WPCNR COMMON COUNCIL CHRONICLE-EXAMINER By John F. Bailey. December 1, 2003: Councilman William King will appear at his last public monthly Common Council meeting this evening when Mayor Joseph Delfino gavels the Council to order at 7:30 P.M. at City Hall. Mr. King’s tenure as councilman ends December 31 by his reportedly choosing not to run again for the seat, though this reporter suspects that Mr. King was told he was not going to be nominated to run again by the City Democratic Committee, and chose to make a graceful exit. However, Mr. King in a response to this column tells unequivocably, this did not happen, they were solidly behind him.
Now why would Mr. King be cast aside by the Democratic City Committee (if indeed, they did tell him to take a hike)?
Because Mr. King is not a team player. He sees when the emperor is not wearing any clothes. He points it out. He has done this on numerous occasions. He asks the “obvious question” which of course is the question that makes a political consensus position uncomfortable.
Councilman William King
Mr. King goes his own way and refused to play his part in the political plays of manners and posturings that accompanied the ponderous council deliberations shaping the city over the last four years. To his credit, Mr. King did not criticize the original designs of the City Center when they were massaged by the Common Council back in September of 2001, for example.
Mr. King has advocated for matters that have not been high on the city administration radar screen: overnight street parking for apartment-congested areas, bicycle paths, a children’s museum, mass transit in the downtown, preservation of all of the New York Presbyterian Hospital wilderness acres, conscientious management of city wild lands, and most recently converting the Gedney Greenway and city landfill to a working park. (First, though, the city has to clean up the resident stench on the Greenway that makes that area hazardous to your nostrils, and on thermal inversion days smells like Staten Island.)
Now, other than Glen Hockley, who may sooner or later be replaced by the courts on the council (but, do not bet on it, the Court of Appeals will save him, my prediction), there is no independent thinker on the Council, who will go out on a limb to advocate and incur the Administration’s ridicule and wrath.
It was Bill King who cut the median grass on North Street with Jack Harrington to dramatize the negligence of the County Department of Public Works which allowed the grass to get so high as to block views of oncoming traffic. Since Mr. King did that, the medians have been mysteriously trimmed regularly.
It was Bill King and some friends of his who exposed the county neglect of Silver Lake to the extent that homeless persons were living in the underbrush with impunity and setting up overnight camps there. This focused attention on the area that the administration worked with the county to acquire the land and create Liberty Park. I venture to say that if Mr. King had not literally waded into the issue, Liberty Park never would have happened.
It was Bill King who asked for bicycle signs in a so far futile attempt to establish bicyle paths in the city. This could make the city a more interesting place and ease the traffic, just a bit.
It was Bill King who first introduced the idea of a children’s museum for the downtown, which is now being advocated by the Administration, and has been taken up by Leon Silverman as a feature of his proposed redevelopment of his Martine Avenue block.
It has been Bill King who has long endured Mayor Delfino’s sarcasm whenever Mr. King has complained about lack of time to digest information before considering key decisions, and the lack of access to city departments when he has asked for information on key issues. However, Mr. King is right. The city does not provide information in a timely manner to Councilman and the public at large. Mr. King, as any reporter covering the city will tell you, is right.
The administration presents fait accomplis in an atmosphere of approval hysteria. Mr. King has often complained to the city on this modus operandi of secrecy, technical obfuscation, and avalanche-of-information-at-the-last-minute, and they are offended. The phrase often heard by councilpersons from the administration, Mr. King in particular, is “all you have to do is call us, and we’ll provide whatever you ask for.” Well, they don’t. Tonight’s 221 Main Street Cappelli-Bland Hotel hearing is a case in point.
Tonight Mr. King should take the opportunity to call Department of Public Works head, Joseph Bud Nicoletti to the podium during tonight’s resumption of the 221 Main Street hearing. Maybe he should ask him if Mr. Nicoletti now agrees with the Cappelli organization studies that place the Main Street sewer as running at 20-25% capacity. He should ask Mr. Nicoletti to explain why his own measuring of sewage flow in the Main Street sewer by water levels measured by a stick (the preferred method by sanitation engineers) which showed the sewer running at 80% capacity without the City Center being online is now being rejected in favor of two Cappelli Sewage Capacity Reports based on water flow meter readings.
