Yonkers Tribune

Public Forum Over SFC Yonkers Development Project By Hezi Aris

YONKERS, NY – An email briefing was received today advising Yonkers Tribune of Mayor Phil Amicone’s continued delight and encouragement by the outpouring of public support for the SFC Phase 1 downtown and waterfront development program. The “press briefing” continued by stating that, “the overwhelming support demonstrated for this project is an indication that the public acknowledges its importance and the need to move quickly in order to realize its many benefits to the city.” So far, there is no major contention this virtual publication has with those described by Mr. Simpson.

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Economic Development Projects Deflect Public Attention from Issues that Matter By Hezi Aris

YONKERS, NY -- Yonkers Tribune, with the help of acid-tongued bloggers, has been able to connect the dots regarding pertinent, not well known aspects regarding economic development plans specific to SFC Yonkers’ $3.1 billion Phase 1 Project, the mission statement of the New Main Street Land Development Project, and the use of Eminent Domain Law.

 

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The Hubris Syndrome By Hezi Aris

“Madness in great ones must not unwatch’d go,” Claudius tells Polonius in Hamlet. When leaders are consumed by a kind of madness, a lion tamer is likely to have as much success, as any other professional, in dealing with our elected officials from hell. And watched we did. Slogging through a Yonkers Real Estate Committee Meeting in which AKRF, consultants hired on behalf of the Yonkers City Council, revealed issues and possible concerns of incongruity in the DEIS (Draft Environmental Impact Statement) of the combined projects known as Palisades Point, Cacace Center, River Park Center, and Larkin Plaza, of the SFC Yonkers Phase I development program cited in the two-foot plus thick loose-leaf bound paper documentation. The information discussed was deciphered under seven contiguous issues which will be discussed another time. The “hubris syndrome” was revealed when discussing the daylighting of the Saw Mill River. Inferences were expressed; incredulity became the response.

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Yonkers Tax Dollars Payoff for Some; Dashes Hope for Others By Hezi Aris

There was a time when developer Bruce Ratner was lauded for paying $100 million to buy out homeowners living within the footprint of his Atlantic Yards arena. Now we learn it was New York City who paid Bruce Ratner to do just that. Bruce Ratner was then touted as generous, even magnanimous, by some. According to the just-released funding agreement between New York City and Forest City Ratner, the $100 million for “land acquisition” that the city set aside in 2006 will reimburse the developer for the private land he bought to assemble the project perimeter.

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PEARLS Hawthorne School Playground Expansion a Process of Deceit By Hezi Aris

YONKERS, NY -- The Yonkers City Council voted against a special ordinance “authorizing and directing the acquisition of property” that would have been “acquired for public or municipal purposes,” for “a public athletic field and playground.” The property is known as 58 Purser Place. The Special Ordinance specifies that for the purposes of acquiring the property the Mayor or the Commissioner of Public Works may acquire the property by “gift or purchase…or by proceedings as set forth in the Eminent Domain Procedure Law (“EDPL”). Specifying the term “Eminent Domain Procedure Law” in the special ordinance moved four city councilmembers to recoil from authorizing the Special Ordinance. The vote of four against, and three for, was not a vote derived from aligned sentiment. More importantly, the vote did little to decipher the facts of relevance to the City of Yonkers.

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Yonkers South Broadway Business Improvement District (B.I.D.) Not to be Entrusted with People’s Money Until Corrections Instituted

YONKERS, NY – One of the issues that came before the April 22, 2008 meeting of the Yonkers City Council was a resolution to support the South Broadway B.I.D. in its application for a $165,000 grant submitted to the New York State Division of Housing and Community Development for the purpose of cleaning and building renovations to the façades of 242-248, 373-379 South Broadway, and 1 Post Street. Yonkers Tribune does not have the expertise to judge the rationale for granting or disapproving the South Broadway B.I.D. application. It does however have the responsibility to ask, in light of an alleged embezzlement of $66,000, whether the South Broadway B.I.D. has instituted appropriate control and oversight over the financial security demanded in shepherding the people’s money for the granting of it.

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In Our Self Interest By Hezi Aris

The Town Hall Meeting sponsored by Yonkers City Council Majority Leader (District 2) and Councilwoman Joan Gronowski (District 3) had over 100 people attending. The cavernous Portuguese Roman Catholic Community Center situated in the basement on the western side of South Broadway became the venue at which the public heard and commented over issues of planned development projects, and concerns regarding quality of life issues, and an update on police community efforts. While I heard one synopsis after another regarding many projects: the L & M Development Project taking place at 330 Riverdale Avenue; followed by the presentation of the River Park Project, as planned by Struever Fidelco Cappelli (SFC) Yonkers on the property known as Chicken Island; the Loewen Development on 303-307 South Broadway; and the Ludlow Street Project by WestHab, I did not expect to recognize over the duration of the meeting, that more important than a dissemination of information about development and quality of life concerns, I had instead entered an emergency room. Not the kind you might find at St. Joseph’s Medical Center less than half-a-mile north of where we were, but a gathering spot of a battered and deflated populace.

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Ill-Legal By Hezi Aris

Which Way Did They Go George, Which Way Did They Go?

Is an ethical component necessary to the reporting of the news and is the ethical component a certainty that the news will thereby be reported in its entirety. That is the dilemma to which I recently found myself in. I was attending an announced meeting to which specific elected officials, some of their staff, media who chose to attend, (I was the only one), and experts in the field to be discussed, among the public, were made privy to financial issues. After a thorough synopsis of the figures before the officials was explained, it soon became evident that some covenants had not been adhered to as prescribed. A few of the elected officials surmised the misconduct during the explanation of the figures. In the questioning process that ensued, it quickly became evident that those who gave the rationale behind every entry in the financial ledger, did indeed admit to the illegality of a certain transaction. As the reality sank in, one of the elected officials said, “Hezi, you didn’t hear that!”

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Yonkers Board of Education Passes the Ball to Yonkers Green Policy Task Force

Typically so, none in Yonkers City Hall, and unasked of the Yonkers Board of Education (BoE) because they do not respond honestly, will go on the record as to what came first, the chicken or the egg.  It seems Congresswoman Nita Lowey today announced that the Yonkers Green Policy Taskforce (GPTF) helped the Yonkers BoE to secure a $300,000 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) grant to retrofit school bus fleets to reduce harmful exhaust emissions, and a component to educate all drivers to the law that restricts the idling of a vehicle beyond a 3 minutes time limit.

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Yonkers Green Policy Task Force Initiative By Hezi Aris

An effort to institute awareness of and compliance with known environmental policies that tread lightly on the environment has been promoted courageously through the multi-layered, often obstinate ways of old in Yonkers. The concept is meant to give way to a more enlightenened thinking process. To that end, the Green Policy Task Force initiative, with Bob Walters, at the head, has meandered gingerly among the multi-layered, ivory tower to bring new thinking into the mix. Yet all is not as pristine as one would hope.

 

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