WHITE PLAINS CITIZENETREPORTER SETS RECORD VISITS FOR YEAR 7,017,658 VISITS! 2,098,003 VISITORS MADE 6 VISITS A DAY EVERY DAY. 63,330 UNIQUE VISITORS MADE 133,730 VISITS IN DECEMBER. WPCNR AVERAGED 17,284 VISITORS A WEEK, VISITING 31,270 TIMES.

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WPCNR THE POWER NEWS. March 19,2010: As of 9:30 Friday evening Con Edison and “friends,” the crews from around the country from Michigan, New Hampshire, Virginia, Georgia and other states that WPCNR has identified, (Con Edison has not furnished WPCNR with a complete list of the companies coming to Con Edison aid, though requested by WPCNR), had succeeded in restoring electricity to all but 69 customers in Westchester from a high of 79,000 last Sunday night.

At this hour, 18 customers in White Plains are without power, 14 in Yonkers, 33 in North Pelham and 19 in Scarsdale.

Today the Scarsdale Village Manager Al Gatta was quoted in The Journal News, as saying, “It took them (Con Edison) an awful long time (to get to Scarsdale).” Rebecca Baker’s article in the Gannett satellite paper noted that Gatta reported that for the first three days of the storm clean-up, Sunday, Monday and most of Tuesday, Con Ed presence was not felt in Scarsdale which according to Con Edison statistics on its own website had 100% of Scardales customers without electricity. Gatta said “They came together Tuesday evening and since then they’ve been all over this place, but it’s a little late.”

Gatta is only the third public official to criticise sharply Con Edison’s reaction and ability to spring into coordinated action on the storm damage. Paul Feiner, Supervisor of the Town of Greenburgh was the other, calling for the Public Service Commission to examine Con Edison repair strategies and deployment.

Adam Bradley, White Plains Mayor was the first to complain bitterly Sunday afternoon that only one Con Edison “De-energizing Crew” was assigned White Plains when the county seat city had over 7,000 customers without power. WPCNR estimates this represented a minimum of  28,000 persons in White Plains without power, which would be about half the city.

No other County, state or federal elected official has uttered a peep of criticism of how Con Edison handled the repair. The Westchester County official position according to the Department of Communications Thursday was that the county was “satisfied” with Con Ed’s response and performance.

Con Edison issued a news release Friday touting the extent of repairs the company has made:

“Over 700 company crews, including utility power crews from Michigan, Ohio, Georgia, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Kentucky, and Massachusetts, labored day and night this week rebuilding the electrical infrastructure destroyed or damaged by fallen trees and 70-mph winds.

“March Madness started a few days early for us, but it wasn’t the kind college hoop lovers began enjoying yesterday,” said Craig S. Ivey, president of Con Edison. “I want to express our deepest appreciation to our customers for their patience and perseverance this week.  I also want to thank our crews and employees for being so dedicated, and send a special thanks to the hundreds of utility workers who left their homes and families from as far away as Michigan and Georgia to help us.”

This week, crews replaced or repaired more than:

• 225 utility poles;
  
• 735 crossarms (horizontal bar on top of the pole that holds the top-most section of cables);
  
• 162,000 feet of cable; and
  
• 175 transformers

The company also had to cut up, take down, or remove nearly 2,000 trees,

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WPCNR ALBANY ROUNDS. By John F. Bailey. March 19, 2010. UPDATED 9:55 A.M. E.D.T.  UPDATED 11:08 A.M. E.D.T.:  The New York State Senate has quietly passed a bill that if passed by the Assembly and signed by the Governor would allow school districts to raise property taxes approximately 3% above the 0% currently required by contingency budget legislation now in effect. It replaces the contigency budget formula followed for years, for one year.

The bill if it becomes law effectively would keep in effect any school budget of approximately 3% more than last year presented to voters even if the voters would turn that budget down at the polls. The legislation allows school districts across the state to raise budgets about 3% prior to the school budget vote in May without fear of a voter rejection reducing them to a contingency budget.

