Monday, July 16, 2007

RESPONSE TO UNJUSTIFIED ACCUSATIONS--EVERY PENNY ACCOUNTED FOR -WESTHELP

Shortly after Councilman Sheehan’s letter on June 25 that said that an amount of $1,448,349.11, constituting unspent WestHELP rentals “was not added to fund balance totals” and that the “amount that currently has this”flexibility” is $1,448,349.11," I did two things.

First, I wrote a letter disclosing that Mr. Sheehan’s letter was not correct because all the WestHELP funds were recorded on the town’s books and were added to the town’s fund balance. The $1,448,349.11 was the amount unspent from the WestHELP rents. The bulk of these unspent funds had been held for disbursement to the Valhalla School District and the Fairview Fire District as planned under the grant contracts that had been approved by the Town Board, but were not disbursed when the State Comptroller recently said that this was not legal. The balance of these unspent funds were originally planned for the civic associations and held for neighborhood purposes. I had urged that all unspent WestHELP funds be placed in the town-wide budget as required by law.

Second, I asked the Town Comptroller to provide a detailed accounting for the Town Board of every penny that was received from WestHELP and where it was spent. Today I received the Comptroller's memo containing the accounting. I am sending it to the Town Board, and I am posting it at the end of this letter. It lists every check that has been received and when it was deposited. It lists every expenditure that has been made from these funds. It shows the balance, which is exactly as previously reported. Put another way, it shows that every penny that has been received has been accounted for and not a penny has been misapplied or misappropriated, as has been implied by Mr. Sheehan and a group of residents who make such false accusations regularly.

Previously I had thought that about $75,000 of the WestHELP rent had been spent for neighborhood purposes, and some critics have asked about this amount. It was explained at the June 27 Board meeting that my statement was an error, based on a confusion about 2006 receipts that had not been made clear, and the Comptroller stated that no moneys had been spent except to the Valhalla School District, the Fairview Fire District, and appropriated as revenue to the A budget. In this accounting the Comptroller has confirmed this..

I trust that this accounting will put the many nasty and unjustified accusations to rest.

Paul Feiner

TOWN OF GREENBURGH
OFFICE OF COMPTROLLER
INTER OFFICE MEMORANDUM

To: Honorable Town Supervisor and Members of the Town Board

From: James L. Heslop, Town Comptroller

Subject: WestHELP Rental Payments, Disbursements and Uses

Date: July 16, 2007


The Sublease and Homeless Housing Facilities Agreement between the County of Westchester, Town of Greenburgh, and WestHELP became effective September 18, 2001. The term of the agreement is from September 18, 2001 to September 30, 2011. For the initial period from September 18, 2001 through September 30, 2002 the rental amount was $1,200,000.00. For the balance of the agreement, the rent shall be in equal monthly installments of $101,903.66. The Town did not receive the first rental payment August 11, 2003. Listed below are the rental payments, disbursements to the Valhalla School District and Fairview Fire District, appropriation to the Town Outside Villages (TOV) Fund. Rental payments deposited:

• August 11, 2003 - $1,950,947.97 – wire transfer into Town’s bank account
• January 2, 2004 - $166,184.95 – check deposited (the gross amount of the check was $175,404.43; $9,219.48 was
credited to the interest earnings line in the
TOV Fund)
• January 27, 2004 - $203,807.32 – check deposited (the gross amount of the
check was $213,782.71; $9,975.39 was
credited to the interest earnings line in the
TOV Fund)
• March 2, 2004 - $203,807.32 – check deposited (the gross amount of the
check was $212,199.71; $8,392.39 was
credited to the interest earnings line in the
• April 12, 2004 - $203,807.32 – check deposited (the gross amount of the
check was $210,641.85; $6,834.53 was
credited to the interest earnings line in the
TOV Fund)
• May 17, 2004 - $203,807.32 – check deposited (the gross amount of the
check was $209,058.85; $5,251.53 was
credited to the interest earnings line in the
TOV Fund)




