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)

Teachers Head: No Board Offer for 5 months. Pay Teachers Instead of Consultants

Posted on November 3, 2008 by John Bailey

WPCNR SCHOOL DAYS. By John F. Bailey. Includes Statement from head of White Plains Teachers. November 3, 2008: White Plains Teachers Association President Kerry Broderick read a two-minute statement to the Board of Education accusing the School District and Board of spending too much money on consultants, and charged that consultant initiatives have not been assessed or evaluated. By coincidence the Superintendent of Schools later in the meeting said after school programs would be evaluated by December.

Part of The WPTA 100 listening to union head Kerry Broderick Monday night, scolding the Board of Education for dragging their feet for five months on negotiations and hiring too many consultants, for too much money, creating too many initiatives that no one knows if they work or not.

Broderick demanded the Board explain why the District cannot negotiate a settlement. She asked why administrators hired consultants to do the jobs administrators were supposed to do. After she lead a contingent of about 100 (96 by WPCNR count) White Plains teachers in a show of “solidarity” into the Board meeting she delivered the following statement:

Kerry Broderick addressing the School Board. Her remarks are below:

Good evening my name is Kerry Broderick, I’m a taxpayer in the city of White Plains and a parent of 4 white plains school district students. I’ve been a teacher in the White Plains school district for 13 years, I’m here tonight to speak as President of the White Plains Teachers Association

At the opening school meeting this year, a question of attitude was raised. Whose attitude? Certainly not the teachers.

Teachers have always taken the extra step to help the students. We write college recommendations. We help students before and after school. We coach teams beyond the expected time and seasons. We even coach extra teams, such as J.V. hockey, without pay when asked.

We move to (teach) new grade levels at the whim of a principal, and we do it professionally. We teach crazy schedules because there are mistakes that fail to be noticed and corrected by administrators in charge

The attitude of the Board (of Education) needs to be checked.

Why are teachers third class citizens? Upper level administrators have free health benefits and 5% raises. Middle management have an average 5% raise per year. But, when it comes to the teachers you are reluctant to negotiate a fair package. The Board has been intransigent. The Board has put no significantly new proposal on the table in five months when it offered teachers a paltry salary omcreasedthat would be wiped out with a maximum cost benefits cost shifting.

In the meantime, the board has wasted thousands of dollars on so-called experts who have imposed on teachers initiative after initiative with little financial support to implement the initiative. For example what about the initiative mandated last summer for the elementary school teachers with the impulsive distribution of the book, Getting Started with English Language Learners.Why would the district waste money purchasing 350 copies at $24 per copyeven if they were able to negotiate a mass discount?

Or did they? All this did was add was add another initiative to the professional teaching staff.This money would have been better spent on classroom supplies that now your White Plains teachers must purchase out of their own pockets.

Where can you find that money (for teacher raises)?

Stop paying out to consultants. These out-of-district consultants and their programs are bleeding the district money and energy, without identifiable or measurable results. Why do we have to pay consultants to do the job our administrators are supposed to be doing?

There is no independent assessment of the impact these initiatives (generated by consultants) have had.

Could anyone on the Board (of Education) or administration please tell the teachers and the community why any assessment has not been done? Why any cannot be done?

Could anyone on the Board tell us why we cannot negotiate a fair package?

Thank You.

Teachers filed out clapping in cadence, after Broderick read her statement.

100 Teachers Throng BOE Meeting. Leader Scolds BOE for Failure to Negotiate

Posted on November 3, 2008 by John Bailey

WPCNR SCHOOL DAYS. By John F. Bailey. November 3, 2008: About 100 or more members of the White Plains Teachers Association picketed that white portico of Education House preceding the Board of Education Meeting, tonight chanting calls for a contract while the Board of Education met prior to the official start of the meeting. Teachers trooped in and thronged the regular BOE meeting, and their President, Kerry Broderick read a prepared statement taking the Board to task for rewarding administrators while refusing to negotiate in good faith. The District and the Teachers Unionfiled a legal Declaration of Impasse in their negotiations last week, according to the Superintendent of Schools, Timothy Connors.

White Plains Teachers Picket for Pay Tonight

Ms. Kerry Broderick, President of White Plains Teachers Association, in a three-minute statement declared the district talked of respect for their teachers, while not rewarding them with a new contract, paying administrators 10% or more raises, while refusing to negotiate.

The Superintendent of Schools Timothy Connors made no public comment at the televised meeting (to be shown on tape possibly Wednesday on the Education Channel) on the state of negotiations first reported by WPCNR last week. Afterwards, Superintendent of Schools Connors told WPCNR the district was attempting to negotiate a new contract and had no comment on the content of Ms. Broderick’s statement that she had every right to represent her members any way.

Outside the meeting before it started, teachers told WPCNR the hangup was on both salary and benefits, and one teacher said the district and union were “very far apart, and that’s what’s so bad.” Kerry Broderick, center, above, prepared teachers for the march into Education House.