In White Plains, Assistant Superintendent for Business, Fred Seiler told WPCNR the average of the last 5 years of inflation was about 3%. He said, when asked if the school district was aware of this legislation, acknowledge, “I’ve heard bits and pieces of it.”

He explained the legislation section 7 of Assembly Bill A10130, noting that the complex formula of 120% of the previous 5 years inflation rate, or 4%  would be the normal raise permitted under the new Senate-created bill.

Asked the effect of an “allowed” 3% increase in the White Plains Budget, Seiler said this would mean an 8% property tax hike, instead of the 4.72% property tax hike in the current budget which will be presented Monday evening.

This works out to a $556.36/$1,000 of assessed valuation for White Plains tax payers if the School Board went along with what Albany is allowing them to do.

Seiler said he had presented the option to the School Board Finance Committee this past Tuesday evening. Seiler told WPCNR the 3% Contingency budget would allow about an $6 Million increase up to $193 Million and allow the school district to avert the 83 job eliminations, including 41 teachers, 38 support staff and 4 administrators currently considered in the current budget of $185.5 Million, that is down 3/4 of a percent — the first budget decline in school district history.

Seiler said the Board had to decide if it wants to raise the school budget (anticipating the Albany legislation) before sending the current budget out to voters, because once a vote passes a school budget, it cannot be raised retroactively.

The New York State Senate passed 56-2 this built-in property tax increase as part of a bill called the Educational Mandate Relief Act, sponsored by White Plains State Senator Suzi Oppenheimer and Nassau County Senator Craig Johnson. The bill now goes to the Assembly, where it will be sponsored by Assembly District 88 Assemblywoman Amy Paulin.

Details are very sketchy on the legislation, but the essence of the bill explained in “The Purpose” section is that it would enable school districts to pool services for such purposes as school busing and purchasing supplies.

However in Section 7 of the bill it allows Districts to increase property taxes 4% over and above contingency budgets if a school budget is defeated by voters. Currently, the contingency budget allowance for districts across the state is a 0% increase.

The background on this little-known, and heretofore untouted bill was reported first by the New York Post at http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorials/tax_hike_back_stab_77q0UCmV7IOeKudeFRwdNP#ixzz0icHvoNJ4

The bill now passed by the New York State Senate goes to the Assembly under the Legislation Number A10130. The key section reads:

S 7. Paragraph a of subdivision 4 of section  2023  of  the  education
   38  law,  as  added  by  section  24 of part A of chapter 436 of the laws of
   39  1997, is amended to read as follows:
   40    a. The contingency budget shall not result in a percentage increase in
   41  total spending over the  district’s  total  spending  under  the  school
   42  district  budget  for  the prior school year that exceeds the lesser of:
   43  (i) THE AVERAGE OF THE PREVIOUS FIVE YEARS OF the result  obtained  when
   44  one  hundred  twenty percent is multiplied by the percentage increase in
   45  the consumer price index, with the result rounded to two decimal places;
   46  or (ii) four percent.

Should this law be passed by the Assembly, it would enable the White Plains School District for example, to increase the school budget over and above the year-to-year decrease currently planned.

The bill should it be passed would expire in May 2011, indicating it is a one-year measure that circumvents the contingency budget legislation in effect for years.

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WPCNR THE POWER NEWS. By John F. Bailey. March 18,2010: Town of Greenburgh Supervisor Paul Feiner says he will be writing the New York State Public Service Comission and requesting a full investigation and evaluation of how Con Edison decides to commit Power De-Energizing crews and restoration crews across the metropolitan area during this week’s unprecendented defusing and restoration of Westchesterites’ electricity where 79,000 Con Edison customers were left without power by the tropical storm that lingered and lashed the county last Saturday

Feiner says he wants the PSC to invesitgate why Con Edison did not address the major outages in Westchester first, which were four times that of New York City, where the Con Edison effort apparently went first.  

