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 Quill & Eyeshade. News & Comment By John F. Bailey. May 1, 2008: The failure of the Common Council to get the ¼ %  sales tax increase implemented sooner this year, possibly caused by a deliberate delay  by not getting the measure to the legislature until January, cost the city about $2 to 2.5 Million in revenue this year – dooming the White Plains taxpayers to paying an additional $2.1 Million in property taxes in 2008-2009.

The Common Council did not grasp that delay of sending the home rule request to Albany in January – and not giving the legislature a chance to pass the ¼% increase by December 1— when they could have legally done, could cost the city five months of collecting sales taxes at the increased rate quarter percent.

The projected revenue the ¼% might have generated for those five months, January, February, March, April and May, 2008 is directly equal to the tax increase in the city budget – $2.1 Million payable by White Plains taxpayers.

When Mayor Joseph Delfino Tuesday evening reported that the bill enacting a ¼% sales tax raising the White Plains sales tax to 8-1/8 %  was signed at noon in Albany Tuesday by Governor David Patterson, City Hall was jubilant, expecting the sales tax hike to click in today. 

According to Executive Officer Paul Wood Tuesday night, the tax was to begin to be charged beginning at midnight this morning.

However, the City’s Chief Financial Officer, Gina Harwood told WPCNR the sales tax increase was always planned to go into effect June 1 because the city merchants need 30 days to adjust their cash registers.

Ms. Harwood explained that the city sales tax may only raised by law four dates a year: June 1, September 1, December 1 and March 1. She said the sales tax had been acted upon “very expeditiously” by the legislature after the home rule was introduced in January.

Virtually No Impact this year.

Harwood also said that the June 1 increase would mean only “trickles” in increase in the sales tax for this year in how it effects the 2008-09 budget. The real impact of the ¼% windfall increase will contribute to the 2009-10 budget.

She said the city sales tax figures are computed on an accrual basis, explaining sales taxes charged in June would not be included as revenue in sales tax collections until July when the merchants file their sales tax returns with the state. Harwood noted that the revenues from a month’s sales are always realized in the next month, expecting little impact in raising the 2007-2008 final sales tax figures.

Legislature did Their Job for White Plains

Asked if the state legislature could not have acted faster, implementing the sales tax by March 1, Harwood said that was not the way the legislature worked.  Harwood said the city had always planned to have the sales tax in place by June 1 so the additional sales tax revenue would impact the 2009-10 budget. She said the legislature was not in session in late fall, except for special sessions when they were dealing with “other things,” and that the legislature does not act on sales tax measures until after they pass the state budget.

She said she felt the legislature acted “very expeditiously,” saying the bill was introduced in January and was signed by Governor Patterson this week. She said the city is very grateful for the legislature fast action on the bill.

Council Tabling the Issue Before Election Cost possible $2.5 Million in Sales Tax

There was  the possibility of getting a sales tax increase implemented earlier if the Common Council had not delayed the home rule request over the amount of the tax increase prior to elections in November.

Mayor Joseph Delfino had brought up the ½% tax increase in the spring of 2007 and at no time did the Common Council object strenuously to that amount until fall elections approached. When they began to table the issue, starting in September,  the Mayor was mystified.

 The Common Council dragged its feet on the sales tax increase issue leading up to the fall election – tabling the issue three months in succession that called for a ½% increase, and demanded budget projections from the Mayor (which the state already had on file from its Aid to Independent Municipalities requests, apparently unbeknownst to the council and Assemblyman Adam Bradley who was requesting the projections that the state already had, though he may not have been aware of it at the time. Mayor Delfino refused to make projections at the time, blaming he would jeopardize labor negotiations. )  

After elections were safely over, the council agreed to a ¼% sales tax increase.

Legislature Timing Delayed by Council Politicking

 Conceivably the legislature could have acted sooner and the city would have had increased sales taxes being collected this year.  ( In fairness, it is also possible the former Governor at the time, Eliot Spitzer might not have signed it and the same January introduction would have transpired anyway.)

