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WPCNR THE FEINER REPORT. . By Greenburgh Town Supervisor Paul Feiner. May 24, 2020:

I have received e mails and calls from residents in recent weeks advising that many people are not social distancing or wearing masks on bike paths, parks, trails. This is happening all over Westchester, NYS, the nation and world!  Most people do comply. But those who don’t risk infecting others or getting sick with COVID-19 themselves.  For those with medical issues — it could be extemely dangerous.

I spoke with the Parks Commissioner and Police Chief and suggested that we set up a time (probably early in the AM) at one park with extra police, park personnel present so that people who have compromised immune systems can enjoy the trail -knowing that we will be making a greater effort to enforce the social distancing/health and safety COVID-19 REQUIREMENTS 

My question: If we would set this up – would you be interested in participating?  There are many miles of bike paths, trails, parks around town. It’s impossible to have a police officer at every spot on a trail all day and many people are refusing to comply with the social distancing directives.

If you would be interested = would an 8 AM to 10 AM time period be helpful? Any thoughts or suggestions you have would be appreciated. Please e mail to pfeiner@greenburghny.com.  When I brought this up at the Greenburgh Town Board work session last week the suggestion was to try it once a week.  However, if there is greater interest and need the program could be expanded.

If this works it’s my hope that other governments will do the same – providing more options for those with compromised immune systems to enjoy nature

AN EXCERPT FROM A WOMAN WHO IS SEVERELY IMMUNE

COMPROMISED

As a very concerned citizen, I wanted to let you know that community members are not looking out for one another at all, and it is really upsetting. So many people including runners and bikers are not wearing masks or social distancing, especially on the weekends.

There are so many people on weekends that it is nearly impossible to social distance on some parts of the path, and so many people out there just don’t seem to care about others at all. Tons of adults and kids biking without masks–so many that I had to wait about 5 minutes standing off the path while one biker after another passed by.

People running without masks and not social distancing at all while they breathe heavily and run right by. I happen to be severely immune compromised. 

I just think it’s such a shame that this is the way people are treating one another. As the weather gets warmer, it’s only going to get worse, and action needs to be taken. I literally feel like I can’t go outside without feeling in harm’s way, and it’s a great health risk

ANOTHER EXCERPT FROM AN  E MAIL RECEIVED FROM A WOMAN WITH CANCER  ABOUT ANOTHER TRAIL IN TOWN–

Thank you for soliciting feedback on Greenburgh trail use. I I run into few people there at that time (more people on weekends) and many weekday users seem to be regulars. I often see two women walking closely together sans masks. The most unnerving is an unmasked woman seen several times over these months including yesterday morning with an unleashed dog. On the weekends there are frequently parents with young children walking the trails sans masks. 

I am recovering from a year of cancer treatment which just ended two weeks ago. I walk/jog with a bandana every day mostly to protect others since quarantine began. It seems there are still many in our community who don’t realize how our behavior correlates with the quarantine timeline. 
WESTCHESTER RE-OPENING  –LINK TO WHAT IS ALLOWED ON TUESDAY AND DURING OTHER PHASES

On Tuesday our area will start re-opening. This is a link to what is allowed and not allowed.Phase 1 allows in curbside, in store pickup and drop off, construction, wholesale and manufacturing.https://forward.ny.gov/industries-reopening-phase

PAUL FEINER Greenburgh Town Supervisor

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WPCNR THE LETTER TICKER. From Greenburgh Town Supervisor, Paul Feiner. May 23, 2020:

Greenburgh veterans, most from World War II and the Korean conflict, have been interviewed for a town history project  that started about a decade ago and each of their half hour interviews can be seen non stop on Greenburgh cable TV local access TV stations this weekend.

About 150 veterans have been interviewed for this program.  Because each interview is about a half hour long and because there are more than 150 interviews the interviews will be broadcast non stop from this entire weekend till Tuesday morning.

The interviews will air on channels 75 and 76 on Optimum  and on channels 34 and 35 on Verizon FIOS. Copies of the interviews are also available for viewing at the Greenburgh Library. You can view individual interviews at

http://greenburghpublicaccess.com/veterans-living-history

 Some of the veterans who were interviewed for this living history initiative are no longer alive but their stories and bravery will be remembered for generations to come. We’ve been airing our living history interviews for about a decade and continue to interview more veterans every year.  It’s important for residents to recognize the contribution of local heroes and to recognize that our neighbors fought hard to keep us free. 

Residents who don’t want to stay up the entire Memorial Day weekend can watch individual tapes on the Greenburgh public access TV website

http://greenburghpublicaccess.com/veterans-living-history

Paul Feiner

Greenburgh Town Supervisor

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WPCNR THE LETTER TICKER. May 23, 2020:

Musings from JBFC Programming Director Brian Ackerman

Well, I’ve sat down to write something many times over the last two epic months. Something about film, about life, about the Burns. Something to the extended family of JBFC members that have made this 19-year cinematic journey so gratifying—certainly to me, and I know for many others, too. But as soon as I’d write something, three days later it would be irrelevant, obsolete, like the world on its axis had shifted yet again, and erased everything of meaning. We’re all still bobbing at sea, hoping it’s not too deep. And the only thing I realize I can say with enduring clarity is this: I miss everybody.

