WPCNR MR. & MRS. & MS. WHITE PLAINS SURVEY. January 1, 2010: The WPCNR Editorial Board has, as has been the WPCNR custom the last ten years it has been reporting the important news White Plains needs to know, is singling out citizens of the city and personalities who have made a difference in the quality of life in the city in an effort to move the city forward during the past year. The list is purely subjective, and we submit the following personalities. One we submit posthumously, always a sad thing.
WPCNR also invites you to send in your own nominations for person of the year and when the votes are in, WPCNR will mention.
Here are this year’s WPCNR suggestions for White Plains Person of the Year 2009, in alphabetical order:
Paul Anderson-Winchell – Executive Director of Grace Church Community Services. He is nominated for his focusing White Plains efforts to house the homeless during cold winter months by diffusing the political football of increasing beds at the Open Arms men’s shelter and Samaritan House for women shelters run by Grace Church. His efforts persuaded the county and the city to stop making the homeless a political issue by expanded bed capacities for two years over the winter months of 2009 last spring and 2009-10 by 17 beds.
Adam Bradley – Elected the city’s 17th Mayor. Mr. Bradley is nominated for having the courage to leave his 89th Assembly District seat in the legislature to run for Mayor of White Plains against incumbent Joseph Delfino. At the time Bradley chose to take this gamble, he did not know Delfino would choose not to run. Bradley faces a daunting task as the city is in financial disarray as he takes office, (“I am inheriting Rome after Nero,” he says. For the courage to come to the aid of the city by bringing hopefully intelligence, analysis, and pragmatic judgment to 255 Main Street, Mr. Bradley is nominated.
Lou Bruno – Co-President of the Council of Neighborhood Associatons. Mr. Bruno has taken over from the previous leadership of the CNA and continued and improved the presentation of city issues to the CNA, and has persuaded city officials to come and address the association. The organization continues to grow.
Patti Cantu – of the Battle Hill Association. Ms. Cantu has continued to highlight the disgrace of illegal residential housing in her neighborhood as well as other neighborhoods in the city. Her dogged persistence and presentation year after year of unsafe situations, unsanitary conditions tolerated by landlords, and laxly enforced by the city has continued. It is only a matter of time before a disaster in an overcrowded housing situation somewhere in the city results in multiple death or injury. Ms. Cantu appears to be the lone social activist in the city with the courage to continue to point out the emperor has no clothes.
Louis Cappelli – Mr. Cappelli is nominated for his gritty recovery from a brain aneurism he suffered last July, and his continued efforts to keep his Cappelli Enterprises moving forward to close and build two major projects in Yonkers and the Catskills, both of which, it can be argued are crucial to the continued financial stability of both areas. While Mr. Cappelli continues his comeback, he continues to press forward with projects while few other contractors are stepping forward and banks husband their cash. Like the fictional architect, Robert Roark in the Ayn Rand novel, The Fountainhead, Cappelli pushes ahead against long odds, fights compromise and mediocrity at all costs and is at his best in a tight spot. He is also nominated for being candid in discussion of his condition, his treatment, in hopes of alerting others to the dangers of stress and warning signs.
Margaret Dwyer – Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction, White Plains City School District. Ms. Dwyer is nominated for turning around the White Plains Middle School instruction, resulting in vastly improved math and English Language Arts scores at the eighth grade level in the last year. Under her leadership the last two years, increased teacher availability was given to students identified as not meeting standards; an extended summer program; instituting differentiated instruction in classes; sophisticated analyses of student performance data (to identify students needing more teaching effort to identify for extra health on the cusp of meeting standards); and piloting a reading program that has “accelerated the progress of our struggling readers.” Dwyer’s ability to achieve this turn-around is to be saluted, and the long term results should enable future White Plains Middle School students to enter high school considerably more prepared for high school level work, based on achievement scores last spring. She is an educator who gets things done.