Feiner said no other elected officials– even in his own town — are  joining him in this challenge to the PSC for an examination of how Con Edison sets priorities in which communities get handled first. “This is hurting people,” Feiner said. “I’m getting about a hundred calls a day this morning and I was getting thousands before Tuesday. The first two days Con Ed did nothing for Greenburgh, Yonkers, New Rochelle.

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WPCNR THE POWER NEWS. By John F. Bailey, Interview with Bob McGee, Con Edison Director of Media Relations. March 17, 2010:WPCNR asked some questions of Robert McGee, the Director of Media Relations of Consolidated Edison to clarify the issues Con Edison faced responding to the storm one lifelong White Plains resident described this way: ” I have lived in White Plains my entire live (70 years). This is without question the worst natural disaster to hit the city in my lifetime.”

Mr. McGee responded to WPCNR by e-mail today, with answers to WPCNR questions about the company’s response to the “Storm with No Name” that devastated New Jersey, New York, Long Island and  Connecticut this weekend, and maintains steadfastly the company did not lag in its response:

Here is the transcript of that e-mail interview.

WPCNR: I’d like to know, in the presenty situation, how does Con Ed handle downed wires with the local DPW departments?  Does Con Ed have to dispatch a crew to turn off the live wires, then the City DPW clears the trees on the wires…then does Con ED that turn off the live wires and leave….or do they move on to turn off the next set of live wires…and the downed wires await a 2nd Repair crew to actually repair the wires?

Bob McGee, Con Edison:  Many of the calls we are receiving involve tree and branch removal in Westchester. If there is no effect on our equipment or service, it is up to the customer or municipality (depending on whose property the tree is on) to arrange removal of the item(s).

If it does impact our service, we will remove only what is necessary to allow service to be restored.

Normally, when our service is impacted, we initially provide site safety (someone to ensure the public stays away from a live line or, when verified not to be energized, to simply block the area off), followed by a damage assessor, who evaluates the problem and the resources likely to be required, followed by a tree trimmer, and then the crew to make actual repairs to the service.

Keep in mind that more than one crew may be required to restore the service. Some run the cable, others may install the poles, etc. Additional work farther away may be required for the larger area to be fully restored. In order to expedite restoration, we work closely with municipalities to coordinate our efforts with theirs.

In some cases, our repair crews go out at the same time as the (Con Ed) tree trimmers. The trimmers do what is necessary to provide access and allow repair. Debris is being piled up and addressed at a future date after all customers are restored.

.

WPCNR: Is it correct to say that Con Ed had 211 crews of its own working in the first two days of the storm with HALF on for 12 HOURS and the OTHER half on for the other 12? and that you expect some 480 more by Wednesday…strictly for the Westchester area?

Does this mean that Con Edison has only 1/3 the ready access repair crews actually in its employ or contracted for at any given time to handle damage caused by just a tropical storm such as we experienced this weekend?

Bob McGee, Con Edison: Safety followed by restoration are our top priorities during the emergency.

Right now (Wednesday at Noon), we have 550 two-to-six person crews working in Westchester. Additionally, we have 591 individual site safety inspectors and damage assessors working. 

Although crews are assigned to work at shifts beginning at 7 am and 7 pm, they usually work 15-16 hours in these kinds of circumstances, as opposed to 12.

Utilities, as you know, provide regional mutual assistance crews. (We sent crews to Atlantic City recently, and of course, after Katrina, we sent crews to New Orleans.) It is cost prohibitive to have utility workers on staff to meet the needs required for tropical storms or hurricanes.

We do storm drills regionally with other utilities on a regular basis, and our professionals work well in conjunction with other utility professionals in this regard, with relationships and practices that are long established and frequently revisited.

The practice with regional mutual assistance is for utilities to prepare ahead of time but to hold deployment until the weather passes, so accurate assessments can be made as to the impact on the system.

If, as with the snowstorm a couple of weeks ago, when utilities close to us also had significant needs of their own, we reach further afield for assistance.  

