THE WORLD READS WHITE PLAINS CITIZENETREPORTER — 8,324,077 VISITS IN ONE YEAR

WPCNR CORONAVIRUS ON THE GROUND; . From Paul Feiner, Greenburgh Town Supervisor. February 13, 2021:

HELP WANTED- SO WE CAN HELP SENIORS GET VACCINATION

APPOINTMENTS

Our Greenburgh Covid Angels was featured on Les Holt’s  National Nightly News broadcast on NBC on Wed night. We’re so appreciative of our 180+ hard working volunteers who care about their neighbors and are helping Greenburgh seniors obtain  hard to find vaccination appointments.

If you know anyone in Greenburgh who is a senior who needs our help please e mail me their names and phone numbers so we can assign a volunteer to help them. The volunteers are working extremely hard, have made hundreds of calls and  are checking up on 3,000 Greenburgh seniors.

 We are also receiving e mails and calls from residents who live in every section of the country asking how they can start a similar program in their communities and state.  Please continue to e mail me at [email protected] if you need our help!https://www.nbc.com/nightly-news/video/volunteers-help-americans-in-need-make-covid-vaccine-appointments/4310500

PAUL FEINER

Our Covid Angels are doing amazing work. It’s so nice to live in a community that cares. Join our team of volunteers helping your neighbors get the vaccine. And – read some of the beautiful testimonials from grateful residents who now have the vaccine.

WANT TO BE A COVID ANGEL AND HELP YOUR NEIGHBORS GET A VACCINE?  

Volunteer form below    Would you like to become a Covid Angel and help seniors who are not computer saavy get their vaccine? Please complete the following form and provide our committee with your information. We’ll be in touch with team assignments and training!  We can definitely use your help!!  And we’re looking for people to help manage the data and work on the back end, if you know anyone who may not want to make calls but might have other skills to lend to the effort.

https://forms.gle/V9ELhPEkair7bGPU9

Our Covid angels have been making hundreds of calls and have had some successes helping some of your neighbors get the vaccines.  Please be mindful that there is still more demand for the vaccine than supplies.

But, we promise to help everyone until you get your vaccine. So – don’t worry! We won’t forget you.  

From the time a senior contacts us asking for help it could take our volunteers 2-3 days to process the request and then another 2-3 days before the volunteer team leaders assign the senior to one of the volunteers.

If the volunteer is working on other cases – trying to help a senior, he/she may not immediately get to you because they are still working on getting the vaccine for the seniors they previously were assigned to help. 
We can’t promise immediate appointments since we are competing with everyone else in NYS. However – the committee has been successful in helping some seniors.

THOSE WHO HAVE COMORBIDITES AND UNDERLYING CONDITIONS CAN BEGIN TO SCHEDULE APPOINTMENTS SUNDAY MORNING

  Based on the e mails I have received from residents – I know that more people are getting the vaccine. The supply is going up. I think that every week it will get easier so don’t get discouraged.

SOME COMMENTS FROM RESIDENTS ABOUT VOLUNTEERS WHO HELPED THEM GET THE VACCINE 

“I don’t know how to thank you for getting me the vaccine appointment. You worked so hard and you don’t even know me! Now I can sleep without anxiety for the first time in months all thanks to you. You are a miracle worker. Perhaps you have even saved some lives. How many of us can say that? I hope to meet you when this is all over. With great appreciation.”

“Thanks for organizing your COVID Angel team. I did receive a phone call and I had my first shot.” 

“My mother in law is scheduled for a vaccination this afternoon! Really great and very much appreciated.” 

“I just wanted to update you, my mother and I were able to get our covid vaccine yesterday at Rite Aid. I would like to thank you for all your assistance.” 

” Thank you for arranging for the COVID Angels”…we received two calls and the ladies could not have been more pleasant and helpful (guess we’re all in this together)!!!

“She was very nice, real thorough. Good job to all of you! Great program to help those with no way to navigate the systems to get appointments.”

“Thank you so much. I have an appointment for 2/11. Amy was amazing.”

“I can’t thank you enough for referring me to one of your volunteers. Helen reached out to me just two days ago and last night, she found a spot for me at a private pharmacy in Elmsford for 2/16.

I am overjoyed. As I am a widower I texted Helen this morning and told her that she was officially my valentine.”

 ” I was skeptical about the possibility of receiving one so soon…We were unsuccessful for weeks…then the call came and it did seem like an “Angel just came from nowhere…I received my 1st dose on 2-9 and I am truly grateful for your program

“Vaccine Angels….I hope that other Greenburgh seniors can be as lucky as I am. Thank you and God Bless.”

” Yesterday morning we did get Moderna Vaccine shots at a building near the Sprain Pharmacy on Tuckahoe Road. Can’t thank you and the volunteers who helped us, enough. We came to a very special country with very special citizens indeed.”

