14 Speak Out on the 2010-11 Budget. No One Likes It.

Posted on by

WPCNR COMMON COUNCIL CHRONICLE-EXAMINER. May 3, 2010 UPDATED 11:45 P.M.E.D.T.: The Common Council heard 14 persons speak on the 2010-11 City Budget Monday eveningmeet this evening. Four persons spoke in favor of reopening the White Plains Public Library on Saturdays. Marjorie Davies of the League of Women Voters speaking on behalf of the league, urged the city to mitigate the tax increase, support countywide revaluation of real estate properties, and renegotiate union contracts with the police, fire, teamsters and CSEA unions to avoid layoffs and lower wage increases. 


The Presidents of the Police and Fire unions urged the council not to jeopardize citizens and police officers and fire fighters by lowering department strengths.  Joseph Carrier, President of the Firefighters said the council was putting White Plains citizens at risk if they lowered firefighter staffing as has been proposed: “The council has a responsibility to weigh and differentiate between the citizens’ safety needs and the need for budget cuts…Let me state on the record, (these layoffs) have the potential to kill.”_) James Carrier, head of the police union, said he’d be meeting with the city Tuesday morning with a police offer to the Mayor and his staff. The police union head noted how the 12-hour work schedule had cut overtime in half, and cautioned that layoffs would increase the need for overtime, and put his fellow police officers at risk.


Former Councilman Glen Hockley chided Tom Roach, Benjamin Boykin, Dennis Power and Milagros Lecouna and Mayor Adam Bradley for not supporting the 1/4% sales tax increase three years and two years previously, blaming them for the present budget “crisis.” 


Rosemarie Hicks, noted that White Plains single family homeowners, if property taxes are not held down, will face continued lowering real estate values and higher taxes making White Plains less competitive. Nick Wolf, the realtor,encouraged passing the tax increase since it amount to about $1 a day for the average homeowner.


Councilmembers Roach and Boykin, stood up to one speaker and defended themselves from attacks on them for approving previous Delfino Administration budgets the last 9 years, claiming they cut Mayor Jospeh Delfino’s budget this year.


Carl Albanese, challenged the Common Council to remediate the city’s Gedney landfill and to be forthcoming on how much that was eventually going to cost the city. He also urged that when times got better in the city that tax reduction in the city property tax be considered, Lyn Huber, noted that the high cost of benefits for each city employee which he placed as $34,000 was “ridiculous,” urging all city employees be subject to paying a portion of their health benefits.


At the meeting tonight, the Council approved $285,092 in certiorari refunds, $48,528 refunded to Verizon for tax years 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, plus an assessment reduction of $215,000 for Verizon, and a $166,229,06 refund to 11 Lake Street Associates for tax years 2003 through 2010, and an assessment reduction of $180,800. The total assessment roll reduction which had already been deducted from the 2010 tax roll from the 10 properties receiving certiorari refunds this evening is $285,272.59.


The eight other properties are Harding Avenue Associates, $12,575, assessment reduction ($5,614.24 cert refund); Gisondi Family LP,291 Central Avenue, $2,462.67 cert; Gisondi Family LP, 287 Central Avenue, $8,150 assessment reduction, $3,638.65 refund; Gisondi Family LP, 285 Central Avenue, $24,250 assessment reduction, $10,826.66 cert refund; Gisondi Family LP,295 Battle Avenue,$24,000 assessment reduction, $10,431.18 cert refund; Harding Avenue Associates LLC, 30 Dekalb Avenue, $2,600 assessment reduction,$1,160.80 cert refund; Tiffany Towers,Ltd., 56 Doyer Avenue, $38,500 assessment reduction,$22,539.15 cert refund,and 451 Broadway Realty, 172 South Broadway, $22,000 assessment reduction, $13,661.48 certiorari refund.


In the next two weeks, the Council will hold their final sessions on the budget as follows:


COMMON COUNCIL AGENDA
REVISED
SPECIAL MEETING
MAY 10, 2010
6:00 P.M.


DISCUSSION:


 


5.       Proposed Tax Budget 2010 – 2011 – Expenditure Overview – Department of Planning and Slater Center, and recommendations of Budget and Management Advisory Committee.


COMMON COUNCIL AGENDA
SPECIAL MEETING
MAY 13, 2010
6:00 P.M.


DISCUSSION:


6.       Proposed Tax Budget 2010 – 2011 – Decision Night.


COMMON COUNCIL AGENDA
SPECIAL MEETING
MAY 24, 2010
7:30 P.M.