With the sales tax in effect December 1 or even March 1 – (though according to Harwood, implementation if passed just after the election would not have been possible the way the legislature takes up issues — being out of session after elections.  The increase would have to be passed in the September, October period when the legislature was in session.)

With the sales tax quarter per cent in effect December 1, (in time for the holiday shopping season), White Plains conceivably would have gained five months of accrued $2.5 Million in additional sales tax (in January, February, March, April and May) from the extra ¼% increase. (The additional ¼% is expected to generate $5.6 Million in additional sales tax, according to city projections, an average of  $500,000 a month. )

The deliberate council effort  to delay the home rule request going to Albany so the legislature could have had the opportunity to enact it earlier apparently has cost the city $2 Million to $2.5 Million in sales tax, which could be a costly loss, given the continued soft Westchester economy.

It certainly is to the White Plains taxpayers who are paying an additional $2.1 Million in property taxes in the 2008-2009 budget – exactly equivalent to the failure to get the sales tax increase in place earlier – due to deliberate delay by the Common Council.

The Sales Tax Situation

To date, through March 31, 2008,  the city has collected $33.9 Million in sales taxes for the first  current fiscal year, 2007-2008 through three quarters, according to Ms. Harwood is 0.4% behind the 2006-2007 pace — off 7.6 % from the third quarter last year. 

As of March 31 2007, 2007 the city had collected $34 Million. If the city keeps pace with last year’s sales tax collection rate, it will receive $10.7 Million in sales taxes the final quarter ending June 30, 2008,  easily meeting its budgeted target of $43 Million, generating at this point an estimated $45 Million in sales tax – the projected amount in the city’s proposed 2008-2009 budget

What Might Have Been

The additional $2.5 Million the Council  gave up any shot of getting by their intentional possibly politically motivated delay  under the guise of protecting the taxpayer threw away – virtually burned by their election delay, would have increased sales tax collection to the $48 Million level this year.

Had the legislature only acted sooner and been given the chance to do so by the Common Council would  have easily put White Plains at the $48 Million plus level in sales taxes, generating a  surplus of $2.5 Million over budget ($43 Million in sales tax), now the surplus will be eroded by the $450,000 amount.

The case can be made the failure to act earlier by the Council hurt White Plains taxpayers rather than helped them.

Mr. and Mrs. and Ms. White Plains will be paying a 2-1/4%. sales tax to the City of White Plains  and a 1-1/2% sales tax to Westchester County; a 0.375%  sales tax to the Metropolitan Commuter Transportation District, and a New York State Sales Tax  of 4% for a total sales tax of 8.125% (8 and 1/8 %).

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WPCNR Common Council Chronicle-Examiner. By John F. Bailey. April 30, 2008: The meeting was called at 3:50 PM Thursday afternoon for 9 P.M. The reason, Paul Anderson-Winchell, Executive Director of Grace Church Community Services, had notified Mayor Joseph Delfino that  still no arrangements had been worked out for servicing undomiciled persons left homeless when Westchester County closed the Court Street Shelter August 6 of last summer, and who, to date have refused overtures to join the County Department of Social Services care system.

Winchell asked the Mayor to acquire Common Council approval for continuing service 19 additional undomiciled persons at Open Arms (14 men) and Samaritan House (5 women) through May 31. The additional beds were to have expired tonight.

The council voted unanimously, according to Council President Rita Malmud to extend the temporary service for one more month. She indicated this would be the last such extension for a temporary solution, and said there would be a meeting in May to bring together statkeholders to hammer out a solution as to where to house the reluctant to register homeless permanently evenings.

Council on Final Day, Extends Temporary Beds for Homeless Refusing County Services Though May.

WPCNR Common Council Chronicle-Examiner. By John F. Bailey. April 30, 2008: The meeting was called at 3:50 PM Thursday afternoon for 9 P.M. The reason, Paul Anderson-Winchell, Executive Director of Grace Church Community Services, had notified Mayor Joseph Delfino that  still no arrangements had been worked out for servicing undomiciled persons left homeless when Westchester County closed the Court Street Shelter August 6 of last summer.

