 11 homers in 319 at-bats, hitting .300 not yet the Sultan of Swat. Frazee had no real indication he was going to be anything more than a great pitcher.

Game 1

In that first game in Comisky Park, Stuffy McInnis, Sox first-baseman (former Philadelphia A’s star) singled to left in the fourth, scoring Dave Shean from second after Paul Whitehead’s single had moved him to second for the only run The Babe needed.

Game Two at the then 9 year old South Side park saw the Cubs even it up with Lefty Tyler shutting out Boston, 3-0, beating Bullet Joe Bush. The Cubs posted a crooked 3 on the board in the second frame when Fred Merkle (of Merkle’s Boner fame) walked, (Oh, those bases on balls, even then), second baseman Charlie Pick beat out a bunt. After a pop up Bill Kellefer, the catcher doubled to right, scoring Merkle, Pick putting on the breaks at third,1-0, Chicago.

Lefty Tyler, the pitcher drove in 2 runs for his own cause with a single up the middle, scoring Pick and Kellefer to make it 3-0, and that’s the way she ended.

Game 3 was also played in Old Comiskey and Carl Mays took the mound for Boston against Hippo Vaughn. Mays outduelled him, 2-1. The darlings of New England got all they needed in the fourth inning.

George Whiteman was hit with a pitch after 1 was out. Vaughn gave up a single to McInnis, Whiteman moving to second. Wally Schang, catcher, batting sixth for Boston singled up the center of the diamond, scoring Whiteman, moving McInnis to third, to make it 1-0, Sawks. Ev Scott the shortstop, batting 7th, beat out a bouncer to the mound, scoring McInnis with what turned out to be the winning run. The Cubs got one back in the fifth  when Charlie Pick doubled, and came in on a single by Bill Killefer to left field. Boston leads the series, 2 games to 1.

Pivotal Fourth Game

The teams boarded the train to travel to Boston the next day, with the series resuming at Fenway Park. Game 4 Babe Ruth was on the hill and he went 8 innings to get the win 3-2 over the Cubs, beating a Cub reliever. Again the fourth inning was the big inning for the Sawks.

Dave Shean, batting second walked. (Oh, those leadoff walks!) Amos Strunk flied out, but Shean went to second on a passed ball. George Whiteman walked. With Sawks on the sacks at first and second, Lefty Tyler,  induced McGinness to ground to third into a force, but then he elected to pitch to Babe Ruth, batting 7th, with Whiteman and McGuinness on first and second and two out.

The Babe worked Lefty to a full count then BOOM! Babe belts it! A long drive to deep right center out by the Fenway bullpens, Whiteman and McGuinness scoring, for a 2-0 lead.

Three double plays in the 5th, 6th and 7th bailed the Babe out of trouble, but in the 8th, the Cubbies tied it up.

Bill Killefer the number 8 hitter, walked to lead off the 8th. Claude Hendrix pinch hit a single to left, Killefer putting on the breaks at second. The Babe uncorked a wild pitch, moving Cubs to second and third. With the infield in, Ruth induced Max Flack the cub leadoff man to bounce to first, the runners held. Charlie Hollocher, Cub shortstop bounced to second, scoring Killefer from third, 2 out.

The Babe surrendered a 2-out, game-tying single to left to the Cubs 3-place hitter, Les Mann, but got cleanup man Dode Paskert, the centerfield on a shot to third. Tie game, 2-2 going to the bottom of the eighth. The Babe’s scoreless inning streak had ended.

In the last of the eighth, the Sawks pushed a run over to win it.  Wally Shang, pinch-hitting for catcher Agnew, singled up the middle, and went to second on a passed ball that just eluded Cubs backstop Killefer. Harry Hooper the Bosox rightfielder laid down a bunt to the mound. Cub reliefer Phil Douglas, in his anxiety tomake the play threw the ball away, allowing Shang to score, 3-2, Boston.

In the ninth, Ruth  gave up a single to Merkle and a walk to Rollie Zieder, and Boston Manager Ed Barrow walked to the mound and went to the bullpen. In the 5 o’clock shadows, in trudged  Bullet Joe Bush, a righthander. Bush induced a force play at third and threw a double play ball to pinch hitter Turner Barber to save the game. Boston took the lead in the series, 3 games to 1.

In Game 5, Hippo Vaughn kept the Cubs alive by shutting out Boston 3-0 in the Fens, beating Sad Sam Jones. Shortstop Hollocher walked with 2 out in the third, stole second and scored on Les Mann’s double to left. (We do not know if it was off the green monster.) In the 8th, the Cubs got 2 runs of insurance on a walk to Max Flack, a bunt that Bill Hollocher beat out for a hit and Dode Paskert’s double in the left center field alley to score Flack and Hollocher. The Sox were ahead 3 games to 2.

In the sixth and decisive game, Carl Mays handcuffed the Cubs, 2-1, for Boston’s last World Championship. Boston’s 2 runs scored on an error by Max Flack in right field with 2 outs in the second.

