White Plains Roving Photographer

WPCNR ROVING PHOTOGRAPHER. January 27, 2004: Today’s photograph captures White Plains’ newest equine police officer, the fabulous personality, “Fenway,” the Police Horse on duty at the recent police swearing-in ceremony. Fenway loves the camera and his trainer, Jacques Petit reports Fenway is working in well. Fenway is a gift from obviously the Fenway Golf Club. That’s the always camera-aware Fenway on the right with his partner Sunny.



“SADDLE PALS”  By The White Plains Roving Photographer.

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Give Us Your Money, Please: WP Park Ticket $45 If Pataki Surcharge Passes

WPCNR TRAFFIC TATTLER. By John F. Bailey. January 26, 2004: In Governor George Pataki’s laundry list of revenue-raising measures to erase the state budget deficit that he presented last week, he proposes a flat $30 surcharge applied on top of municipality-issued parking violations. This surcharge should the legislature enact it, could raise the White Plains Parking Ticket penalty to $45, not just $15 as proposed by the White Plains Parking Authority last week.


 



The White Plains Parking Authority Board voted to raise the present fine to $15 from the $10 level it is at now at their meeting last Tuesday evening, the same day Governor Pataki announced the Parking Ticket surcharge. It is the Governor’s plan to split the surcharge, with $15 going to the municipality which issues the ticket, and $15 going back to the state.


 


Whether or not the New York State legislature will approve that much of a surcharge, cut it altogether, or raise the surcharge, is conjecture at this point. It also may be not be enacted until late August, the usual time the state finally passes a budget.  However, City Court Judge Joann Friia will be receiving the Parking Authority request for the $5 fine increase shortly if she has not already received it.


 


The Parking Authority, as reported by WPCNR last week, desires to raise the basic Parking Ticket $5, to meet other community ticket prices. Executive Director of the Parking Authority, Albert Moronie made the case for the raise to the Authority Board by showing other municipality ticket fines which all exceed that of White Plains. The Port Authority stands to net $900,000 more as a result of the increase.


 


If the surcharge goes the Parking Authority will net considerably more than $900,000, perhaps as much as $1.5 Million, (assuming an August passage of the surcharge), and with the additional $15 in effect for a full year in 2005, they stand to increase ticket income by a net of $4 Million more depending on when and if the surcharge is passed.  WPCNR will check on that.


 


Presently, New York State charges such a surcharge on the state’s 6 largest cities, of which Yonkers is one. The Pataki 2004-05 Parking Surcharge will apply to every municipality in the state.


 


Should the surcharge go through, a $15 White Plains Ticket will turn into a $45 Ticket, whenever the legislature gets around  approving it. It would also raise the issue of whether the surcharge would be collected retroactively to when the budget should have been passed, if it is delayed by the legislature (as it usually is).


 

Tickets at some of the other municipalities the White Plains Parking Authority cited as having fines higher than White Plains, will soar, too, the Pataki “Sting,” A Yonkers parking ticket, would cost with the Pataki surcharge, $65; In New Rochelle, $30; In Albany, $70; Bronxville,

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The Last Activist, Host of Winbrook Like It Is Hit by Unlicensed Driver.

WPCNR “WINBROOK LIKE IT IS”. By John F. Bailey. January 26, 2004, Updated 10:30 P.M. E.S.T.: The lone voice of Winbrook, the city’s landmark urban renewal project, dubbed “The Last Activist” by White Plains Week for his fearless lobbying over the years, is recuperating from being struck by an autombile Friday afternoon, and is recovering with a swollen hand. Monday afternoon, Mr. Jackson reported that the Official Police Report of his accident said the driver of the car, also from White Plains, 22 years old, was unlicensed and that his mother was the owner of the car.



THE LAST ACTIVIST, Ron Jackson, shown here outside Democratic Party Headquarters in March, 2003, said of his vehicular encounter, Mr. Jackson said he had suffered a mild stroke two weeks previously and was crossing Fisher Court slowly,  when a vehicle backing the wrong way into the  one-way street hit him. “I was looking left, not looking right,” Jackson told WPCNR, and the vehicle backing down  into Fisher Court blind-sided him on the right side of his body, striking his hand and right arm and knocking him to the street. Photo from WPCNR News Archives.


Ron Jackson is the man whose stubborn resistance to the White Plains Housing Authority plans to build a new headquarters on the Fisher Court quadrangle across from the Thomas A. Slater Center, helped create a better solution for Winbrook. He is also the man whose plain talk at Common Council meetings brings up issues of importance to his community. Jackson also hosts a weekly television interview show on WPPA-TV, Public Access Television, the Spirit of 76, Winbrook Like It Is.


The vehicle was driven by a White Plains man, 22,  with a woman passenger, 33, also of White Plains and a young girl, 12, believed related to the young man, was also in the car. The vehicle was described by Mr. Jackson to WPCNR as a Subaru 4×4, hit him while the vehicle was backing up Westbound on the Fisher Court drive between the Winbrook campus and the Slater Center, at an undetermined speed. Jackson who says he weighs 215 pounds was flung to the pavement, hitting his head.


Jackson believes the vehicle was backing up into Fisher  to claim a parking space on the interior of Fisher Court after having turned onto Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, stopped and started backing up what Mr. Jackson described as “a long distance,” about 10 feet  Westbound on Fisher Court. Mr. Jackson said he was struck crossing near Winbrook Building 213 Fisher Court, on his way to the Slater Center, where he is employed.


Jackson told WPCNR, that the driver got out of his vehicle, to check to see if he was all right. A passerby, Mr. Jackson now says, decided to call the police by a cellphone. Jackson said his hand was x-rayed at White Plains Hospital Center and he was released. Jackson said he did not know whether police have charged the driver with any violation.


Jackson told WPCNR he is thankful to be alive. He said he never saw the vehicle because he was crossing a one-way street (Fisher is oneway Eastbound, emptying into Dr. Martin Luther King Jr Boulevard which is oneway Northbound).


He had been making his way from Post Road Pharmacy on Post Road, with Denise Brooks who works at the Housing Authority offices at 223 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard at the time. After having bid Ms. Brooks  adieu at the Housing Authority offices, Jackson continued to the Slater Center where he was struck at Fisher Court.

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The White Plains Roving Reporter

WPCNR ROVING REPORTER. January 26, 2004: The southern gateway is the White Plains Photograph of the Day, showing The Jefferson at White Plains, under construction on Mamaroneck Avenue, as it appears this week.



GENTRIFICATION ON THE EDGE. Photograph by the White Plains Roving Photographer

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