• June 8, 2004 - $203,807.32 – check deposited (the gross amount of the
check was $207,601.49; $3,794.17 was
credited to the interest earnings line in the
TOV Fund)
• July 20, 2004 - $203,807.32 – check deposited (the gross amount of the
check was $206,043.62; $2,236.60 was
credited to the interest earnings line in the
TOV Fund)
• August 30, 2004 - $101,903.66 – check deposited
• September 21, 2004 - $101,903.66 – check deposited
• October 4, 2004 - $101,903.66 – check deposited
• November 8, 2004 - $101,903.66 – check deposited
• November 15, 2004 - $101,903.66 – check deposited
• January 10, 2005 - $101,903.66 – check deposited
• February 7, 2005 - $101,903.66 – check deposited
• February 8, 2005 - $101,903.66 – check deposited
• March 21, 2005 - $101,903.66 – check deposited
• April 11, 2005 - $101,903.66 – check deposited
• May 16, 2005 - $101,903.66 – check deposited
• June 10, 2005 - $101,903.66 – check deposited
• July 12, 2005 - $101,903.66 – check deposited
• August 15, 2005 - $101,903.66 – check deposited
• September 13, 2005 - $101,903.66 – check deposited
• October 13, 2005 - $101,903.66 – check deposited
• November 10, 2005 - $101,903.66 – check deposited
• December 14, 2005 - $101,903.66 – check deposited


The total rental payments were $5,174,242.72. While there is no indication of the reason for interest amounts being included in the first seven checks, it would seem the interest was to compensate the Town for lost interest earnings for the period between the effective date of the agreement and when the Town started receiving payments.

Disbursements to the Valhalla School District and the Fairview Fire District:

• April 9, 2004 - $517,955.00 – date of check to Valhalla School District
• May 7, 2004 - $100,00.00 – date of check to Fairview Fire District
• June 24, 2005 - $728,894.80 – date of check to Valhalla School District
• June 24, 2005 - $100,00.00 – date of check to Fairview Fire District
• February 10, 2006 - $617,301.00 – date of check to Valhalla School District
• May 26, 2006 - $100,00.00 – date of check to Fairview Fire District

The total disbursements were $2,164,150.80.



The annual amount credited to the TOV Fund as Rental of Real Property WestHELP:

• Fiscal year 2003 – $816,054.89
• Fiscal year 2004 – $372,843.96
• Fiscal year 2005 – $372,843.96

The revenues credited were $1,561,742.81.

The remaining balance at December 31, 2005 was $1,448,349.11, which relate to the Valhalla School District - $898,349.29; Fairview Fire District - $124,999.91, and the neighborhoods - $424,999.91.

(The Town has continued to receive monthly payments of $101,903.66 from WestHELP which are credited to the Town’s General Fund, A Fund.)

An amount of $75,000.00 which was reported to have been spent has been misconstrued. In September of 2006, the amount of WestHELP rental payments that would have been available for purposes other than the Valhalla School District and the
Fairview Fire District was $500,000. After September of 2006, the Town received three more months of rental payments in 2006. This was an additional $25,000 of payments would have been available for purposes other than the Valhalla School District and the
Fairview Fire District. The $500,000, as of September 2006, plus $25,000, for the three remaining months in 2006, is $525,000. Presuming that the entire amount of the rental payments for 2006 is credited to the General Fund, $100,000 of the $525,000 came from the 2006 rental payments. When the $100,000 is deducted from the $525,000 the amount is $425,000 as indicated above. The assumption was that the amount of $500,000 was reduced to $425,000, because $75,000 was spent which is incorrect.

I trust that this information is helpful. If there are any questions, please let me know.

cc: Timothy W. Lewis, Town Attorney
Bart J. Talamini, Deputy Town Comptroller

58 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you, Mr. Heslop.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for sharing this info. Great to see that nothing crooked occurred.

Anonymous said...

Nothing crooked?

Feiner himself says -

"when the State Comptroller recently said that this was not legal"

Anonymous said...

Can we have a supervisor who comports himself like an adult and has some semblance of dignity and class? This passive/aggressive blogging by Mr. Feiner is an embarassment.

Anonymous said...

I’m glad Mike Kolesar understands the accounting for this, because I sure don’t. I thought we have been told that the town accounted for the funds as follows:

1. No amounts were accounted for until 2003, when funds were first received. At that time they were credited to the Deferred Revenue Account.
2. Funds were accounted for, up to and included 2005, in the TOV budget. Which may not have been correct, but that was what done.
3. The amounts owed to VSD and FFD were treated as owed to other governments.
4. The amounts which Feiner said should have been paid to civic associations or for neighborhood purposes stayed in the deferred revenue account.

