WPCNR Environmental Enquirer. By John F. Bailey. June 24, 2002. 9:00 A.M. E.D.T. Concerned Citizens for Open Space, the grassroots White Plains association of environmentally sensitive citizens is planning on running a full page ad or ads in local media to demonstrate community opposition to the New York Presbyterian Hospital project.
The advertisement, WPCNR has learned, has been seeking signatures of White Plains residents, the names of whom will be printed in an advertisement, urging the Common Council to vote down the New York Presbyterian Hospital biomedical/proton accelerator project.
Citizens being approached are neighborhood association activists and concerned residents and names readily recognizable by the Common Council members.
The substance of the advertisement calls on the Council to reject the hospital project on the grounds that it violates residential zoning now in place on the property, desecrates open space that could be used for a park, and that the project itself will create a negative impact on the adjacent neighborhoods. No organization other than Concerned Citizens for Open Space is mentioned in the ad, as far as our information indicates.
WPCNR Poll on Issue Sluggish.
In a recently concluded WPCNR Poll which ran for two weeks, only 50 readers of WPCNR expressed opinions on this issue, which is surprising because WPCNR has a documented Webtrends readership of 2,000 daily visitors a month, and 10,000 page views.
73% of Poll-Respondents Want Project.
In that poll of 50 voters, 9 said the project should be rejected outright, 32 said the project whould be approved on an interior site away from Bryant Avenue, and 9 said the project should be approved as proposed on the Bryant Avenue side. This is less interest than was expressed by our readers in the poll we conducted during the Louis Cappelli City Center Approval Process(64).
Most Recent WPCNR Poll Consistent with Earlier NYPH Poll
In an earlier WPCNR poll on the very same issue, when 56 votes were cast, 57%, 32 persons said the biomedical/proton accelerator complex should be denied on Bryant Avenue, but moved to an interior location.
Twenty-two votes, or 39%, said the biotech center should be approved as proposed on Bryant Avenue. In both polls, the numbers asking for the project to be denied altogether were very low: 18% and 4%.