WPCNR: . But, here is the question, how many out-of-state, out-of-your-area are utility companies servicing communities, and how many are private electrical contractors for hire (independent businesses) — a breakdown of your numbers would be good so we can see what the spread is. .Hypothetical question if I may…. If the majority more than half are private contractors,why couldn’t you have called them in enroute  48 hours in advance and if the storm was not as serious as your weather forecasters indicated to you — you could say Saturday night…we don’t need you and they just turn around and go back — since they are private contractors.  Is this a matter of Con Ed trying to save big money on paying them “in anticipation?” How do these contracts work with your private contractors and the utilities you say come on in and help in these dire circumstances…do they have the right to decline? What are the general terms?

BOB MCGEE, Con Edison: John, the short answer is this is an all-hands on deck response. We don’t wait to save a buck; reputation management is far too important by comparison. We strive to work as safely as possible, as quickly as possible. We have working relationships with our contractors, and they respond. There is no lag time in our response.

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WPCNR THE POWER NEWS. March 17, 2010: As of 10:15 A.M. E.D.T., Con Edison’s Storm Center reports 24,299 Westchester customers are still without power as the electric powerup continues into Day 4 with hundreds of out-of-state power crews coming to the County’s rescue. Most of the out-of-state help arrived yesterday morning and more are expected today swelling the “connection force” to 675 crews.

The hardest hit communities continue to suffer, though outages have been reduced approximately 40% to 50%  in Yonkers, Greenburgh, Mount Vernon, New Rochelle, Scarsdale and White Plains. Yonkers currently has 7,147 customers disconnected; Mount Vernon,6,604; Greenburgh, 6,386; Scarsdale, 3,355; and White Plains, 1,626.

Running down the Con Edison list, many of the rural villages in northern Westchester are in the single digits, with the more populous areas from the center of the county to the Bronx still suffer outages in the hundreds, though down significantly from earlier in the week numbers.

Ardsley reports 60 out; Bedford, 22; Briarcliff/Ossining, 544; Bronxville,353; Dobbs Ferry,549; Eastchester 2,034;Elmsford,464; Harrison,1,535; Hastings,469; Irvington, 2,040; Larchmont/Mamaroneck, 526; Mount Pleasant,872; New Castle,73; North Castle, 536; The Tarrytowns, 1,176;The Pelhams, 93; Pleasantville,76; Port Chester, 409; Rye City, 1,874.

Rob Astorino, the Westchester County Executive, who lives in Mount Pleasant had his power restored within eight hours by Sunday evening,  according to The Journal News, although Mount Pleasant as of Monday morning had 649 customers still out, one of the lower totals compared to the major cities and of course, Scarsdale.  Mr.Astorino was quoted in the Journal News today as saying, “I do think at this point Con Ed has been responding pretty well.” It was Astorino’s first comment on Con Edison’s emergency performance, other than saying Westchester would be applying for disaster aid.

Today, Con Edison made this statement to the media:

Con Edison, with an assist from out-of-state utility crews and contractors, has placed nearly 147,000 electrical customers back in service since last weekend’s devastating wind and rainstorm.

“We’ve made significant progress, but we won’t be satisfied until every one of our customers is back in service,” said John Miksad, senior vice president of Electric Operations.  “We will have even more out-of-state utility crews on the streets today and expect to see the number of outages drop significantly again by this evening.”

As of 6 a.m. today, approximately 26,000 customers remained without power.  The areas most affected were Westchester, where approximately 24,000 customers were out, and Staten Island, where fewer than 1,200 remained without service. The Bronx has about 700 customers out of service.

Thousands of company support personnel are continuing to work around the clock to help the crews that are addressing the most destructive rain and windstorm to hit New York City and Westchester in decades.

Restoration crews are expected to swell to 675 today as the additional out-of-state utility crews arrive.  Utilities from Michigan, Ohio, Georgia, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Kentucky and Massachusetts are assisting Con Edison’s crews. 

The company expects to have all storm-related outages in the Bronx restored by this afternoon, followed by Staten Island on Thursday evening, and Westchester on Friday.  All Brooklyn and Queens customers affected by the storm have been restored.