We have zoom meetings at the “office.” We’re trying to figure out, of course, how we will open, when, and who will show up when we do. Obviously we will let you know FIRST once we have any certainty, but at the moment it’s a bit of an equation with twenty variables where only one is known: we will, indeed, re-open!

Beyond that, as a programmer I have more time, but productivity is in short supply, like flour. Time stretches out. Weekdays blend into weekends. Someone I know has a Covid problem, or thinks they do—time is spent wrangling ever-elusive solutions. I sleep badly. I wake up too early. I read the news, and then try to expunge it by reading more—a very bad stratagem. I wonder what we’re running out of, that will require a high-wire dash through the supermarket, where everything of course has been brought to us by people who are working every day, hour after hour, in perilous conditions that I don’t share. In other words: I’m pretty much like a lot of people—privileged and, so far, pretty lucky. I constantly remind myself of that. So many others are less fortunate.

In that way I am ridiculously lucky to watch movies, too —some for the Burns, some just for pleasure. I will say sheepishly that one of the best things I’ve seen in a long time is not something that would have shown up on any big screen, but rather the HBO adaptation of Elena Ferrente’s My Brilliant Friend. If you haven’t seen it, it’s simply epic. Epic in its sweep of personal histories intersecting; epic in its illustration of why, as a species, we just can’t get it together. It so beautifully expresses how we’re all operating from such deep wounds, such ancient traumas, that everything we do in the present is a fractured reflection of our past, as we cast about blindly to repair or avert some inaccessible, oblique pain that nonetheless drives everything we do. And yet all that brokenness is what makes the story—and all of us—so beautiful. It’s essential watching.

We’re also showing two documentaries this week on our virtual screens that are really terrific: The Painter And The Thief, and Capital in the Twenty-First Century. The first is about an artist in Norway and the man who steals her painting. That happens in the first few minutes, so I’m not revealing much, and I won’t say more because the film benefits—like almost all movies—from a blank canvas of expectancy. But I was talking to JBFC Senior Programmer Andrew Jupin, and we both agreed that for Americans in this particular moment, it’s a bit like watching two movies. One is the film that the filmmaker made for us—the mysterious tale that unfolds from this theft—and the other is the one where you can’t help but notice the casual array of incredible social services that Norwegians simply regard as part of the air they breathe. From where we stand, in the world’s richest country, you can only crush your face against the store-front window longingly. It seems impossible that things actually work elsewhere.

Which brings me, naturally, to the second film we’re showing—Capital in the Twenty-First Century—based on economist Thomas Piketty’s bestselling book, which asks: how did we get here? And really more importantly: where can we go from here? Those are obviously big questions, and the film is a smart tour through the last four hundred years of economic history, occasionally driving down some illuminating side roads that are less familiar. I’ve invited filmmaker Astra Taylor—who did not make this film—to join us for a conversation on Thursday, May 28 at 7:30. I find her thrillingly brilliant and unconventional—a writer, an activist, a musician, and a documentary filmmaker. She makes documentaries about philosophers for chrissakes—nobody does that. You can increasingly find her provocative writings across the journalistic spectrum. She’s also thought really deeply about issues of economics and politics, and co-founded something called The Debt Collective around the immensely unspoken issue of debt, which, as millions fall suddenly into penury, may rise to meet its moment. The biblical scale of the floodwaters we’re experiencing seems like an awfully good time to open that discussion and see if we can go to some places that are perhaps less traveled. She was here last year and is just a fabulous speaker and presence, and I hope you will join us.

I’ll end on a last appeal for a film that Andrew put into rotation on our virtual screens last week: the hugely entertaining Rififi, that dazzling 1955 French thriller that is the father of all modern heist films. I was lucky enough to see it for the first time on the big screen here at the Burns 15 years ago, and have watched it twice since; its artfully staged burglary scene and wild, rhapsodic finish still thrill the heart. 

That’s it for the moment. I hope you’re all enjoying nature in this gloriously beautiful time of year, and remaining safe. There is, even through all of this, much to be thankful for. And someday, we’ll meet again at the movies.

Best,

Brian Ackerman

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WPCNR SCHOOL DAYS. From White Plains City School District. May 23, 2020:

The White Plains Board of Education will conduct a public hearing on the 2020-2021 School District Budget at a Special Meeting on Wednesday, May 27, 2020, at 7 P.M   The meeting will be videoconferenced as per the Governor’s Executive Order 202.4, COVID-19.  Zoom Link:

https://zoom.us/j/95032893523?pwd=VEpBbThRWTBCRnJEZEJkK0Z1TjFIdz09

Teacher appointments to tenure will also be on the agenda that evening.

The public vote on the budget and the election of Board Members will take place on Tuesday, June 9, 2020, by absentee ballot only.  Ballots will be sent to all qualified voters who are registered to vote.  Ballots must be returned to the District Clerk by 5 P.M. on June 9^th.

            Two Board seats will be up for election, each for a three-year term of office, beginning July 1,

2020.  Incumbents Rosemarie Eller and Randy Stein are running unopposed.   In addition to the budget, the ballot includes a proposition on the use of funds from the Capital Reserves.

Information on the election and budget is available on the district’s website:

www.whiteplainspublicschools.org  or call 422-2000.

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