Glen Hockley – former Councilman. Today is the first day that Glen Hockley is officially out of city government. Mr. Hockley is nominated for focusing attention on how the Board of Elections consistently gives the appearance of using intricate, and somewhat ambiguous election law to frustrate the efforts of citizens challenging major party candidates. Though Mr. Hockley’s effort to place his name on the Mayoral ballot was thrown out by the Board of Elections due to Mr. Hockley’s own personal error (not filing a Certificate of Acceptance of his own candidacy), his appeal of that Appellate ruling pointed out the conflict between upstate appellate court rulings on this very issue. The New York State Court of Appeals refused to consider his appeal of the Appellate Court 2nd Circuit removing Mr. Hockley’s name from the White Plains mayoral ballot. Had Mr. Hockley’s name been on the ballot, and with some labor support voting on the Republcian line, the race with Mr. Bradley would have been closer. Hockley’s Quixote-like tilt at the Westchester County Board of Elections disturbing history of finding election law reasons to refuse petitions of candidates also brought out the heretofore unknown that that write-in ballots can be cast with a stamp on the write in slot on election machines.
Hockley, though obviously serving his own interests, pointed out two areas of reform that need to be addressed—arcane hoops created over the years—to hamper candidates opposed to party policy to get on the ballot. He is also saluted for the efforts made to engineer his write-in campaign.
Susan Katz – Executive Director of Westco Productions. Ms. Katz is nominated for founding the popular non-profit children’s theatre group, Westco Productions, which in 2009, celebrated its 30th year of successful productions for kids. Her creativity and instinct for what the public will see in fund-raising concerts for her organization, as well as her innovative, pioneering efforts in presenting theatre to children, involving them in theatre for the first time, and using theatre for the benefit of the community are preeminent in Westchester County. She was also a loyal city employee for 29-1/2 years retiring this year with the vibrancy and enthusiasm not associated with the usual retiree. The thousands of Westchester youngsters and parents who have been made happy by Westco are living testimonials to why theatre is necessary – to spark the urge to dream, create, and test ourselves.
Rita Malmud – Twenty years a member of the White Plains Common Council. She chose not to seek reelection this year. Ms. Malmud is nominated for her rational approach to issues and her loyal service as a councilperson, and though you might not have always agreed with her votes, you felt her votes were honest ones. She played a major pivotal role in voting for the Westchester in the early 90s, the City Center in 2001, and the Ritz-Carlton complex in 2004.Though she voted against the New York Presbyterian 60-acre park for commercial development deal in 2001, perhaps a major mistake in retrospect, she made the best decisions she felt she could make at the time. She was not intimated or ever regretful about her votes and her decisions.
Frank Straub – former Commissioner of Public Safety. Dr. Straub is nominated for bringing a substantial modernization of the Department of Public Safety, promoting a spirit of cooperation and team feel to the police and fire departments over his seven years, and significantly modernizing the department with communications, equipment, hiring of Hispanic, African-American and female officers, and making White Plains a safe, though expensive city to drive in (due to his aggressive traffic enforcement program), and for providing a safe downtown environment as the city grew. (He was aided inthis effort by the expertise of David Chong, whom Straub brought in as Deputy Commissioner of Public Safety), and who now takes over as Commissioner of Public Safety.
Gang presence in White Plains over the Straub watch, appears to be at a distinct minimum compared to other Westchester cities. Dr. Straub also oversaw successful installation of the 12 hour and 24-hour tours of duty for police and fire officers respectively this year that significantly reduced overtime according to police statistics, which ironically led to his abrupt departure due to a rift with the Common Council over continuing its trial.
Paul Wood. City Executive Officer, deceased. Mr. Wood was a fixture of the Delfino Administration. Brought in as Director of Economic Development by Delfino mastermind, George Gretsas, and as press spokesperson, Wood took over management of the city day-to-day operations in 2005 when Gretsas left to run the City of Fort Lauderdale as City Manager. Wood was a tireless worker working well into the evenings during the week and on weekends. He negotiated the recent labor contract with police and fire that the Council rejected, but Wood was correct in saying that arbitration would award them the same money, and that is exactly what the city did. Wood is nominated for his loyalty, his effort, and his dedication to what he thought was best for moving White Plains forward. He was passionate about his job. He was clever at it. He could be adversarial when he had to be and was an astute player of the press. You never knew he was as sick as he was judging from the effort he made up to a few weeks before the end of his life. He was a little Broderick Crawford, a little Bogart, a little E.J. Cobb, but he was not acting, though he was a good actor. He was living it and literally worked himself to death.
Other – Do you have someone you think is also one who contributed to the quality of life in White Plains in 2009? Vote for one of our 11 if you wish or submit the name of the person you feel should be recognized, in the survey at the right.
