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)

Ryan Decides Not to Seek Reelection. Boykin Will Run for District 5 County Board

Posted on January 24, 2013 by John Bailey

Passing the Torch

Bill Ryan, (left) and Benjamin Boykin when they ran together in 2011

WPCNR CAMPAIGN 2013. By John F. Bailey January 24, 2013:

White Plains Councilman Benjamin Boykin announced his candidacy for the County Board of Legislators District 5 (covering White Plains, all of Scarsdale and a portion of Harrison), tonight in a statement to the media.

He announced his candidacy at the city Democratic Committee meeting.

Boykin said he had been encouraged to run by Mayor Tom Roach, and that County Legislator Bill Ryan, running for County Executive, “has been extremely helpful and supportive.”

Boykin told WPCNR this evening that when Ryan came into the meeting, he told the crowd he had to there when Mr. Boykin announced.

Boykin said there are rival candidates from Scarsdale challenging him for the nomination for the seat, but White Plains makes up 2/3 of the district. Mr. Boykin told WPCNR he felt it was important that attention by paid to the Westchester economy, which he described as “flat.” He added it was important that cities towns and the county work together to solve problems.

Boykin said in his statement, “I will work to bring more transparency to the County’s budget process and implement budgets that protect the most vulnerable among us, provide safety and security for our citizens, provide opportunities for economic development and job creation and protect our environment. I will fight for better coordination and working relationships between the County government and our villages, towns and cities to tackle and solve mutual issues in order to enhance our quality of life.”

Should Boykin be elected to the County Legislature to Mr. Ryan’s seat, his election would again create a vacancy on the White Plains Common Council that would have to be filled as the vacancy occurring when David Buchwald was elected to the Assembly last November.

The council chose John Kirkpatrick in January to occupy Mr. Buchwald’s seat until the end of 2013. Mr. Boykin was reelected to a fourth term on the Council in 2011, which expires in 2016. Mr. Boykin was elected to the Common Council in 1999 and was relected in 2003, 2007 and 2011.

Boykin said Mr. Ryan was retiring because his county legislative seat was up for election this fall, but of course, if Ryan is elected County Executive, Boykin said, Ryan would not retire.

According to the news release distributed this evening,

Boykin has been a member of the White Plains Common Council since 2000, and has been Council President three times. During his time on the Council, Boykin was instrumental in $1.2 billion investment in downtown White Plains, fought to change zoning to protect White Plains neighborhoods, supported public safety initiatives to protect residents, protected our environment and created 180 units of workforce housing. Previously, Boykin served seven years as a member of the White Plains School Board.

Mayor Tom Roach said “Ben Boykin is an outstanding Councilman who will bring a tremendous amount of experience and leadership to the County Board of Legislators. He is a financial executive always seeking ways to provide high quality services to constituents in the most cost effective manner. He understands the needs of our constituents. The people of District 5 would be fortunate to have someone of Ben’s caliber as our Legislator.”

As a member of the County Board of Legislators, Boykin would continue to represent and serve the residents of White Plains while adding constituents in Scarsdale and Harrison.

Boykin is a financial executive. He is currently president of Ben Boykin & Associates, a financial consulting firm. He held numerous executive positions with RJR Nabisco and was Assistant Treasurer at Nabisco. Boykin also worked several years with the international accounting firm of Deloitte & Touché.

Boykin received his MBA, with honors, from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois in 1981. He has been a CPA for forty years. He is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Astorino Lauds Fiscal Fidelity Thru Compromise Without Compromising.

Posted on January 24, 2013 by John Bailey

Westchester County Association this morning at Tarrytown Marrott

WPCNR CAMPAIGN 2013 By John F. Bailey. January 13, 2013:

Westchester County Executive Robert P. Astorino dazzled an audience of 300 or so movers and shakers paying $75 a head to hear him speak on the state of the County this morning at the Westchester Marriott.

They got a preview of Mr. Astorino’s charisma and reasoned delivery, as he tried out a short 30-minute crystal clear report of “talking points” with slides on his previous three years as County Executive. He began the report with parodies set to music of popular movies.

“Zero Dark Thirty,” he said was Westchester’s Hurricane Sandy power outage, and closed with a parody of the movie Les Miserables song, One More Day, substituting the words “One More Term.” Mr. Astorino then delivered in O’Reilly-esque Talking Points what he has done for the county and what he said he would do four years ago.

Astorino said his administration had refused to abandon principles by adopting a philosophy of compromise without compromising, exemplified by Michael Kaplowitz, one of two Democratic legislators (with Virginia Perez) who crossed over to vote in Astorino’s 1.725 Billion budget, after Democrats had walked out of the legislature, forgetting to adjourn.

He promised he would continue to “compromise without compromising,” with the county legislature to extend his modest winning streak of no tax increases for a fourth year in a row. He not too subtlely layed out a message to his rivals who would unseat him in November that he would be portraying them as tax raisers rather than tax stabilizers.