So I am trying to reconcile all of the above, with Mr. Heslop’s note to the audited accounts, which have the following:


Def Rev 812,520 (2003) 767,663(2004) 2,091,693 (2005)

Due to other govts 1,687,500(2003) 1,819,545(2004) 1,740,650 (2005)

Note that in 2002, before this accounting purportedly started, there was nil in the due to other govts for the TOV account and 100,000 in the TOV deferred revenue account.

I appreciate the work Mr. Heslop has done, and know that this started here before he did, but there are still a lot of questions to be answered, most importantly a reconciliation of the accounts that these funds supposedly flowed through.

Anonymous said...

Well Feiner haters, do you have your answers now, Maybe we could say that we are sorry for the finger pointing. You should have known that all the monies were accounted for by the comptroller. THe case is closed now. Let's see what you will be coming up with now,The town council also knew of all the deposits but said nothing to take pressure off of the supervisor. Shame on them. Well now we can go on with the other problems facing the town council. Thank you Paul and Heslop for publishing the balance sheets,for all the money,This should clear most of the bad air surrounding most of Feiners critics..

Anonymous said...

This so-called "accounting" is incomplete.

For example, Feiner's SCOBA report said in September 2005 that the funds that were allocated illegally for the civic associations "have been segregated and are in an account at a financial institution."

Well that may be, but Heslop's memo says everything that came in was in a town outside village "bank account." He doesn't say that any funds were was "segregated."

How convenient that is. How was it in 2005 that these funds which Feiner may or may not have spent were "segregated" and in 2007 they are not?

One possibility is that SCOBA's report is worthless factually, as some have said, and shouldn't be relied on for anything.

Another possibility is that SCOBA's members were specifically told these funds were segregated, and if that's the case, it's important to know who told them that and when.

If the funds were segregated, as SCOBA reported, then it should be relatively easy to see whether any unauthorized disbursements were made.

It sure looks like Feiner hasn't come clean after all.

Anonymous said...

Dear Mr. Incomplete Accounting,

It seems clear from the Heslop memo that there was no seperate bank account. It seems clear from the town financials that there was no seperate financial statement account (either other funds were comingled in the Deferred Revenue account, or there are serious issues). In short, the money was mixed in with town money. So we will never know what happened. Big deal. Heslop put togethor a bunch of checks and receipts. Once the funds went into the town acount, say bye bye.

Anonymous said...

There is nothing as clean as the total and absolute reconciliation that Comptroller Heslop has provided. Not even one cent is unaccounted for.

But did you think that Bernstein and his buddies would shut up? I didn't. Now it is dates that they are arguing about. And funniest of all, they are blaming SCOBA. I guess they don't look like fols to their clique, but they sure look like fools to everbody else.

Sick, sick, sick.

Anonymous said...

The reconciliation Mr. Heslop gave is meaningless. With co-mingled funds, and no reconcilation of the accounts, no one knows what happened with the money.

Anonymous said...

and when Valhalla got the money - what did they do with it? Anecdotally we have heard of luxury cruises, plush salaries, opera tickets..... this was the quid pro quo that feiner arranged for to buy off the neighborhood. too bad for feiner, the state comptroller is investigating what valhalla did with the money.

Anonymous said...

When will you Feiner haters,stop.You wanted a running list of the monies beig receive and then deposited, what more do you want. The list is printed out for you. Let the state comptroller finish their investigation and then go after Valhalla to return the funds,NOT FEINER. OOFFAA.

Anonymous said...

The "running list" is useless. The money was not segregated. It went into a town account. If someone wants to provide a list of all town expenditures by recipient that might me meaningful This was an exercise in stupidity.

Anonymous said...

Yes, the situation as a whole turned out not to be legal, but that is a different matter altogether that the State is dealing with.

I am pleased to see that the money is accounted for. I was getting a vibe that there was some extortion or something shady, so the Feiner-Heslop memo puts that to rest.

Now, it would be good to see a balance sheet for the funds received by Fairview FD and Valhalla SD. But we can't bash the Town about that. I'd imagine that the Fairview FD and Valhalla SD can produce (should be able to produce) such a balance sheet without much difficulty.

Again, at this point it's a State matter. The funds have been fully accounted for by the Town; the State needs to determine the next courses of action.

I'm happy to chime in when the Town is slacking off, but at this point I think we can let up on Feiner and the Town for this particular matter.

Anonymous said...

Please, let those of us who oppose Feiner not be ridiculous. The WestHELP funds have been accurately accounted for. Let's not start dodging by talking about segregated funds, Valhalla opera tickets, and similar dodges.