Winchell asked the Mayor to acquire Common Council approval for continuing service 19 additional undomiciled persons at Open Arms (14 men) and Samaritan House (5 women) through May 31. The additional beds were to have expired tonight.

The council voted unanimously, according to Council President Rita Malmud to extend the temporary service for one more month.

Ms. Malmud said the council all agreed to extend the temporary beds, because “There was not a plan put into place to handle these homeless permanently.” Malmud reports to WPCNR the council hopes to have a meeting in May to resolve the issue of where the homeless who choose not to cooperate and participate with the Westchester County Department of Social Services will be able to stay overnight and where. She did not indicate whether Westchester County would participate.

Malmud said the council had been “compassionate” for some time but it was time for the county and the city(ies) to resolve the issue of what to do with the homeless who will not join the DSS system.

After the Court Street shelter closed in White Plains August 6, homeless persons not opting to cooperate with the Department of Social Services were on their own, mostly sleeping in woods surrounding the city. After local clergy balked at running county warming shelters,  making such homeless persons sleep in chairs at temporary church-run shelters, Grace Church stepped up to expand their shelter, getting paid $600 per person for housing some 19 or more homeless persons beginning in December. The 19-plus, said by officials to approach 25, have stayed at Samaritan House and Open Arms Shelter for five months.

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WPCNR POLICE GAZETTE. From the New York Civil Liberties Union. (Edited) April 29, 2008: In a news conference Tuesday, the New York Civil Liberties Union released a report, The Marijuana Arrest Crusade in New York City: Racial Bias in Police Policy 1997-2007, the first “in-depth” study of misdemeanor marijuana arrests in the city during the Giuliani and Bloomberg administrations.

The report notes the NYPD arrested and jailed nearly 400,000 people for possessing small amounts of marijuana between 1997 and 2007, a tenfold increase in marijuana arrests over the previous decade and a figure demonstrating racial and gender disparities. The records of those persons stopped, frisked and found not to be in possession also show the persons stopped at random are overwhelmingly non-white.

The report, The Marijuana Arrest Crusade in New York City: Racial Bias in Police Policy 1997-2007, is the first ever in-depth study of misdemeanor marijuana arrests in New York City during the Giuliani and Bloomberg administrations.

“The massive, organized and relentless pursuit of these arrests under two mayors and three police commissioners represents a crusade by law enforcement,” Levine said. “But that term does not capture other important characteristics of these arrests – including the harm they inflict on black and Latino young people and their families.”

Small Amounts Arrests

Between 1997 and 2007, police arrested and jailed about 205,000 blacks, 122,000 Latinos and 59,000 whites for possessing small amounts of marijuana. Blacks accounted for about 52 percent of the arrests, though they represented only 26 percent of the city’s population over that time span. Latinos accounted for 31 percent of the arrests but 27 percent of the population. Whites represented only 15 percent of those arrested, despite comprising 35 percent of the population.  

Government surveys of high school seniors and young adults 18 to 25 consistently show that young whites use marijuana more often than young blacks and Latinos. The arrests also are heavily skewed by gender. About 91 percent of people arrested were male.

“The numbers speak for themselves,” said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the NYCLU. “The NYPD routinely targets young men based on their skin color and where they live. Arresting and jailing thousands for marijuana possession does not create safer streets. It only fosters distrust between the police and community and strips hundreds of thousands of young New Yorkers of their dignity.”   

Stop-and-Frisks Up —

All Stop-and-Friskees were half Black.

The arrests, which cost taxpayers up to $90 million a year, are indicative of the NYPD’s broken windows approach to law enforcement, in which police focus on minor offenses as a method of reducing crime. This approach, also called quality of life policing, has caused a dramatic spike in stop-and-frisk encounters between police and city residents.

In 2007, the NYPD stopped nearly 469,000 New Yorkers. Eighty-eight percent were found completely innocent of any wrongdoing. The racial disparity in the stop-and-frisk encounters is almost identical to the disparity in marijuana arrests: though they make up only a quarter of the city’s population, more than half of those stopped were black.  

