Opinion: Don't Forget, There Are Other Pressing Needs in Greenburgh

The following is an open letter written by Greenburgh resident Hal Samis to Town Supervisor Paul Feiner:

The Feiner flavor-of-the-day. Today’s flavor: An open letter to the Town Supervisor.

“I am hopeful that we will be able to implement this recommendation (sidewalk bicycle ban) early in 2015.”

Many persons of all ages, not just those who vote for you, walk on sidewalks. Many persons who ride bicycles also vote for you; especially since you have courted them in earlier emails. Before you rush to link the solution to this recent pedestrian accident (which did not involve a bicycle) as well as inferring that the Chief of Police is on board with this specific proposal, have you any documentation as to how many bicycles travel on East Hartsdale Avenue sidewalks? It would seem from your email over the Town list that the number is horrific: like Seniors cannot take a single step without encountering a cyclist. I strenuously doubt this conclusion and urge you and the Chief of Police (if that is a position he subscribes to) to do some rider counts before even attempting such legislation.

At the same time, when the Chief of Police is reviewing the safety of the East Hartsdale Avenue corridor, I would suggest that he look into addressing the safety of bicycle riders, especially if they are to be banned from using sidewalks (presumably on both sides of the Avenue) since East Hartsdale Avenue is an extremely narrow road serving as one of Greenburgh’s only two east-west connections and this fact of poorly planned suburban life results in luring wide-bodied commercial vehicles as well as bus, taxi and on-street fuel oil and furniture mover deliveries on this busy roadway.

If you were truly concerned about all residents, you and the Chief of Police should consider banning commercial traffic during designated safety hours when Seniors can use these sidewalks so that both pedestrians and bicycle riders can go about their business without similar concerns.

Failing that, then you and the Chief should move directly to ban car parking along the Avenue and establish not only a bicycle-only lane but also widen the narrow sidewalk so that pedestrians can walk in safety and not in fear of bicycles (including those ridden by children?) but also strollers, untetheredchildren, other pedestrians (with/without shopping bags). seniors in wheelchairs (manual and motor driven) and animals on long leashes. Hopefully Chief of Police McNerney will be proud to attach his name to such a measure.

Yes, Paul, you have done your part to assure your loyal constituents of your concern but don’t let this be another one of your knee-JERK reactions to get yourself name-checked in the media and instead devote your paid-time as Supervisor to neutralizing the train wrecks that you caused which account for the rise in Town taxes that ARE under YOUR control.

In case you have forgotten, the continuing vacancy of the 108 affordable housing units referred to as WestHELP which brought tax relief to residents to the tune of $1,200,000 a year or $12,000,000 over 10 years but $0 ever since you allowed their occupancy to expire and twice refused to meet to extend WestHELP’s expiring Lease. Vacant since September 2011, taxpayers have now suffered a loss of revenue ($3,000,000) from this source -- an amount increasing every month that remains vacant, deteriorating and diminishing in remaining years of availability.

And while you’re hastening to attend to the unsupported needs of everyone who has your ear, you have failed to dispose of the former Frank’s Nursery parcel (as required to do so by law if its retention serves no Town purpose) which was taken in by the Town for non-payment of taxes (over $1,400,000 so far) and increasing yearly; the property is also a non-generator of new taxes were it owned by the private sector. And taxpayers have already incurred over $200,000 in consultant fees, break-up fees and marketing expenses for your, fated from the onset, failed attempts: a Lease which was illegal; an aborted back-room Sale to an unqualified insider; two scuttled Auctions and the Town currently is no further along the road to a successful conclusion than it was three years ago. But then, taxpayers should be happy that you spend your days worrying about the disease of the month, transplants, interns, and snow angels -- none of these having anything to do with the list of foreclosures from residents who can no longer afford to live in Greenburgh because of your mismanagement. Incidentally, those taxpayers who can afford to live in Greenburgh will now be paying for the legal costs to mount foreclosure actions against those who can’t pay.

But the single, most egregious affront to residents/taxpayers/voters is your part in the FEDERAL COURT settlement of a lawsuit brought by a Church against Greenburgh in which the Court determined that Greenburgh acted to deny this Church its U.S. Constitution defined rights. A Decision which remained intact even after you directed the Town Attorney to appeal and, after even more taxpayer dollars were wasted on this Appeal, the Federal Judge wrote in his Decision that you were not a “credible” witness. So without including the legal cost to defend your mismanagement, taxpayers were forced to pay out $5,500,000 of their hard earned dollars -- another tax burden that makes it harder for some constituents to continue as residents. Publicly you applaud yourself for remaining within the tax cap (a State law designed to reign in the likes of you) but you get away with it because you deplete Town fund balances to meet operating costs and use long term bond sales to lower the effects of larger matters like $5,500,000 Judgements against the Town.

Yes, this is the not the stuff that finds its way into your many good news emails or intern-produced videos. But then this is the stuff that really matters and in just the past four years, you have cost taxpayers and ill-informed VOTERS over $15,000,000 in unnecessary taxation.

So today, for example, let’s wipe the slate clean and instead concentrate on the concerns of a few East Hartsdale Avenue residents (how many, unknown) yet you ignore those residents in Edgemont who have been seeking a sidewalk on Seely Place for years so that their children can get to and from school in safety: a sidewalk which you have lobbied against constructing and now put on hiatus pending a town-wide study on sidewalk needs.

Meanwhile, is there any mention of a town-wide study to determine which other sidewalks in townneed to be bike-free? Finally, are you equally concerned about other areas which lack sidewalks (Knollwood Road) or safe crossings by pedestrians (Knollwood Road again...to Library).

Residents/Voters/Taxpayers require a Town Supervisor who cares about the Town; not one whose only concern is about getting his name to appear in print.

-Hal Samis