THE WORLD READS WHITE PLAINS CITIZENETREPORTER — 8,324,077 VISITS IN ONE YEAR | 2,905,611 VISITORS VISIT 8,324,077 TIMES 3 TIMES EVERY DAY IN ONE YEAR. HIGHEST ACTIVITY IN WPCNR HISTORY.White PlainsCitizeNetReporter lifted its worldwide visits from unique visitors to wpcnr.com to 8,324,077,a 1,306,419 increase in visits in one year from 7,017,658 visits to the site last year which covers White Plains and Westchester County. The 8,324,077 visits were made by 2,005,611 unique visitors who visited wpcnr an average of 3 visits a day. ON JULY 20- -2026 visitors have accessed wpcnr and made 3,072 visits an average of 1.6 visits. In the last week 33,495 individual vistors made 54,458 visits, averaging 1.6 visits. In the last month, 152,940 visitors recorded 229,338 visits (1.5 visits)

County Legislator Benjamin Boykin and councilpersons Nadine Hunt-Robinson and Milagros Lecouna present at CNA tonight.

Posted on March 11, 2014 by John Bailey

WPCNR SOUTH END TIMES. From the Council of Neighborhood Associations. March 11, 2014:

The next meeting of the Council of Neighborood a is scheduled for Tuesday, March 11, 2014, 7:30 pm, at Education House (downstairs Meeting Room), 5 Homeside Lane, WP (off North Street). Please mark your calendar.

Our guest speakers will be the Hon. Ben Boykin 2nd, newly elected Westchester County Legislator, District 5, and the Hon. Nadine Hunt-Robinson, newly appointed WP Common Councilwoman. There will also be a brief presentation by Councilwoman Milagros Lecuona, who will discuss the meds safety/ disposal crisis. A question and answer period will follow their presentations.

School District Proposes $198.9M Budget: Tax Increase 2.90%. No Cuts in Staff. Includes Provisional Settlement of Teachers Contract.

Posted on March 10, 2014 by John Bailey

WPCNR SCHOOL DAYS. By John F. Bailey. March 10, 2014:

The School district tonight proposed a 2.84% increase over this year in a $198.9 Million spending budget that increases taxes 2.90%.

This would mean a $250 tax increase for a home assessed at $15,000, and about a $288 to over $300 tax increase for homes assessed higher: a 2.9% tax increase.

The budget keeps the same level of staffing in all ranks, including teaching staff.

Asked if the budget provides for the settlement of a new contract with the White Plains Teachers, Assistant Superintendent for Business Fred Seiler told WPCNR, “We attempted to plan for what we think the settlement might be.”

Seiler said he believed there were 28 retirements in the teacher ranks, 21 who were at the highest salary ranks, which enable the district to replace them without next year with lower paid replacements which helped keep the budget in check. He said the teachers union and district were still in the fact-finding stage, but each knew the position and the allowance for the settlement was based on that.

In his presentation, Seiler said the district is adding one additional teacher at the elementary level to keep the class size at an average 22 students, varying from 19 to 20, 23, 24, 25 and at the high school and middles schools the class varies from 24 to 27. They are adding half of a full-time teacher to Dual Language science, and Project Lead the Way and a parttime teacher to the AVID program.

The budget is compliant with the 1.46% tax levy cap decreed by the state.

The district received a $2,146,707 increase in state aid which includes a $505,763 deferred not to be repeated, and benefits included because White Plains numbers of students receiving free and reducrsd lunch, more student enrollment and extraordinary needs (such as English as Second Lanaguage students) have increased.

Seiler said more state aid might be forthcoming when the state completes its budget April 1. Last year more aid did come White Plains way, but it was not used to cut taxes, it was spent on additional services.

Since declining 1.21% in 2010-11. The only year it declined in the last 14 years, the budget has increased 1.o9%, 1.77%, 2.42% and 2.84%.

There was no public comments made on the budget during the comment portion of the public hearing.

Dates for the public to be heard on the budget coming up:

The Musical of the Century! WBT Ragtime revival is The Rage!

Posted on March 8, 2014 by John Bailey

FaTye and Brittany Johnson as Coalhouse Walker and Sara the icons of Ragtime at the revival in Westchester Broadway Theatre

Not One, But Two Romances Ladies and Genlemen, that Tug Your Heart Strings. Victoria Lauzun as Mother and Joey Sanzaro as Tateh. How they come together is just one of those things

CNR STAGE DOOR. Theatrical Review by John F. Bailey. March 8, 2014:

Strolling, tennis playing residents of New Rochelle, toiling immigrants, Negroes creating a new music, legends J.P. Morgan, Henry Ford, Harry Houdini and anarchist Emma Goldman colliding together seamlessly, up close and personally, tragically and inspiring!

Ragtime tells America’s story as touching, heart-breaking and as dramatic as it gets:

The sound of distant thunder
Suddenly starting to climb…

It was the music
Of something beginning,
An era exploding,
A century spinning
In riches and rags,
And in rhythm and rhyme.
The people called it Ragtime…
Ragtime!
Ragtime!
Ragtme!

I have been reviewing shows at the Westchester Broadway Theatre for 14 years.