Robin Steinberg, executive director of the Bronx Defenders, said the increase in marijuana arrests is linked to the quality of life initiative and the increase in NYPD stop-and-frisk street interrogations.

“If you work in this community for any length of time, you see it first hand – police randomly stopping and searching kids on the streets,” she said. “It’s no surprise that so many residents feel like they are living in a police state. The people in these neighborhoods are subject to a level of intense policing not found in affluent communities.”       

Labels Youngsters Early

Marijuana arrests do not reduce serious or violent crime. According to a study by two University of Chicago professors, these arrests only take police off the streets and divert them into nonessential police work. What they do succeed in is driving thousands of young men of color into the criminal justice system.

“By targeting black and Latino youth for misdemeanor marijuana arrests, the NYPD is labeling children with criminal records for offenses the law deems a violation, not a crime,” said Small, executive director of Break the Chains, a non-profit organization that advocates for reforms of punitive drug laws. “The consequences of the arrests follow these children for the rest of their lives. It was to avoid these consequences that marijuana possession was decriminalized in the  first place. It is particularly perverse that black and Latino youth are being targeted for violating a law that was passed to reduce the likelihood that young people would acquire criminal records for possessing small amounts of marijuana.” 

The majority of the nearly 400,000 people arrested for possessing marijuana were not carrying or smoking the drug in public. Most people simply had a small amount of marijuana in their possession, usually concealed in a pocket or backpack. New York State decriminalized marijuana possession in 1977, making it a violation like speeding or driving through a stop light. When police officers coerce or intimidate people into showing marijuana in the open, though, they are able to classify it as a misdemeanor and arrest for it.

 “The criminal complaint always charges that they had it in open view,” Steinberg said of her clients in the Bronx. “That is preposterous. It’s obvious that everyone isn’t walking around carrying pot in open view.”

 Police did not focus on marijuana arrests from 1977 through 1996, arresting around 30,000 people total in both decades for possessing less than an ounce of marijuana. But police equaled or topped that 10-year arrest total in nine of the next 11 years. In 2007 alone, police made 39,700 arrests for marijuana possession.

The NYPD, rarely shy about touting success, does not promote its record-breaking crackdown on small-time marijuana possession. The report identifies incentives for the NYPD to focus on marijuana arrests. For instance, the arrests provide police officers a relatively safe and easy way to demonstrate productivity, especially in an organization such as the NYPD that heavily relies on statistics to measure effectiveness. Among other benefits, the arrests also help officers accrue overtime pay. Supervisors use marijuana arrests to generate arrest records, facilitate supervision of police activities and show that their officers are productive.   

The arrests also succeed in dramatically expanding the NYPD’s vast database of New Yorkers’ personal information. Each marijuana arrest brings a new set of fingerprints and photos into the NYPD’s extensive system.

Three former police chiefs of some of the nation’s largest cities have endorsed the report’s findings. All three of the former chiefs believe marijuana possession arrests are a waste of police resources that do not reduce violent crime.   

“Illegal, trivial, meaningless arrests undermine confidence in the justice system and corrupt the enforcers,” said Anthony V. Bouza, a former NYPD commander in the Bronx who was chief of police in Minneapolis from 1980 to 1989. “New York’s marijuana arrests are counterproductive, a classic misapplication of police resources.”

Norm Stamper, Seattle’s police chief from 1994 to 2000, said the enormous spike in marijuana arrests negatively affects both law enforcement and the community. 

“I do not believe the two New York City mayors and three police commissioners who have presided over these practices are motivated by personal racism,” Stamp said. “But the effects of these practices are deeply, undeniably discriminatory, as well as damaging to legitimate crime fighting, community relations and police morale.”

George Napper, Atlanta’s chief of police from 1990 to 1997, said the report reveals common policing patterns, including racially skewed stop-and-frisk searches, that are poorly understood by the general public.    

“People who care about the fate of American cities and the incarceration of racial minorities should read this fine study,” Napper said. “As a New York City police officer quoted in the report says: ‘Welcome to the real world.’”  

Among an extensive list of recommendations, the report urges policymakers to: 

·         Hold public hearings and thoroughly examine the costs, consequences, and racial, gender, age and class disparities of the NYPD’s marijuana arrest practices.