Let us admit that there has been no diddling around by Feiner with WestHELP money and go on to other issues. The more we try to make something out of the accounting the sillier we look.

Anonymous said...

The more you insist that there has been an adequate accounting, the more annoyed I get. There has not been an adequate accounting. At a minium, Feiner should provide a list of all charges to the accounts that the Westhelp money was credited to. Becuase it sure doesnt make sense to me.

Anonymous said...

Feiner haters are doing to Feiner what ken star did to clinton.
sheehan is to feiner what gingrich was to clinton
you want to stop the government, to create chaos.

Anonymous said...

I dont want to stop government. I want to start democracy. Instead of government by which developer can spend the most.

Anonymous said...

I'm no accountant, but I'm happy as long as I know that the funds do completely exist and that they aren't being utilized any further until the state makes a decision.

Is there some special type of account that the balance needs to be deposited in to make sure that the money isn't used buy paperclips and street signs and whatnot? I'd imagine that Mr. Heslop has moved the funds together to an appropriate account, but for those of you in the know about accounting, perhaps give him a call or send him an email to make sure.

From an everyday citizen's standpoint, understand that I'm okay with it all now since there's been no theft of funds and that the state is deciding how use that money.

Anonymous said...

If the accounting given by Heslop,doesn't meet your expectation, then go to an accounting firm and see what they suggest. You may be a person who is never satisfied, with what ever answer you receive.TOUGH.you got a running list if you want to see the original slips be free to FOIL ,for the copies.Stop knit picking.What you see is what you got.Take it or leave it.

Anonymous said...

4;44 are you saying that you don't trust the comptroller of Greenburgh and also the NY State Comptrollers investigation. Poor man ,Maybe you should call in the federal government to decide .

Anonymous said...

Mike K. have you studied the running list. How say you on the outcome.

Anonymous said...

I am a CPA. At a minimum, the Town should provide a reconiliation of the accounts that the funds were transferred into. But the entire situation is hopeless -- we will never understand it, not with the information we are being provided.

Anonymous said...

You dont need a CPA to understand we are missing info. Think of it this way. You have a checking account. Your paycheck is deposited every month. You look at your account for the year. It shows 12 payroll deposits and then you have 12 checks written for the mortgage. But you dont know what else was written out of that account. Or if you transferred money to a brokerage account. That is why accounts have to be reconciled.

Anonymous said...

As I see it, the town comptroller has given the information about the receipts and the application of the funds. It adds up for me. The burden has shifted to those who think something is wrong to show something other than their constant accusations.

Early this year the town hired a big law firm to do an audit. We will soon have their answer that we paid $25,000 for. Let's see if it is says anything different than the free answer that we got from the town comptroller. We will probably get a few more pages and some more detail, but unless they come up with something the complaining will have to stop.

Anonymous said...

If the town's accounts didn't reconcile, don't you think that the outside auditors would have found it? These auditors aren't much, but at least they can find missing funds or accounts that don't reconcile.

In the meantime, if you show the receipts and the "mortgage" payments, then your mortgage is not in default.

Or can't you understand that.

Anonymous said...

Lets all agree that we havent gotten our money's worth from the auditors -- of course they would say they had to give some of their fees back to Feiner.

Anonymous said...

Anon at 9:00 --

Your mortgage would not be in default, but you might be paying someone elses.

Anonymous said...

Anon at 9:36.

You might be nuts enough to be paying someone else's mortgage and not know it, but not me.

Anonymous said...

No, but the question is are we paying Mayfair Knollwood's mortgage (just an analogy).

Anonymous said...