PAUL FEINER Greenburgh Town Supervisor

https://youtu.be/B9tV5tpb6_o

Editor’s Note: Stephen R. Rolandi, a frequent contributor to WPCNR.com and White Plains Week published this article in a recent issue of American Society for Public Administration. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ASPA as an organization. Republished here with permission of the author. (c) 2021, Stephen R. Rolandi

By Stephen R. Rolandi
February 8, 2021

This being the month of February, many of us celebrate Ground Hog Day (February 2^nd), hoping that spring will soon arrive, as well as Chinese (Lunar) New Year, the Year of the Ox, on February 12^th; and of course, Valentine’s Day on February 14^th.  

If you are like me and historically inclined, you might also mark February 12^th as the birthday of our 16^th American President, Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865). I have had a long and continuous admiration for our 16^th President. I have travelled to Springfield, Illinois to see Lincoln’s law office and home. Many years ago, my late parents gave me a half dollar coin issued by the United States Mint in 1918 to commemorate the 100^th anniversary of Illinois’ admission to the Union.

This year marks the 212^th anniversary of Lincoln’s birth, and I believe it is a fitting time not only to examine his career as the nation’s Chief Executive during the bloodiest war in American history, but also his contributions to public service and impact on American public administration.

Lincoln was not popular in his time; indeed, he was elected in 1860 in a four way race with only 39% of the popular vote. He won re-election in 1864 with the Confederate states that had left the Union in 1861 not participating in that election; and with the support of Union soldiers who voted in overwhelming numbers for him.

In addition to preserving the Federal Union during the Civil War, as well as his issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln had many accomplishments:

• During his administration, the Federal departments of Agriculture and Veterans Affairs were begun, in an effort to assist farmers (the United States in the mid-19^th century was to a large extent, an agricultural nation), as well as the nation’s veterans starting to return from the Civil War;
• Recognizing the importance of education (Lincoln, you recall, had only about one year of formal education, and was largely self-taught and worked as an apprentice before becoming an attorney), the Morrill-Land Grant Act was signed into law to permit the establishment of land grant colleges to teach engineering, military tactics, science and other subjects;
• Lincoln recognized that the increasing level of government services would require different funding streams, and during his administration, the Revenue Act of 1862 became law which also established the Office of the Commission of Internal Revenue within the Treasury Department—in time this would lead to the establishment of the progressive income tax system in the United States;
• The first steps towards a national banking system and currency in the United States saw fruition with the passage of the National Banking Act of 1863;
• He recognized the need to reform the Federal government civil service, and took the first steps in that direction with the 1863 evaluation of the French customs service which recommended competitive examinations. This led ultimately in 1883 with the passage of the Pendleton Act and establishment of the U.S. Civil Service Commission—today known as the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).

Taken together, along with other policy initiatives, many historians consider Lincoln’s Presidency to be the foundation of the modern administrative state.

Indeed, it was Leonard D. White who said that, “Administrative history was primarily the record of war and military government.” We can also see that many domestic and economic sector accomplishments occurred as an outgrowth of the war effort. Lincoln became a paradigm for future chief executives.

Perhaps for me his most important contribution was preserving the principles of constitutional government during a period of one of the gravest crises in American history. Lincoln was cognizant of relating his actions to the spirit and meaning of the Constitution.

There are many, many works about Abraham Lincoln’s life, career and Presidency. More books about some aspect of him continue to be published. Some of my favorite books about the career and Presidency of Abraham Lincoln that I would recommend are the following:

• Lewis E. Lehrman, “Lincoln at Peoria: The Turning Point” (2008)
• Daniel Farber, “Lincoln’s Constitution” (2003)
• Harold Holzer, “Lincoln As I Knew Him” (1999)
• Ted Widmer, “Lincoln On the Verge: Thirteen Days to Washington” (2020)
• Doris Kearns Goodwin, “Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln” (2005)

If I had to recommend a single book on Lincoln, it would probably be Doris Kearn’s work on Lincoln, how he won the Republican party Presidential nomination against more prominent contenders, and how he led his cabinet—consisting nearly of all the Presidential contenders he faced in 1860—during the Civil War. I should mention that Kearn’s work reportedly influenced Barack Obama when he assumed the Presidency in 2009.

Lincoln’s experience as a war time chief executive gives us many perspectives, not only on the role of the executive in decisionmaking as well as leadership, but also for his lasting contributions towards the institution of the American Presidency and constitutional government. He is, in my opinion, more relevant than ever today as we as a nation face the perfect storm of crises—the Covid-19 pandemic, a weakened national economy and a distinct threat to our democratic institutions and the rule of law.

 Happy Birthday, Mr. President!

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Author: Stephen R. Rolandi “retired” in 2015 after serving with the State and City of New York. He holds BA and MPA degrees from New York University, and studied law at Brooklyn Law School. He teaches public finance and management as an Adjunct Professor of Public Administration at John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY) and Pace University. Professor Rolandi is a Trustee of NECoPA; President-emeritus of ASPA’s New York Metropolitan Chapter and was Senior National Council Representative. He has also served on many other association boards in New York City, Westchester County (New York State) and Washington, DC. You can reach him at: [email protected] or [email protected] or at 914.536.5942.