After Lefty Tyler walked the pitcher, Carl Mays to lead off the inning, then retired Harry Hooper, walked Dave Shean, and got Amos Strunk on a grounder, moving Mays and Shean to third and second.

Then George Whiteman the cleanup hitter stood in. He lined one out to Max Flack in right.  Flack like Jose Cruz, Jr. last weekend, dropped a liner, allowing Mays and Shean to score the 2 runs that Mays made last. The Cubs got 1 back in the 4th, on Fred Merkle’s 2 out single with two on, but could not tie, losing the series 4 games to 2.

In the 8th, George Whitman perhaps saved the game with a somersaulting catch  off Turner Barber leading off the 8th saving an extra basehit.  Mays got the Cubs 1-2-3 in the 9th.

That was the story of the Red Sox last World Championship, and it happened against the Cubs.

 

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WPCNR CITY HALL DAYS. From the Mayor’s Office. October 9, 2003: At Tuesday evening’s Common Council meeting, the Mayor saluted city employees who are celebrating 25 years with the City of White Plains. The following is the Roll of loyal public servants publicly recognized that evening, a formal portrait is forthcoming:

Honored Tuesday Evening. A few of the city employees honored for 25 years Service. Photo by WPCNR

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WPCNR NORTH END NEWS. By John F. Bailey. October 8, 2003: Jeffrey Binder and Tim Sheehan, official Republican Candidates for Common Council announced that the Building Department of White Plains has identified a turn for the worse in the city’s hot illegal housing market yesterday: Owners are purchasing homes in neighborhoods and turning them into illegal rooming houses they operate in a manner that makes it very hard for the Safe Housing Task Force to find grounds to close them down.

 

SHEEHAN & BINDER IN THE NEIGHBORHOODS ON PRIMARY DAY. Photo by WPCNR News.

 

The two Council Candidates have drafted legislation with teeth to combat what they describe as “a quality of life assault on our residential neighborhoods.” Calling their legislation, “The White Plains Neighborhood Protection Act 2003,” they introduced the legislation to media Wednesday and hope the Common Council will adapt it within six months. “Whether we’re elected or not, this must be done,” Binder said.

 

The pair interviewed at Republican Headquarters said they had long been aware of the problem, but were galvanized into action to draft this legislation by  a North Broadway Civic Association meeting last week. At that meeting, they said, a representative of the White Plains Building Department identified a new trend among owners seeking to exploit persons in need of housing.

 

The New Tenements: Block by Block

 

Here’s how the landlord scheme works according to Sheehan: An owner  purchases a home in a neighborhood, fixes it up (divides it by rooms) and rents it out to persons unrelated, charging up to a dozen or more individuals $500 or more each to live in the home. This house-stuffing creates a lucrative handle of $6,000 or more a month revenue, more than enough to pay mortgages and clear a profit. At the present fine level, Sheehan says, the revenues cover any fines easily.

 

Sheehan said, these housing exploiters next step is to “cherry pick” homes in the same neighborhood, striking deals with homeowners next door to their purchase, and populating those homes with as many as a dozen residents or more. Sheehan and Binder said two such homes were pointed out by the Building Department on Holland Avenue, and another on Benedict Avenue as two examples of this trend.

 

Such Good Neighbors

 

Landlords purchase a home, fix it up, keep the lawn cut, and charge persons $500 a month for a room in this house, Sheehan explained. “They can’t be touched by safety issues because they keep the home neat on the exterior, keep the garbage unobtrusive, don’t have a lot of cars parked in the driveways, not a lot of coming and goings, eliminating the common tip-offs to illegal housing. The owners even run vans to pick up and drop off their illegal tenants.”

 

“If White Plains is ever to shed its reputation as being a haven for unscrupulous landlords that prey on hard working people by offering substandard and overcrowded living accommodations within single family homes, it will enact this reform immediately. We are confident that our superb Buildings Department and Office of Corporation Counsel can work together, finalize this proposal forthwith and present it to the Common Council for approval,” Binder and Sheehan said in a written statement.

 

Neighborhood Protection Act: Tool to Shut Them Down Based on Numbers

Hike Fines to $1,000 a Day.

 

Sheehan and Binder said their Act  gives the city a tool to crack down on filled-to-the-brim single family homes by redefining the definition of what constitutes a family based on recent court decisions and the approach that has worked for the City of Poughkeepsie.

 

It also will raise the minimum fine for homeowners in violation to $1,000 a day up to $3,000 a day for landlords. Sheehan and Binder pointed out fines now at $500 have not been raised by the Common Council since 1989.

 

Not aimed at Group Homes. Aimed at groups of Unrelated Individuals Who Do Not Pool Resources.

 

Asked if this legislation would be used to keep such operations as Group Homes for the handicapped, (a technique used by White Plains own Zoning Board of Appeals to overturn a Building Department permit issued to the Jewish Board of Childrens and Family Services to renovate a home for parentless teens last spring on Walworth Avenue), Sheehan and Binder said that it would not, saying the legislation in the City of Poughkeepsie follows the definition of recent court decisions defining a family as:

1. A single housekeeping unit.
   
2. More or less permanent living arrangement.
   
3. Stable, rather than transient living arrangements (except where the handicapped are affected)
   
4. A group headed by a householder caring for a reasonable number of children as one would be likely to find in a biologically unitary family.