The Standing Ovations Studios rambunctious, irreverent, in-your-face overwhelmer of a revival of the 1998 musical Ragtime , that officially opened Friday night in Elmsford is the best production WBT has ever presented that I have seen. Easily it is the most involving and emotionally connecting.

Ragtime gives theatre goers all this top-of-the-line 40-member cast has—right from the anthem Ragtime . The anthem I quite above introduces the colors of America at the turn of the 19^th century from white New Rochelle residents lofting tennis balls to immigrants from Latvia, Ireland,and Blacks up from the south from the Robber Barons and architects of America’s success to all seeking success in America.

It never lets up on the audience from its hour and 20 minute first act to its 55 minute second act at rolls like an express train of emotions…it overwhelms with 32 songs—by the second time Broadway composing team of Composer Stephen Flaherty and lyricist Lynn Ahrens who executed a 4-song audition score for original producer Harold Prince and beat out 7 other 4-song writing teams to win the task of writing this score. The score won a TONY as Best Original Musical Score in 1998. Their first hit was Once On an Island in 1990, then the musical score for the Disney movie Anastasia, followed by their winning the competition to compose Ragtime. Their latest work, Rocky, The Musical premiers next Friday in New York City.

Part of the Ensemble sing What A Game at the Polo Grounds in New York. Made possible through the ingenious manipulation of set , music and choreography

Director John Fanelli and Set Designer Steve Loftus takes us back to the future with clever use of an arched set and revolving stage that simulates assembly lines in Detroit, the Polo Grounds, a court room, docksides. We even have a model T Ford.

Coalhouse Walker (FaTye) comes to tea in New Rochelle greeting Mother (Victoria Lauzun

While choregrapher Greg Gramham has created ensemble numbers that do not look like dances they actually move the plot. And move it does. In a musical of this length and breadth the scenes never lag, you never yawn during songs that take you by the heart and soul. The audience was enthralled, brought to tears, warmed, shocked, they connected with the characters through the magical book of Ahrens & Flaherty put E.L. Doctorow’s novel on the stage.

The musical explores how prejudice against blacks and immigrants and denial of justice from by the suburban community of New Rochelle results in tragedy that turns Coalhouse, the ragtime musician into a violent activist.

FaTye, a fixture with Standing Ovation Studios, gives his best performance I have seen him do. When he reconciles with Sarah played by Brittany Johnson, his girl, who has taken refuge in a New Rochelle family home…their duet Wheels of a Dream warms the heart, and their chemistry delivers. The tragedy inflicted upon the couple tugs on your heart and will not be soon forgotten. Their second duet, Sarah Browneyes gives breathing life to what two people mean to each other.

Joey Sanzaro below plays Tateh, a Latvian immigrant with his daughter, delivers as believable a role in an ongoing cameo scenario I have seen in a long time. He is touching, tough, self-starting, showcasing the palette of skills demonstrated by the immigrants who came with nothing, and made something of themselves. You root for him.

The heroine who is the other storyline in this massive juggling of historical themes that hit home today is Victoria Lauzan above whose diamond contralto puts the heartbeat into the “connectors” of the show (and believe me all the songs are good and connective). From her Goodbye My Love (to her husband who is leaving on a polar trip with Admiral Perry), to the disdainful What Kind of a Woman (sung when she finds Sarah’s baby abandoned in her garden in New Rochelle, and she decides to take the baby in). Then Ms. Lauzan as she gradually realizes how sheltered she has been delivers a haunting anthem in the bring-down-the-house Second Act: You Can Never Go Back to Before. which she sings with Mr. Sanzaro (above)

History you say you want history, drama?

You’ve got it:

Nadine Zahr as Emma Goldman (left) doing another deft cameo roll as the anarchist with one of her recruits, Todd Ritch, the younger brother who is inspired to fight for justice for Coalhouse and the oppressed workers

You meet Henry Ford (Todd Allan Little) , J.P. Morgan (Steven Stein-Grainger), Emma Goldman the activist (Nadine Zahr), and the Notorius Evelyn Nesbitt, Cali LaSpina (The “Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee” girl).

The audience loved this show mounted as best as any I have seen at the WBT. Only seven Actors Equity Members grace this 40-performer ensemble and you would never know it.

The orchestra laid a seamless ragtime beat into most of the soungs, and laid an unobtrusive supportive bed for the songs, that performers sung with a clarity that was as professional sounding as you could wish for. Even the children performers you could understand.

The audience rose to its feet. The Show had them at first spotlight.

For box office information, contact 914-592-2222 or go to www.BroadwayTheatre.com.

Ragtime lives for all-time through May 4. Cautions: gunshots, violence, emotional situations that can affect younger children and adults. But that’s our country folks.

Don’t take my word for it. After the show ended some comments overheard by yours truly: “Just incredible,” “what a great show.” The speakers appeared so entertained they did not want to leave.They just stood there saluting this effort.

It is as Ms. Nesbit (Cali LaSpina of Scarsdale, above, “the Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Girl” shown performing “The Crime of the Century” with vampy, impish delight) would put it,

“It’s the Musical of the Century”