WPCNR COMMON COUNCIL CHRONICLE EXAMINER. By John F. Bailey. September 8, 2004: The Common Council voted last night an ordinance permitting assisted living senior care facilities in the downtown, and specifically the neighborhood near White Plains Hospital Medical Center, the first step towards the building of the Sunrise care facility approved for that location.
The Council also voted unanimously to permit the city budget and financial departments to delay until December submission of city financial reports.
The Council also expressed its interest in finding a mechanism to reserve a portion of the Sunrise facility for persons who otherwise could not afford the $3,000 and up monthly care rates. Susan Habel, Commissioner of Planning, said she would work with Sunrise and the Council to explore a means of making units available in Sunrise for the disadvantaged elderly in need of assisted living care. Photo Capture from WPGA-TV, Channel 75 by WPCNR News
Susan Habel explained the ordinance permitting assisted living facilities to be built in the downtown area. The Commissioner of Planning took pains to point out this was not approval of nursing homes, but homes where persons could take care of themselves, but simply could not live on their own. Habel also said that because different residents require different services it would be difficult to apply the city’s 6% affordable housing rule.
Rose Noonan, of the Westchester Housing Resources, spoke eloquently of the need for applying the city’s 6% set-aside affordable housing requirement to assisted living facilities. She pointed out that only 33% of the population in Westchester who needed such facilities could afford the typical $3,000 per month cost of living in an assisted living complex. She also noted that Sunrise in applying for such a facilitiy in Elmsford had said they could make arrangements to allow their facility to be accessible to persons who otherwise could not afford to live there. Photo Capture From WPGA-TV, Channel 76 by WPCNR News.
Councilperson Rita Malmud called for a work session to explore what mechanism could be created to make a portion of the Sunrise facility available to the less fortunate elderly.
Councilman Arnold Bernstein suggested the city might use some of its funds set aside for affordable housing assistance to purchase insurance policies for individuals so they might afford long term assisted care, if the legal department felt it was appropriate. Bernstein noted, though that if the city aided someone to afford a unit in the Sunrise facilitiy, he wondered out loud whether the city would be obligated to aid that person on their last stop…that of a subsequent nursing home or end-of-life care facility. Photo Capture from WPGA-TV, Channel 75 by WPCNR News
Councilman Larry Delgado supported the concept of exploring an aid package or structure where less fortunate persons could be given access to the Sunrise facility, as long as, he said, the costs were not passed on to residents paying full rates. Photo Capture from WPGA-TV by WPCNR News.
Councilman Roach and Councilman Robert Greer also expressed interest in discussing how a portion of Sunrise could be made accessible to the city’s indigent senior citizens in need of assisted living care.
Susan Habel said she would work with the council and Sunrise to explore solutions to this initiative to find “affordable” assisted living at Sunrise.
Financial Reporting Moved Back.
At the outset of the council meeting the council held a public hearing on a new local law that gives the finance and budget departments an extra 30 days to prepare financial statements for regulatory agencies and rating services. Now as a result of passing this new local law, full financial reports are not required to be presented to the Common Council until the first meeting in December.
Commissioner of Finance, Gina Cuneo Harwood, made the case for the extra 30 days by saying the city simply needed more time to comply with the additional reporting required by the state, and enable the city to contend for a state accounting practices award.
Dan Seidel, the only person from the public to comment on the financial reporting law, said that by moving the reporting date from October 31 to December, the council would be “disenfranchising” the voter, by delaying key financial position reports to the public until after elections in perpetuity. Photo Capture from WPGA-TV, Channel 75 by WPCNR News.
Mayor Joseph Delfino, back from vacation, scoffed at this notion, saying he did not recall the city ever not being on “sound” financial footing. The Mayor has a short memory, considering that bond ratings of the city were in danger of being lowered just six months ago.
Councilmembers were quick to point out that these were formal reports based on auditor-generated information that were required by the various agencies that rate, monitor, and oversee the city, that the law in no way would prevent citizens and the public from knowing the financial state of the city before elections.
Councilperson Robert Greer in a hurt tone, said, “There’s no lack of financial data that’s being put out there and available to the public throughout the course of the year.”
Mr. Greer is apparently unaware that there has not been a report made public by the Mayor’s Office on the ongoing state of the city’s shaky finances since last May.
And the Mayor’s Office refuses to do so when asked for it.
The CitizeNetReporter on being told by a person intimately familiar with city sales tax figures that the city made its projected sales tax revenue in real dollars at the end of the June, asked the Mayor’s office for a confirmation of that, and our phone call was never responded to. Why would the city not confirm good news?
In August of 2003, sales tax figures were made available in a council work session, however the city numbers since the middle of May, have not been issued by the city either in press release or news conference form.
“Nothing Hidden from the Public.”
Councilperson Rita Malmud downplayed the extension of the report preparation period, dismissing the reports as “simply a form of results documents” that it had nothing to do with the budget. “It’s not as though anything is going to be hidden from the public (before the election).”
Ms. Malmud apparently misremembers that the council itself was kept unaware of the bond rating problem raised by Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s dim view of city financial management last spring that resulted in the city orchestrating a take over of Parking Authority assets within 60 days to patch up the fund balance deficit.
Simply put, the city has no mechanism and does not report financial results regularly to the public in a formal, open way on a regular basis. They have no mechanism to do so, and for the last 5 months at least have not divulged any financial intelligence.
New York Presbyterian Hospital Site Plan Renewal Referred
The Council referred the Presbyterian Hospital request for an extension of its proton accelerator/bioresearch building project to Commissioners and Boards for comment.
Allan Teck, President of Concerned Citizens for Open Space strode to the podium, and suggested that the site plan should not be renewed for a number of reasons, which he conjectured were that the hospital did not have the money to build it, that he did not believe the hospital had spent several million dollars on the property, and that the proton accelerator was obsolete technology. He also said he could not see the hospital building a nonprofit facility when they wanted the city to approve zoning for “profit” facilities at the North end of the hospital property. Photo Capture of WPGA-TV, Channel 75 by WPCNR News
The Mayor assued Mr. Teck, this was just a referral and the public would have plenty of time to comment when commissioners and boards had sent back their reports.
A radiant Elisabeth Wallace was nominated and approved for another six years as Personnel Officer until September 15, 2010. Photo Capture of WPGA-TV, Channel 75 by WPCNR News.
Carl Bannister, Maintenance Mechanic at the White Plains Public Library for 30 years was named Employee of the Month. The Mayor noted Mr. Bannister’s pride and meticulous care of the library, remembering that Carl is the only employee left who worked in the former White Plains Library. Photo Capture from WPGA-TV, Channel 75 by WPCNR News.
The Mayor bid a tearful farewell to Reverend William Hurst of Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church who delivered the evening’s Invocation. The Mayor saluted Reverend Hurst for growing Trinity Lutheran the last nine years, and recognized him for his role in organizing the White Plains 9/11 Memorial to the persons murdered in the Twin Towers Attacks three years ago. Reverend Hurst is leaving to take a new “Call” in Southern California. Photo Capture from WPGA-TV, Channel 75 by WPCNR News.