 

Landlord must prove his or her residents are a family.

 

Sheehan said most groups homes pool the income resources of residents. All live together and eat commonly and the meals are prepared from a single kitchen. 

 

Sheehan explained the owner of an illegal rooming house would have “the burden” of proving to the Building Department that they meet the standards set by zoning regulations to show they are a “functionally equivalent family.”

 

Rooming Houses Must Meet The Family Test.

 

Sheehan said the White Plains Neighborhood Protection Act is based on the recently upheld Poughkeepsie ordinance.

 

According to their news release, Poughkeepsie “in its definition of family, contains a rebuttable presumption that 4 or more unrelated persons living in a single dwelling do not constitute the functional equivalent of a traditional family. The ordinance provides an opportunity for applicants to convince the Zoning Administrator that the group is the functional equivalent of a traditional family.

 

Family Factors

 

The factors that the rooming house owner would have to prove in order to have their tenants qualify as family are the following:

 

1. Tenants share the entire house.
   
2.  Tenants live and cook together as a single housekeeping unit.
   
3. Tenants share expenses for food, rent, utilities or other household expenses.
   
4. Tenants are permanent and stable.

 

Sheehan and Binder said the legislation would be enforced through Due Process at a Hearing, and there would be no action on residents of such homes without notice. Targeted rooming houses would be issued a “Show Cause” order as the first step.

 

Poughkeepsie Law On Books Since 1994. Council Could Have Acted.

 

Their news release on the legislation claims that “if introduced, and enacted by the Common Council, this legislation will have a direct, immediate, and beneficial impact on White Plains neighborhoods like Fischer Hill, Battle Hill, and the North Broadway area – all besieged by unscrupulous landlords who overcrowd single family homes in residential areas with tenancies of unrelated people.”

 

Binder said, “This legislation is symbolic of what our candidacy is attempting to do with the Commoun Council, wake up the Common Council. The Poughkeepsie ordinance has been on the books  since 1994, (when it was upheld by the Appellate Court) and the Council could have moved any time (to revise the White Plains Zoning Ordinance) in the last 9 years.”

 

Binder and Sheehan said their White Plains  Neighborhood Protection Act of 2003 has been endorsed by Mayor Joseph Delfino and deemed feasible by the City Corporation Counsel, Edward Dunphy. Sheehan called WPCNR to clarify that Mayor Delfino “supported” the idea of the legislation, saying “endorse” was too strong a word, and that though Mr. Dunphy thought the concept of the legislation was workable, Dunphy had not seen the draft of the legislation

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WPCNR COMMON COUNCIL CHRONICLE. By John F. Bailey. October 8, 2003: The public hearing on the 221 Main Street Cappelli-Bland Hotel & Office project continued Tuesday evening, initial enthusiasm for the project visibly waning as Common Council members Benjamin Boykin (up for election), Robert Greer (also up for election), Rita Malmud, Tom Roach, and William King (with 84 days to go as a Councilperson), all vowed Louis Cappelli’s second major White Plains project was “not a done deal,” and said there were a lot of questions that had to be answered, among them traffic, density, building height, Bar Building fate, and sewage contributions of the project.

During the hearing, a series of supporters of retaining the Bar Building as part of the project, aired their views. Carl Finger the attorney for the owners of the Bar Building, went on record saying “The building is not for sale.”  Finger said the Longhitanos have their own proposal for upgrading the Bar Building, telling WPCNR in the rotunda after the meeting that the makeover had been submitted to the city, but had not been presented to the Common Council yet.

 

In addition, in his public remarks, Finger said the owners of the Bar Building would develop Mr. Cappelli’s 221 Main property differently more in keeping with open space desires, lower density, and use that the city appears to desire. Asked if the Longhitanos (Frank and Tony, owners) were negotiating to buy the 221 Main property from Mr. Cappelli, Finger said no. Asked if they would in the future, he said he would have to ask. He said no negotiations of any kind on the Bar Building had taken place with Mr. Cappelli.

 

Louis Cappelli, the 16^th speaker of 20 to address the city fathers and mother, had heard enough from a majority of speakers, hearing from “The Bar-ists” about the 1,000 tenants of the Bar Building being displaced and losing their jobs. Cappelli, with great gravity, obviously weary from the City Center construction marathon just completed that very evening, said, for the last 18 months he had been working to build the City Center and make it a showplace the city could be proud. He said, “The Bar Building certainly can be saved, but I won’t. For the last 18 months I have been in business building City Center. I don’t intend to build something (at 221 Main) second rate.”

 

Cappelli slowly pointed out that those jobs won’t be lost, saying “There is tons of office space in White Plains…they’re (jobs) are not lost. They relocate toother places in White Plains. My project will bring 4.3 Million in sales taxes a year and 2,000 new jobs, and the Bar Building, $130,000. I don’t see how anybody can ignore that.”