DISCUSSION:


7.       Proposed Tax Budget 2010 – 2011 – Adoption.





COMMON COUNCIL AGENDA
REVISED
SPECIAL MEETING
MAY 10, 2010
6:00 P.M.


DISCUSSION:


 


5.       Proposed Tax Budget 2010 – 2011 – Expenditure Overview – Department of Planning and Slater Center, and recommendations of Budget and Management Advisory Committee.







COMMON COUNCIL AGENDA
SPECIAL MEETING
MAY 13, 2010
6:00 P.M.


DISCUSSION:


6.       Proposed Tax Budget 2010 – 2011 – Decision Night.




 




COMMON COUNCIL AGENDA
SPECIAL MEETING
MAY 24, 2010
7:30 P.M.


DISCUSSION:


7.       Proposed Tax Budget 2010 – 2011 – Adoption.

Posted in Uncategorized

Hot Police/Fire, Rec & Parks/ Library Budget Reviews Rebroadcast Sunday at 11 P.

Posted on by

WPCNR PUBLIC ACCESS TELEVISION NEWS. May 1, 2010:  The previous Monday April 26th 2010 Mayor Adam Bradley Proposed Budget Hearings where the Department of Public Safety, the Department of Recreation and Parks and The Library  appeared before the Common Council will be rebroadcast on White Plains Cable Access Channel 76 and FIOS Channel 45 Sunday Night at 11PM prior to the Monday May 3, 2010 City Council Public hearing on the Proposed City Budget.


 


The meeting is instructive  for citizens who wish to hear Commissioner of Public Safety David Chong’s analysis of the Police and Fire retirement situation, the heavy presense of thousands of youths milling about the downtown from 1 to 5 A.M. Friday, Saturday and Sundays, the profitable status of the Department of Recreation and Parks, and the Library case for opening Saturdays. Set your video taping machines for 11 P.M. Sunday evening.


The hearing is three hours long of the April 26th 2010 Budget Hearing 




Continuing dates to follow and other Budget Hearings to be aired through out the remaining budget process in the up coming weeks.



The tape is produced by:Renaissance Media Group, with video taping by Carl Albanese at no charge to the cable station.

Posted in Uncategorized

Why News 12 Cameras Kept Out of Dem Meeting: Dem Chair– A Misunderstanding

Posted on by

WPCNR BACKROOM BULLETIN. May1, 2010: WPCNR has obtained an explanation circulated by the Chair of the Democratic City Committee for reasons why the News 12 and private video operators were not allowed inside the Democratic City Committee meeting Thursday evening when the party District Leadeers considered a resolution asking Mayor Adam Bradley to resign.


Liz Schollenberger, the Democratic Chairperson explains the YWCA told News 12 cameras were not allowed inside the building because children were present, neglecting to tell News 12 they were only banned until the Democratic City Committee arrived.


Here is Ms. Schollenberger’s official explanation: 


 
Thanks to everyone who attended Thursday’s City Committee meeting and to all your collective efforts to keep the meeting organized and civil, despite the fact that there were widely diverging opinions being expressed.  I will see many of you at the dinner tomorrow.

 

You may have seen Channel 12 report that the White Plains Democratic City Committee excluded its reporter from our meeting at the YWCA on Thursday night.  In fact, as many of you know, since I have been City Chair, I have never excluded the press from any meeting of the City Committee.  Some people suggested in advance that I do so at the March City Committee meeting, where there was bound to be a discussion of how we should respond to the charges facing Mayor Bradley. I did not do that, and that discussion played out in the presence of a reporter from the Journal News, which, as you know, resulted in a fairly lengthy news article describing the range of opinions expressed at that meeting. 

 

 Our bylaws specify that our meetings are open to all enrolled Democrats in the City of White Plains.  Since we are legally a private organization, we could exclude those other than White Plains Democrats from our meetings.  However,  given the elective nature of our positions as District Leaders and the fact that our activities and our very purpose are focused on public-policy issues and the electoral process, I have taken the view that it is best not to exclude  reporters from City Committee meetings.   

 

 What happened with Channel 12 on Thursday night was the result of a three-way miscommunication.  When I arrived at the Y somewhat in advance of our 7:30 meeting, a Channel 12 van was in the front parking lot.  Soon after I entered the building, the executive director of the Y told me that she was not allowing the cameramen in because she did not want them filming in  areas with children.  Before the meeting started, I told various members of the City Committee about that conversation.  Accordingly, when a camera crew later tried to enter the room, those closest to the door, including Council Member Dennis Power, told them they could not come in.  Dennis was  just acting on what I had said.

