WPCNR SCHOOL DAYS ROUNDUP. By John F. Bailey. August 18, 2008: Superintendent of Schools, Timothy Connors told WPCNR tonight there has been no movement on negotiation a new contract with the White Plains teachers since talks broke off June 30 for the summer. He said he expected to resume negotiations with Kerry Broderick, head of the White Plains Teachers Association in September. He said Ms. Broderick had not approached him, but he is always open he said. *********** The school district hired two custodial workers, one Office Assistant in Food Services; approved tenure for four Teaching Assistants, hired five teachers on Probationary appointments, and five Regular Substitute appointments. Asked if the district had allowed any vacant positions not be filled as a way of trimming the budget through attrition since June 30, the Superintendent said the district had not, because that could affect class sizes. *********** The Board of Education approved a 2.75% salary increase across the board for 19 Managerial & Confidential employees. ********** The Superintendent was asked if the School District was going to work on trimming the school budget earlier this year. Mr. Connors said the district was waiting to see what the state legislature would do regarding property tax issues. The legislature reconvenes Tuesday with both State Senate and State Assembly at odds over Governor David Patterson’s property tax cap proposal, passed by the Senate last week. Last year the state did not make known its intentions towards school aid until after the school budget was formulated by the district. The White Plains School district is on target to hit the $200 Million mark in 2009-2010. The current budget is $184.4 Million. *********** The Board of Education held off discussion of the 2nd and 3rd grade WINGS programs in the elementary levels until September 8 because a report of recommendations was not completed yet. Asked how changes might affect that program, Mr. Connors said “there’s always room for improvement.” Connors told the Board of Education the 4th and 5th Grade WINGS programs were not going to change. ********** The Superintendent said enrollment for the 2008-2009 school year beginning September 4 was as expected and not increased from 2007-2008 when it was approximately 7,100 students. ************ Charles Norris, member of the Board of Education,told WPCNR, unsolicited, that he was not a candidate for Mayor of White Plains at this time, contrary to rumors that he has heard to that effect. He said he would not run as a Republican, but strongly denied he was a candidate at this time. ********* Board Members Peter Bassano and Charles Norris, asked if they had seen a design of the new $104,000 jumbotron-equiped scoreboard ordered last month for Loucks Field, the new artificial turf field in White Plains, said they had not. ************* Superintendent of SchoolsTimothy Connors noted that the 2008 high school football schedule begins Saturday, September 6 against Roosevelt at 1:30 P.M. at Loucks Field, followed by a night game at 7 P.M. against Scarsdale, September 12. The Schedule: September 6: Roosevelt, 1:30 P.M. September 12: Scarsdale, 7 P.M. September 20 — at Mamaroneck, 7 P.M. September 27: Mount Vernon, 2:30 P.M. October 4: at New Rochelle, 3:30 P.M. October 10: Gorton, 7 P.M. October 18: at Lincoln, 1:30 P.M. November 27 (Thanksgiving): Stepinac, 10:30 A.M. (Presumed to be Loucks Field venue due to higher seating capacity. Parker Stadium last year was filled to well past capacity and spectators had to be turned away by officials.)
White Plains Ron Velez Hired as WP Manager of Information Systems
WPCNR SCHOOL DAYS. By John F. Bailey. August 18, 2008: Ron Velez of White Plains was approved Monday night by the Board of Education as the new Director of Management Information Systems for the White Plains City School District. Velez comes to the White Plains district, having been the Manager of Information Systems for the East Ramapo School District in Rockland County (Spring Valley). Velez has been, according to Dr. Lenora Boehlert, Assistant Suprintendent for Human Resources, has been in his present position for eight years, and in information systems for 10 years before that. He has sixteen years of experience. She said Mr. Velez is familiar with the Infinite Campus data management program recently purchased for the White Plains district at a cost of $300,000, because the East Ramapo District was in the process of adopting the same program. She said the East Ramapo district has not implemented it fully yet and is in the process of doing that. Dr. Boehlert reports that Mr. Velez has been engaged in implementing the Infinite Campus program in the East Ramapo district. The new Infinite Campus system has been touted as the district answer to providing longitudinal information tracking that BOCES, its previous provided had been unable to provide. The BOCES system was contracted for previously because the current White Plains data management team of Lucy Roman and Larry Killian and been unsuccessful in implementing longitudinal studies due to the limitations of White Plains data systems implemented in the late 1990s. Infinite Campus is expected to take three years before the staff and departments and faculty can fully make use of its capabilities. Mr. Velez is expected to begin his new assignment with White Plains September 8, at a salary of $150,000 a year. The East Ramapo School District proposed a school budget of $193.4 Million for 2008-2009, which was defeated by the voters. The district, in response, adopted an austerity budget that was actually more than the proposed budget due to the legislative actions in increasing school aid last spring, while the state secretly decreased the STAR exemption to pay for the increased aid. The District has 8,244 students as of the end of 2007, and is 59% Black, 22% Hispanic, and 11% white in demographic make-up.