The next step in the process, Connors told WPCNR was the appointment by the New York State Employers Relations Board of a mediator to oversee the contract dispute. District Assistant Superintendent for Business Fred Seiler said there was no estimate for a time interval for such mediations, though he mentioned that in Rye a mediated dispute was settled in three weeks. The head of the Employers Relations Board though contacted by WPCNR has yet to respond to an inquiry for an outline of the process.

The President of the Civil Service Employees Association, observing the unprecedented show of the teachers (all dressed in red for “solidarity”) Adel Herzenberg, said she was watching the Board of Education and the District handle the teacher contract negotiations because the CSEA contract expires in June 2009.

Superintendent Connors talking during the course of Monday evening’s meeting said he and other Superintendents would be meeting with New York Governor David Patterson at 3:30 PM at the Westchester County Center to hear him speak on what was in store for education and possible effects on education aid and budgets. Connors told WPCNR he had not begun preparing a contingency budget in case of current year cuts, because there were a lot of rumors going around and the Governor had promised that he would work to avoid cuts in school aid. White Plains receives $15.4 Million in state aid this year, which is paid monthly. The district may have received about $5 Million of that aid so far.

Armonk Players’ Lend Me a Tenor Premiers Friday.

Posted on November 3, 2008 by John Bailey

WPCNR STAGE DOOR. From WBT’s Pia Haas. November 3, 2008: Lend Me A Tenor is a door-slamming, dress-dropping farce with mistaken identities, mischievous misunderstandings, compromising positions and hilarious situations. The Armonk Players production premiers this Friday at the North Castle Public Library. It is set in 1934 at the Cleveland Opera Company, where everyone is going wild over the impending visit of world-famous tenor Tito Merelli. But the tenor takes too many tranquilizers, leaving the promoter and his assistant to assess that Merelli is dead. The assistant decides to impersonate Merelli, but the star awakens and stumbles out of his hotel room, leaving too many tenors afoot. LOTS OF FUN!!!

Key Players in Armonk Players’ 30s farce: clockwise from L: Jennifer Edwards of New York City (as Diana), White Plains’ Jeff Schlotman (as Saunders), Elizabeth Morris of Pearl River (as Maggie) and Dana Laite of Sleepy Hollow (as Max)

Admission: $15 for Adults, $10 for Seniors and Students at the door. For information & to reserve tickets call: 914-234-5457 or visit : http://www.armonkplayers.org/schedule.html Tickets may also be purchased in advance at Framings, 420 Main Street, Armonk, NY 10504 The Armonk Players are sponsored by The Friends of The North Castle Public Library.

The Armonk Players Present
Lend Me a   Tenor
by Ken Ludwig
Directed by Pia Haas
Friday, November 7, 2008 at 8pm
Saturday, November 8, 2008 at 8pm
Sunday, November 9, 2008 at 4pm
Thursday, November 13, 2008 at 7:30pm
Friday, November 14, 2008 at 8pm
Saturday, November 15, 2008 at   8pm

Starring: Marcia Cummings-Vinci (Pound Ridge), Jennifer Edwards (NYC), Dana Laite (Sleepy Hollow), James Lugo (Congers ), Elizabeth Morris (Pearl River), Marci Stearns McCormick (Bedford Corners), Chris Rudy (Chappaqua),    Jeff Schlotman (White Plains),

Natural Gas Heat Costs to Go Up 15%. Electric KWH Rates sink

Posted on November 3, 2008 by John Bailey

WPCNR THE POWER NEWS. By John F. Bailey November 3, 2008: Con Edison forecasters predict a 15% increase in the cost of natural gas for customers heating their homes beginning in November. The increase is less than predicted.

White Plains electric consumers, thanks to the plunging cost of oil, saw the kilowatt hour rate drop 3 cents in October to a modest 14.94 cents per kilowatt hour lower than the 15.8 cents/kwh charged one year ago.

Chris Olert, spokesperson for Con Edison said Westchester and The Bronk customers paid an average of $420 a month for natural gas a year ago and can expect that to rise to about $483 a month. Olert said 67% of that cost was charged by the gas companies, 13% for taxes and 20% for Con Edison’s delivery cost.

Electricity bills in White Plains declined from 9.5 cents/kwh hour in September for supply to 7.4 cents for October, and from 8.6 cents/kwh for Con Edison Delivery Costs in September to 7.6 cents/kwh in October. Olert said this was due to the variability of commodity prices.

The price per kilowatt hour in White Plains ran up from 15.8 cents/per kilowatt hour last October to 19 cents per kilowatt hour in June, peaking at 25.4 cents per kilowatt hour in August.

Olert did not have any predictions for continued electric rate reductions.

Regarding electric rates, Olert said that throughout Westchester County the average customer using 450 kilowatt hours paid 20.6 cents a kilowatt hour in October, 18% lower than a year ago.