Mr. Nicoletti’s personal testimony on this issue must be examined by the council so they can make an informed decision and have peace of mind on the status of the dark stuff under Main Street. Either that or they could ask for a truly independent study of the sewer status now, as they have been prone to do in the past. A Bill King on the council could call for that.
They must be worried about something down there under Main Street since George Gretsas, the Mayor’s Executive Officer, has maintained that Cappelli will replace the Main Street sewer as part of the 221 Main project, which means more ripup.
Two engineers with major sewer and waste management firms toldd WPCNR, that water flow meters, the lynchpins of Mr. Cappelli’s two studies are unreliable because they measure flow, not depth at any given time. Furthermore, another expert said flow meters become fouled, supplying false readings if they are not cleaned monthly. If Mr. Nicoletti’s own flow meter was cleaned monthly as engineering firms have told WPCNR they should be, then perhaps their readings can be relied upon in the matter of gallonage they carry, but the question of the “stick” method vs. the water meter method needs to be explained to the council’s satisfaction by Mr. Nicoletti and he has to tell us why he believes in it. Who will ask?
That of course begs the question of why did not the city automatically say, “the sewer is 100 years old, it’s not getting any younger, let’s redo it as part of this whole thing so the downtown can run without being disrupted after City Center opens.” But they did not.
Tonight Mr. King has promised not to vote for the double-decking of the Shapham Place parking lot at the expense of $7 Million in bonding. It is a pyrrhic gesture, a “swan song” only delaying this vote for a month. But, somehow, as Mr. King points out the cost has soared to double what it was originally.
Mr. King complained about this when it first was proposed as the more logical solution without bringing back the nightmare of onstreet overnight parking. It is another example of Mr. King’s foresight being overruled by political expendiency. I bought that argument, but in restrospect, Mr. King was right, you could try metered parking, and see what would happen at far less expense.
King had the courage to take unpopular positions and expose himself to ridicule from the media, from the county, and loss of popularity from complaints from persons seeing threats to the way White Plains is now (the horror and crime of onstreet overnight metered parking).
King had courage to do that, and many of the matters he was laughed at for: Silver Lake cleanup, the children’s museum, and now a trolley system, are being embraced by the administration as well as Mr. King’s colleagues, as he leaves. So often, in politics, the price of vision is to sacrifice yourself. It should not be that way.
One issue I believe Mr. King was wrong on was the New York Presbyterian Hospital park vote in 2000, Mr. King should have secured the 65 acres, and the city would have had the power hand with the hospital in this situation for three years. Now, with the latest hospital offering of land five weeks ago, the city has the same deal with 10 acres less, plus 2 medical buildings, and the prospect of more development on the North side along Westchester Avenue. A King switch in 2000 would have made it a 4-3 vote, and perhaps he could have brought Larry Delgado on board with him, but I have the ability of hindsight here. It was one of King’s only mistakes.
One matter that Mr. King should have pushed was for the city to make more of White Plains place in American history than it does today. A White Plains “Patriot’s Trail” should be created and a White Plains Historical Center (perhaps the George Washington Headquarters, as a base) to promote the city as a tourist attraction as well. That’s a pipe dream of mine. King, true to form, is championing the saving of the Bar Building. He may be right again in future months on that baby.
Mr. Bernstein has big shoes to fill next month. Tom Roach and Glen Hockley have demonstrated rationality, practicality and concern on issues, and now they become the voice of conscience on the council. Benjamin Boykin assumes more of a preemptive role than ever as the council proceeds in 2004, as much of an ally of the Mayor as he has been, he has to lead now more than ever in setting council concerns, sharing the reins with the Mayor, asking the questions and making the hard decisions that without Bill King would not have been pursued: Liberty Park, the children’s museum, the Bar Building. Mr. Boykin will not have Bill King around to ask the obvous question.
As far as the 221 Main Cappelli Bland hotel project, how high it is is the least of concerns the council should have. How the Cappelli Bland Hotel will function within the city infrastructure is the big issue, including Mass Transit, and the council has not aggressively delved beneath the surface of the project at all.
But now Mr. King, the dreamer is leaving the council. It may be a long time before another dreamer replaces him.