·         Ensure that law enforcement of marijuana offenses is consistent with the intent of New York State law.

·         Substantially increase the pay scale of police officers to reduce the need for overtime.

·         Require the NYPD to provide the City Council and state detailed, accurate and timely data on its arrests, citations and other practices, and make that information public.

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WPCNR STAGE DOOR. By John F. Bailey. April 28, 2008: An entourage of the White Plains Performing Arts Center Board of Trustees, lead by its Chairman John Ioris, White Plains Performing Arts Center Executive Producer Jack Batman and Board Treasurer Ted Peluso made a case to the Common Council Monday evening  that the troubled Performing Arts Center was out of trouble. That the “Little Theatre at the City Center”  had “turned the corner,” having its first “profitable” year in 2006-2007, (helped by a $150,000 bailout from Super Developer Louis Cappelli) despite past management that Treasurer Ted Peluso  criticized bluntly as inept:

Jack Batman, Executive Producer, made an eloquent plea for the council to increase their funding from $100,000 a year to $250,000 in order that the theatre can fund four children’s programs.

They are The  Renaissance Theatre Project, the West Side Story project (an anti violence program), another theatre program for Latinos, and a performance program for Special Needs children. Batman said the bulk of the new money (already included in the 2008-2009 proposed budget), would be used for these programs and new

John Ioris, at head of table, with Jack Batman to his right, disputed Journal News Report at opening of meeting.

Under the new Jack Batman management, John Ioris, the Chair of the Board of Trustees for the White Plains Performing Arts Center said  the theatre had turned a “surplus of $66,000.”  He  began the meeting excoriating the Journal News in a lengthy statement taking a news article appearing in the Sunday Journal News to task for inaccuracies and alleged speculation.

The article quoted Mr. Ioris that Louis Cappelli, the local developer, in view of his recent falling out with the Common Council on the Ritz Carlton Island might not support the theatre. “At no time has Mr. Cappelli ever indicated he was pulling his support for the theatre,” Ioris told the council Monday evening. “WPPAC could not exist without the support of contributing corporations.’

 The article in question, (it should be noted) quoted Mr. Cappelli as saying he did not make decisions that way. Cappelli, in his comments is quoted by reporter Keith Eddings of the Journal News to say “I’d never let any dispute with the city council affect any of the charitable contributions we have either made or intend to make within the city or any municipality. Never.”

Ioris also stated the Journal News  report that the WPPAC was dark for six months in the first half of 2007 was “categorically false.”

Deja Vu

Three years ago In November 2005, WPCNR covered a similar request for additional funding for the WPPAC in a meeting in which the former Artistic Director, Tony Stimac, presented to the Common Council, making similar glowing reports supporting requesting an extra $100,000 from the Council to match donations to pay off debt incurred by Saving Aimee.

In that same fall of 2005,  a new Executive Director, Roy Cullom was hired by the Board to work with the former Artistic Director Tony Stimac.   It came to light, through a review of the finances Mr. Cullom executed, that in the first three years of its existence, WPPAC operating capital was drained because it was paying $500,000 a year in salaries and benefits to  the Helen Hayes Theatre employees in Nyack, which Mr. Stimac was also running. The two theatres  WPPAC and the Helen Hayes shared staff.

When the extent of this capital sharing was discovered, (apparently the Board of Trustees, some of whom were in the Mayor’s Conference room last night was unaware of the scope of  the revenue-sharing), the WPPAC relationship with Helen Hayes was severed, ultimately causing the closing of the Nyack  Helen Hayes theatre within a month of the termination of the agreement.

Cutback  

Operations of the White Plains theatre were cut back, spring major productions were cancelled and the theatre relied on its children’s productions to see it through to its $66,000 surplus in 2006-2007.

Stimac left the White Plains Performing Arts Center helm in June, 2007, at which time Mr. Batman was brought in as Executive Producer.  (The Board of Trustees, at the suggestion of Mr. Ioris,  had hired Batman to conduct  a survey to analyze what kind of programming the WPPAC should produce. Batman found musicals were what correspondents to the survey wanted. Subsequently Batman was hired to produce  the  current 2007-2008 season.)

