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WPCNR COMMON COUNCIL CHRONICLE-EXAMINER. By John F. Bailey January 3, 2011:

The Common Council approved the first phase of A.J. Rotondi’s Main Street Mall and possible hotel Monday evening. It took great pains to explain to a city wide television audience that the hotel portion of the project was not approved at this time. Councilmembers Lecouna and Buchwald questions about access to parking for the hotel, and Councilman Boykin pointed out that any sky way connections from the Rotondi mall to the City Center Garage would require a variance which had to be approved by the Cappelli organization which owns the City Center.

First Phase of Rotondi Mall on Main Street Approved.The hotel below…anywhere from 120 to 150 rooms was not approved yet.

The council did not ask how close Mr. Rotondi was to acquiring financing for the project. Spokespersons for the Rotondi organization said during the hearing that they expected to be coming back to the council within 30 days with more information on the hotel possibilities. During the work session two weeks ago, Mr.Rotondi said the hotel was a key selling point to get retailers to rent up the mall.

180-Bed Rehabilation Facility at Church and Barker. Approval Looks Very Good at this time. Back of building is show below

Mark Weingarten, of DelBello, Donnellan & Weingarten, in his first appearance before the council in a long time,  presented a meticulous review of the 180-bed Rehabilitation facility planned for thge corner of Church and Barker Streets, and the hearing was adjourned to February 7, the next Council meeting. Weingarten said the project would cost $50 Million to construct and $60 Million in total. He said it would take 12 months to acquire the government insured financing, and two years more to construct.

The Council also approved $500,000 in new capital projects to rehap a series of city garages. Councilman Buchwald expressed annoyance that this was not presented in early capital project reviews. Commissioner of Public Works Joseph Nicoletti had no answer for why the council was not informed earlier of the need for the garage rehabs. Councilperson Milagro Lecouna said the first time she had heard of the $500,000 in bonding was last Friday morning when she received her agenda packet.

At the beginning of the Council meeting, Mayor Adam Bradley publicly honored Joshua Colas of White Plains for his outstanding performance and achieving Grand Master status in chess.

Mayor Adam Bradley announced that Shoprite was having its grand opening in the City Center on Wednesday at 9 A.M. and that Dick’s Sporting Goods was moving into the Fortunoff vacated space.

Mr. Bradley, Mr. Boykin, Ms. Smayda, Mr. Power and Ms.Lecouna and Mr. Buchwald all praised the Department of Public Works for their great job of snow removal in the Christmas blizzard. Smayda congratulated the police on their cracking two high profile cases in the last month — the Walmart robbery and the Palisades Mall robbery.

WPCNR COUNTY CLARION-LEDGER. By John F. Bailey. December 31,2010:

A spokesperson for the  Astorino Administration told WPCNR that Kenneth Jenkins, Chair of the Board of Legislators, and the Board erred in their procedure overriding County Executive Astorino’s vetoes of the County Legislature revised budget, in effect giving Mr. Astorino the choice between the 2-1/4% property tax cut budget approved by the Legislature last Monday, and the 1% property tax cut the Astorino Administration wanted, that the Board overrode by its action on December 23.

“In their haste to override our vetoes,” Ned McCormack, Director of Communications for the Astorino Administration, “they neglected to amend the tax levy, (when 249 vetoes of 260  were overturned), increasing the property tax cut to 2-14%, therefore the 1% levy is still in effect, unless they do something about it.”

Earlier Thursday afternoon, Tara Martin, spokesperson for the  County Board and Chairman Jenkins, told WPCNR the imposition of the 2-1/4% tax levy which County Executive Astorino vetoed, was simply “bookkeeping” to create the math to reflect and fund the Board of Legislator veto overrides (and increased tax cuts). Martin added that according to the charter, the County Executive could not veto the new tax levy as it went along with the budget.

Late Thursday afternoon, McCormack returned a call to WPCNR to explain that the County Attorney  maintained the position that the County Executive is able to veto “any act of the legislature. An act is an act is an act,” McCormack said.

As of Friday morning, the last day of the year, the administration, McCormack said is planning to use the original 1% tax cut levy which according to the administration and the Board of Legislature failure to amend the original levy when it overrode, still remains in effect.

He said there were no plans to seek a show cause order in court to stop the 2-1/4% property tax cut budget passed by the legislators, because in the administration opinion, the 1% tax cut budget of the administration is still operative.