THE WORLD READS WHITE PLAINS CITIZENETREPORTER — 8,324,077 VISITS IN ONE YEAR

WPCNR POLICE GAZETTE. By John F. Bailey. March 9, 2006: Captain Ann Fitzsimmons and Detective Gus Fazzino of the White Plains Police Department addressed the North Broadway Civic Association Thursday evening, offering to work with the neighborhood to set up a Neighborhood Watch organization. Captain Fitzsimmons told WPCNR the police department is standing by to work with other Neighborhood Associations to set up similar “Watch” systems. She said the Battle Hill Association and the Rosedale Association have also asked the police to work with them to set up the system.

Captain Fitzsimmons  address to the group, confirmed the report of a break-ins and a burglary last week that WPCNR had received from a North Broadway resident. She was invited by the Association to inform the neighborhood about the string of unusual incidents. 

Fitzsimmons said these incidents had occurred over the school winter vacation last week. She described the incidents as being 4 ransackings with nothing being reported stolen, and one burglary where things were stolen. Exact time and dates of the intrusions were not known, just the dates when they were discovered.

She said a home was ransacked on Montross Avenue (off Orchard Street) when residents were out for the day, and returned home to discover the intrusion. A vacant home on Harwood Avenue (off North Broadway and Brookdale) was ransacked and was discovered by a police officer checking the home on February 28.

A home on Holland (two long Broadway blocks south of Harwood the Rural Cemetary),  was discovered ransacked after being reported by a neighbor, also on the 28th of February.  A residence on McBride Avenue (off North Broadway), said to be in the vicinity of the home of the Chief of Police, was also reported ransacked  February 27. There was a burglary on Wardman Street (off Ferris Avenue), where goods were reported stolen.  Captain Fitzsimmons said there was also  “others” on the other side of town, but they did not appear connected. She did not reveal what was taken in the burglary.

Detective Fazzino said he was willing to work with North Broadway and any neighborhood Association to set up a Neighborhood Watch system. A neighborhood he said  had to elect a chairperson to head the Watch organization and a series of block captains. To organize “the watch,” he said the Block Captains would give police data on all residences, including who lived there and information the police would find helpful in investigating possible incidents involving a particular residence. Fazzino said the block captains would “network” with each other, reporting information through the Chairperson, watching and notifying police of goings-on in the neighborhood. Each block captain would have a special i.d. by which the police would recognize them. 

Fazzino said he was willing to go into the neighborhoods, conduct security checks on individual homes, making suggestions on how to make homes less vulnerable to being targeted by opportunists looking for signs of homes vacant during the day.

Fazzino noted that in the interim, when leaving your home vacant, lights should be on timers; arrangements made to take in mail; have cars parked in the driveway; and of course, make arrangements to have the driveway shoveled in case of snow.

Neighborhood associations intersted in forming Neighborhood Watches in White Plains should contact Detective Fazzino of the White Plains Police Department at (914) 422-6227, or Captain Fitzsimmons, for details.

Captain Fitzsimmons said last year the Police Department had cut crime 33%, and to date in 2006 they were down another 27%, but they needed neighborhood help to keep this performance improving.

WPCNR MR. & MRS. & MS. WHITE PLAINS VOICE. March 9, 2006: A reader who is a member of the Annual Budget Committee who attended the Wednesday night meeting of the ABC at Education House files this correspondence with analysis:

March 9, 2006

The Annual [School District] Budget Committee (ABC) has met three times in a month and has yet to deal with the tough questions that surely  need consultant guidance but which we, ultimately must answer.

(More)

At last night’s meeting:

        •  Determined to put the nagging issue of class size to bed, the Superintendent (of Schools Timothy Connors),  gratuitously showed a chart with across-the-board K-5 section cuts which, naturally, result in classroom sizes of 25 or so.

What we actually needed was the same format showing how we can accomodate an additional 300 (elementary school children) or so in the next few years, probably  resulting in an average increase of 1-2 children per class. You can bet that any consultant worth his salt would have this sliced  and diced in short order.
       
        • The Board asked for opinions regarding an accounting change which would allow greater flexibility in utilizing a portion of the available budget contingency (Fund Balance.) They offered no suggestion that they had previously followed any standard in this regard–say, a percentage of the total budget – in which case there would be little
to discuss.  Resolution indeterminate.

        • A considerable number of people voiced their satisfaction with affairs as they are, ” This is what we came here for and we’re willing to pay for it .”
        Still, when asked “when do we get to talk about  additional things we’d like to see ?”  the Superintendent’s response in effect, was, “just now there’s no money, but I’m optimistic that we’ll get to it.”
  In other words, we’ll wing it.

It was amazing to hear people who had volunteered to sit on a budget committee  complain that,  “all we talk about is money.”   Right.

Who says that  all current programs and services are essential and that, if they are, they are being efficiently run?  And, if the answers we get, perhaps with outside help, are less than positive, what can/should be done to change, eliminate or supplant them?

As it stands, the ABC is a charade. If we keep this up only the small number who are oblivious to financial constraints and those who have nowhere else to turn will be left to pick up the pieces. The big middle––already in jeopardy–– will be gone, possibly for good.

Robert H. Levine