 

 Channel 12 has reported that, at some point, police arrived at the scene, and told them that the City Committee, as a private organization, had the right to exclude them if it wanted to.  That’s legally correct, but neither I nor anyone acting at my request, called the police.  The first I knew of any police presence or involvement Thursday night was when I got home and saw the report on our meeting on Channel 12.  I still don’t know if the police were called by the someone at the Y to keep Channel 12 out, by Channel 12 to help them get in, or by some individual member of the City Committee.

 

 When I spoke to the executive director again on Friday morning, because I was surprised by the Channel 12 report, she said that I had misunderstood her, that she had meant to convey to me only that she had kept the camera crew out until we arrived, at which point it was up to us to decide whether to allow them into the meeting.  I have no reason to doubt her explanation of what she meant (especially since the Channel 12 reporter who was there on Thursday night told me on Friday that she has filmed stories at the Y previously), but what I understood her to say Thursday night was that the Y – which, after all, is our “landlord” when we meet there – had a policy prohibiting TV cameras inside the building.  I passed that understanding along to others, who acted on it when the camera crew tried to come in. 

 

 Even if that misunderstanding had not occurred, the question of whether to allow TV cameras –as opposed to  reporters – into the City Committee meeting would have been a different one from the question of whether the meeting should be open to members of the public, or to the press, as their surrogates – which I have always resolved in favor of openness, including on Thursday night, when Journal News reporter Ben Rubin was, again, present throughout and, again, wrote a fairly lengthy account of the meeting.  I would certainly not have treated a reporter from Channel 12 any differently from a reporter for the Journal News. 

 

 TV cameras are, however,  obviously more intrusive and potentially disruptive than a reporter sitting in the room and taking notes, so one may have a policy of being open to the press (including TV reporters), but not allowing  TV cameras into the room.  New York State’s courts, for example, allow the general public and the press full access to most court proceedings, but do not allow TV coverage of court proceedings. Many public bodies provide for the presence of a fixed camera in the room during their meetings, but do not allow camera crews to move around freely.  That is an issue that neither I nor the City Committee had ever faced, at least in the ten and a half years I have been a member of the City Committee, because, until Thursday night (when I understood the Y to have barred the TV cameras), no meeting of ours was ever thought newsworthy enough to draw TV coverage.

 

 Finally, Channel 12 newspeople  have suggested, in on-air discussion of our meeting Thursday night, that the meeting was subject to the Open Meetings Law because all members of the Common Council were present.  This is not an accurate interpretation of the Open meetings Law. The Council Members, including the Mayor, were seven people out of more than 60 in attendance, and they were sitting or standing at different places around the room.  There was no obviously no transaction of Common Council business going on “in secret,” particularly with a Journal News reporter in the room.   Moreover, even bodies subject to the Open Meetings Law are not required to allow camera crews and their cameras in to film their meetings.

 

Posted in Uncategorized

Democrats ,2 to 1, Give Bradley Vote of Confidence–Pending Resolution of Case

WPCNR BACKROOM BULLETIN. APRIL 30,2010: Democratic City Leaders (some by proxy) overwhelmingly voted by a 2 to 1 margin to defeat a resolution calling for Mayor Adam Bradley to step down from his position last night at their City Committee meeting held at the YWCA. By a vote of 35-18 the resolution asking the Mayor to resign went down.


An observer said Mayor Adam Bradley addressed the meeting, and described his talk as one where “He recited all his accomplishments so far; and restated his hope to protect his daughters (from the media, etc.).”


A second resolution expected to be offered by John Kirkpatrick to the effect of not taking a position pending outcome of the Mayor’s domestic abuse case was not offered.


Mayor Bradley returns to New York State Supreme Court on May 10 for his next appearance in the court proceeding in which he faces 9 separate charges stemming from separate incidents of alleged spousal abuse, including witness tampering.


An observer speaking under condition of anonymity who was inside the meeting tells WPCNR that the Democratic City Committee barred some media and allowed other media to enter the lounge where it was held, to wit,


“The Democratic Committee has set a new media precedent for the Press to attend their District Leader Committee meetings.


Specific Press, selective by Council Member Dennis Power is allowed to cover their Committee District Leader meetings and report on them.



JN Ben Rubin, was permitted to attend and report on the meeting, other press was prohibited from entering the meeting.



We need to discuss this unfair, biased media practice.”



 

Posted in Uncategorized