Ioris denies cronyism

Ioris in his statement also denied his firm  Fresh Ice Productions had any working relationship with Batman. Ioris said the WPPAC was not “dark” for six months from January to June 2007, as the newspaper article had indicated, that 54 different events, running 94 performances and attracting 23,000 patrons took place those six months, producing $9,386 in revenues. Ioris said the article appeared to be a “deliberate attempt” to sabotage the theatre. He challenged the Council to not treat the theatre as “a political issue because the theatre was not a Democratic or Republican issue, but a quality of life issue. Don’t politicize this issue.”

Batman Notes Success.

Then producer Batman eased into the hot seat and appeared to impress the council with his impassioned description of the theatre’s growth. He said he took the job because he “didn’t think (White Plains) was being served well” by the previous years the theatre was in existence.; He said it has become an “economic asset to the city,” attracting 75% of its audience from outside the city, with customers spending money in stores, restaurants and coming back to White Plains.

Peluso, in his statements echoed this saying the city received S2.9 Million in ancillary income from running the theatre. Peluso said he based this on an extrapolation from a study on the benefits of having a producing theatre in cities.

Peluso also said the council had only been paying the WPPAC $100,000 a year (plus services), and that the council should be paying the WPPAC to the tune of $500,000 due to the numbers Peluso feels the theatre generates in dollars brough into the city.

Corporations on Board Big Time

Batman said he did not expect to sell out his major productions, but that he already has commitments from  Entergy, Con Edison, Verizon, and McDonalds to underwrite future productions. He said he would be offering tickets to musicals at reduced prices  in order to promote the theatre and attract people to the theatre as a matter of policy.  He indicated he wished to expand the practice of giving away reduced priced tickets to disadvantaged and youth and citizen’s groups to the big productions. 

 He requested the additional $150,000 from the council to support expansion and inauguration of children’s programs Renaissance Theatre, the West Side Project and a program for acting for Special Needs Children – that it would not be used to produce the shows which apparently are now being underwritten by corporations.

He announced the theatre would be producing Evita, Oliver, A Little Night Music and Hello, Dolly next season as his four musicals. He announced a commitment from Entergy to underwrite one show, and the Westchester County Business Journal to underwrite another.

Mr. Peluso  noted that the city based on an extrapolation of a survey executed in 2005, received $235,000 in sales tax from the theatre’s presence and brought $2.9 Million into the city.

Roach Impressed. Council Does Not Exactly Overwhelm with Questions. Mr. Batman said in closing that without the additional funding, he felt the theatre would lose corporate support which would doom the musical productions, which he said could only mounted by corporate sponsorship.

Councilman Thomas Roach summed up his impression on the situation, saying “It looks like you’re heading in the right direction.”

Rita Malmud requested attendance figures on  the season shows to date from Batman, who said he’d supply them.

The final financial results for the 2007-2008 season are not available yet, Ioris said.

Glen Hockley repeated his request for an electronic marquee outside the City Center to promote the theatre daily and so people know it is there.  ( This is a suggestion that has been ignored by the city and the theatre management since 2003 when it opened.)

Batman noted that newspaper advertising was very expensive and it was his opinion that the public is not reading newspapers. Indeed, local media have been making blatant efforts to increase circulation, reviewing high school productions, something you never used to see.

In a folder handed out to each member of the council, reprints of articles about the theatre were contained, but no financial statements were issued to this reporter’s knowledge, other than the surplus generated in 2006-2007.

Still Amendable

Gina Harwood, the city financial officer, said the extra $150,000 was already in the recreation department budget for 2008-2009. Asked if in order to deny the funding, should they be inclined to do so, (which did not seem likely based on the quiet reaction of the council to the impassioned pleas of the evening), would the Common Council have to reject the entire 08-09 proposed budget? Harwood said no, indicating to this reporter that the additional $150,000 could be taken out of the budget prior to approval if the Council chose to do so.

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