Cable TV Access Center Age, Chronic Fragility, Indicates Time for Overhaul
WPCNR MEDIA AGE. By John F. Bailey. August 18, 2008: The White Plains Cable Commission will take up the matter of a overhauling the control room of the White Plains Public Access system at its September 30 meeting, WPCNR has learned. Executive director Jim Kenney said the system had become “too fragile due to the increased number of connections over the years.” The latest such disruption in Channel 76 cable casting occurred Friday evening when there was no audio for any of the shows cablecast that evening. White Plains Week the timely news roundup show will be specially cablecast on Channel 76 today at 4 P.M. and in its regular slot at 7 P.M. It can also be seen at 11:30 P.M. this evening. And you can wake up with White Plains Week at 7:30 A.M. Tuesday morning. Other possible make goods for other shows without audio have not been scheduled as yet. There has been disagreement among the members of the commission as to whether the aging system, installed in 1992, augmented and built up over the years as the station has expanded. Two Commission members, Mary Ann Keenan and Milagros Lecuona have recently called for a consultant to come in and analyze what needs to be done to eliminate the periodic disruptions in cable telecast quality in the Government Access Channel 75 and Channel 76 that have resulted in audio loss, poor picture quality on a sporadic basis not only the public access outlet 76, but also affecting the live telecasts of Common Council meetings. One council meeting was not televised at all this past spring due to a breakdown. Jim Kenney, the Executive Director of the “White Plains Network,” Channel 75, Channel 76 (“The Spirit of 76”) and the education channel 77, attributed the periodic interruptions to the age of the system that has made it more susceptible to glitches over the years. “The whole Verizon conversion has made it more complicated, but the problems first surfaced with the Cablevision modulater problem (in 2007).” Kenney said, “The system needs a complete overhaul.” He said, in order to execute a redesign of the system, “rebuilding from the ground up,“ the cable operation would have to shut down for a week or more. He also noted that he hoped to have an estimate of the cost of upgrading the system by the September 30 meeting. He attributed Friday’s audio outage to “something coming loose, and we have no idea what it was.”
Calling All Carps! Calling All Carps! Proceed to Silver Lake Ecological Disaster
WPCNR LAKE STREET STORY. By John F. Bailey August 17, 2008 UPDATED 10:30 P.M. EDT: After three weeks of reluctance on the part of the City of White Plains to report to WPCNR the status of when an elite squad of algae and weed-eating carp fish “specialists” would be approved or banned from cleaning up the stagnant algae and weed-choked Liberty Park Silver Lake, the Town of Harrison Supervisor Joan Walsh announced Friday that the long-awaited “Carp Squad” would be introduced to the lake in September.
“GUMS”
Move along, buddy! A Grass Carp — soon to be introduced to Silver Lake to control the bottom weeds. The Carp grows rapidly, can eat up to three times its body weight in a day, and can grow to a length of 4 feet as an adult and weigh 70 to 90 pounds. Carp juveniles (8 inches) can grow to 18 inches in one year. Walsh told media 256 carp would be put into the lake.
The carp will hopefully find the bottom weeds tasty and will clean up the lake whose unsavory appearance every summer has turned Liberty Park, built at the cost of $500,000 in real tax dollars by the City of White Plains in 2004, into a park no one wants to go to or be in. The lake has been unusable for boating for three years due to the unexplained weed growth in the lake. It is so deserted there is evidence of campfires along the trail.
The “carp solution” was suggested by White Plains Commissioner of Public Works, Joseph Nicoletti. one year ago as preferrable to the alternative of dredging the lake for hundreds of thousands of dollars and has finally been give the “Go” signal by the Department of Environmental Conservation.
Liberty Park & Silver Lake, August 5: The Park that no one wants to use. A “Carp Squad” is on the way to clean up the lake, Harrison Town Supervisor John Walsh announced Friday. This is how Silver Lake looked August 5, two weeks ago, and how it has looked all summer long the last three years. It has cleared up a little since then (See Sunday, August 17 shot below), due to cooler nights killing the algae, and it sinking to the bottom.
Silver Lake, August 17: Cool nights last week killed the algae scum which sunk to the bottom, so the lake looks better, but note the slime dockside.
For two years though the lake has been closed to boating due to voracious weed growth and algae scum that was never present before Liberty Park with its attendent fertilizers and chemical runoff opened. The fertilizer runoff from the White Plains side was cited by a biologist to WPCNR as a possible cause of the growth three years ago. The city has never explained why the lake never had as much weed growth before Liberty Park opened. It has been attributed to storm water runoff.
Southend of Silver Lake by entrance of park, August 5.
Southend of Silver Lake Sunday, August 17 — Algae kill has cleared surface.
The lake was further compromised last year when overflowing Harrison sanitary sewer drains in late July overflowed due to a drenching thunderstorm event, and introduced raw sewage into the lake. The result fouled the Silver Lake area with stench and introduced effluent into the Mamaroneck River. The cause of the stench was not announced to the public by both towns for three weeks and an official announcement of the closing of the lake was not made.
Liberty Park as a result of the appearance of the lake has had its trails around the lake become possibly new campouts for the city’s homeless. Remnants of campfires were found by WPCNR two weeks ago.
Walsh announced the carp would go into the lake in September. The carp eat the weeds and have been a resource to clean up a number of lakes in the area. The carp, Commissioner Nicoletti said when advancing the “carp solution” last fall would be sterile to avoid over population.
Looking North from the southend of Silver Lake — scum and slime threequarters down the length of the lake looking North– as of August 5.
The same spot above, shot from opposite White Plains shore, today, August 17. The murk of the cool night algae kill remains
Looking South to White Plains from the Harrison side, August 5. The discoloration on the surface is slime and film.
Swans distastefully moving past the slime, August 5
Silver Lake August 5
Another campfire site along the trail lakeside on White Plains half of the lake, discovered August 5.
Silver Lake, August 17 looking to Harrison side.