He particularly singled out the Democrat fight to raise his(Astorino’s) proposed daycare subsidy, pointing out it was only going to cost users of the day care program $1 more a day.

County Executive “Wanna-be’s” in the audience, Ken Jenkins and Noam Bramson saw exactly the strength Astorino was going to be dealing from.

He touted how he passed his $1.72 Billion balanced budget with no tax increase, while preserving the county’s triple A bond rating.

He showed how he has lowered taxes 2% his first three years in office after previous County Executive Andrew Spano had raised taxes 17% the previous four.

He said his administration has decreased county spending 5.2% in three years while the Democratic Administration of Andrew Spano had increased spending 23% from 2005 through 2009.

He said he was disappointed Governor Andrew Cuomo had not announced significant mandate reform in his budget message this week. He said a coalition of school administrators, towns and cities would be meeting to address that situation later in the year.

Mr. Astorino did reference the state of Hurricane Sandy recovery or his plans for growing the Westchester economy, nor any comments on labor issues of which there are plenty.

BLUEPRINT FOR WESTCHESTER’S FIRST NEW COMPANY COMING TO 150 GRAND IN W.P.

However, Chairman of the Board of the Westchester County Association, Bill Harrington, introducing Mr. Astorino, announced that the first economic success of the Association’s Blueprint for Westchester plan (begun little more than a year ago). The Blueprint is a commitment from key Westchester firms to provide start-up services to attract start-up companies to the county.

The first success of that program will be unveiled Monday in White Plains at 150 Grand Avenue. WPCNR was lead to believe it is a “high tech” company.

Harrington also said the Westchester County Association had been responsible for filling 1,000,000 vacant square feet of office space in the county in 2012, which he labeled a tremendous achievement.

Harrington touted the growth of the Young Professionals Under 40, saying the WCA had recruited 600 of these younger movers and shakers to join the WCA.

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HUD SETTLEMENT STATUS

When the floor was opened for questions, Harrington asked Astorino about the status of the HUD/Westchester County housing settlement. Astorino said the county had 7 years to build 700 units of affordable housing in the county, and had already buit 350. He said though that the county is in two lawsuits with the federal government over the HUD insistence that the request for source of income be eliminated fromapplications for this housing, and a second lawsuit alleging the county eliminate what the government calls “restrictive” zoning laws in Westchester city and towns.

PLAYLAND STATUS

Harrington asked another question about the status of Playland. Astorino reviewed how Sustainable Playland had been selected, and the county was hopeful they would be operating Playland or some semblance of it when it regularly opens in the Spring. Astorino allowed that the Board of Legislators was looking at the applications of other separate entities that were not chosen.

Afterwards, WPCNR asked Mr. Astorino if he expected that the Board of Legislators would start legal action to challenge any contract he (Astorino) signs with Sustainable Playland to run the amusement park. Astorino told WPCNR that the Board of Acquisitions and Contracts has the authority to make the agreement with Sustainable Playland.

Kevin Plunkett, Deputy County Executive told WPCNR he did not know what to expect from the Board, but said that Sustainable Playland has local (Rye-based) citizens behind it and he felt confident the Board of Legislators would respect that local factor. Plunkett told me,the $12 Million needed to repair Playland as a result of Hurricane Sandy damage was expected to be approved January 28, and repairs would begin on the boardwalk.

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OPTIMISTIC SALES TAX FORECAST COMES FROM BULLISH NY STATE FORECAST

WPCNR asked the County Executive what was the county’s reasoning in budgeting for a 9% increase in sales tax receipts in the 2013 budget, $24 million more than was generated IN 2012. Astorino said the county based the optimistic forecast on New York State estimates.

In the lone question posed from a member of the public, an attendee asked Astorino the status of the Tappan Zee Bridge. Astorino said stagings would begin probably in the spring, but still no loan from the federal government had been approved, and that there was no information yet on how the state was going to pay for it.

Assemblyman Buchwald to Testify at Sandy Response Hearing

Posted on January 23, 2013 by John Bailey

WPCNR ALBANY ROUNDS. From the Office of 93rd Assembly District Assemblyman David Buchwald. January 23, 2013:

Assemblyman David Buchwald would like to encourage the public to attend and participate in a Westchester County hearing of the Moreland Commission, created by Governor Cuomo to investigate the utilty companies response to Hurricane Sandy. The Assemblyman will be testifying on behalf of his district, which suffered extensive damage in the storm.

WHERE: SUNY Purchase Performing Arts Center, 735 Anderson Hill Rd Harrison, NY 10577

WHEN: 6:00PM, Thursday January 24, 2013

Flu Shot Thursday

Posted on January 23, 2013 by John Bailey

WPCNR FLU FLASH. January 23, 2013:

The Westchester County Department of Health will offer free flu shots to residents on Thursday, January 24, from 2:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. at the Westchester County Center in White Plains.

The county has 1,000 doses which can be given to adults and children ages 9 and up. Residents are strongly encouraged to register in advance for the flu clinic at www.health.ny.gov/Go2Clinic. Those without internet access can call (914) 995-7425 from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.