Kudos to Paul Feiner for fighting back and getting the facts on the table. The bottom line is that the entire WestHelp Partnership "controversy" was a political ploy on the part of Frances Sheehan et al to make Paul the Supervisor look bad at the cost of the reputations of many innocent people who did nothing wrong. Not a penny was misspent, not a penny went where you guys seemed to think, unless you happen not to like the fact that funds went to the Valhalla schools. And obviously, a handful of people who live in other part of town didn't like it and wanted the money to be used for "townwide" purposes even though WestHelp is not located on their doorsteps. In other words, don't give us the homeless, just give us the dollars that come from the homeless. We won't share the burden, but we will happily cut to the front of the line for a handout.
Then Mr. Sheehan et al pulled out all the stops -- let's use the race card, let's malign private individuals because we can, let's use Gil Kaminer's friend(s)at Gannett to write one-sided stories so people will actually think the information is true instead of nothing more than baseless innuendo, let's have a field day with the decent, law-abiding residents of Mayfair Knollwood and make them look like the bad guys and horrible, greedy people.
(By the way, Greenburgh taxpayers, wake up. Mr. Kaminer was hired at your expense to be a political hatchet man for members of the Town Board. He spends town time and money to spread rumors and undermine the supervisor, just because other people want the job. That's it. That's what he does. Someone should ask Mr.Kaminer to account for his time -- hour by hour.)
Then Mr. Sheehan and friends decide to have their own illegal, secret meetings to discuss their own agendas -- to prevent a multi-family housing developer from building anything that might possibly attract families they don't approve of into the insular neighborhoods of Edgemont, where no homeless shelters exist but where they so piously believe that the WestHelp dollars should go to them.
Some of us have known from the beginning who the real bad guys are. Some of us have been patiently waiting to watch the bad guys self-destruct.
It took less time than we thought.

Anonymous said...

The facts arent on the table. They may never be. Feiner has obscurated this so magestically. First he has it on the balance sheet net. Then he tells SCOBA it is segregated, when in fact it isnt.

Anonymous said...

Dear Anonymous 7/16 5:56PM,

What the Town Comptroller provided is only the first step, but at least it is a first step, namely a history of the identified cash receipts and, I presume, to the best of the Town Controller's ability, an accounting for cash disbursements. That only answers in part, that the Town has so far "received" all that it "should" have. (I haven't checked the numbers, but for the time being accept what he posted.)

The next step is a clear identification of which Town accounts were impacted by these various transactions. The third step is to correct the Town's financials for all years in which any errors were made, errors defined by me as classifying something as "B" when it should have been "A", or reporting the gross transactions and not "netting" them. In effect, absent the bigger questions that some or all of these disbursements shouldn't have occurred in the first place, removing any "harm" that may have happened.

I agree with Anonymous 7/16 8:29 PM, that with the comingling of these funds and transactions, the ability to be absolutely certain what happened, is questionable. It now comes down to what are the Town's internal controls over all disbursements and the proper classification of them. If "budget" games have or are permitted, then the case is almost hopeless.

With respect to SCOBA, the members of SCOBA didn't perform an audit. They, rightfully or depending on one's view, wrongfully accepted what was told to them. I don't know who made what statements or representations. I believe that Mr. McLaughlin (an Edgemont resident if that matters at all) was the principal financial person on SCOBA and did much of the "accounting" work. Maybe he can shed some light. And please, I am not questioning his ability or dedication. He was a volunteer.

Finally, the Supervisor wasn't the only Town Council member to accept money from and then vote for the retention of Bennett Kielson. I pointed out some time ago that Mr. Bass also accepted money. It seems that after I pointed this out, he "got religion" and another blogger (I am pretty sure I know who) indicated that he has now "returned" the money. A few years later, but hey. Nothing like getting your hand caught in the cookie jar.

Anonymous said...

Thank yoy Mike for your accounting knowledge and shedding light and procedures that should be implemented now and in the future. I knew that you would have the answers .

Anonymous said...

Mike Kolesar's blog was helpful.

First, he confirms that the reporting of the cash receipts and disbursements seem to add up. So it is correct to conclude that the innuendos of thievery that have been thrown around are false, and in my opinion, evil.

Second, he is right that the financial statements for the past years, which didn't properly assign the rents to the proper budget, and only assigned the "net" to the wrong budget, are therefore incorrect. But I wonder, can these financials and budgets be corrected after they have been closed for several years? Can the taxes be adjusted retroactively? I doubt it, and I think that this is something we can live with. We can see it as an honest error, confirmed by the outside auditors, and let it go. After all, everybody thought that the grants to the Valhalla School District and the Fairview Fire District, were legit until last year when the State Comptroller said that they were not.

Third, it is good that Mike Kolesar was critical of the person who keeps trashing SCOBA. That person (and like Mike Kolesar said, we know who it is) makes a career out of trashing everybody who makes his positions look weak, which SCOBA surely did.

Anonymous said...

And you are leaving out the most important part of MKs message

"I agree with Anonymous 7/16 8:29 PM, that with the comingling of these funds and transactions, the ability to be absolutely certain what happened, is questionable"

Anonymous said...

Jack McLaughlin doesn't live in Edgemont. He lives in East Irvington. If he was told the illegal civic association amounts were segregated in a separate bank account, as the SCOBA report says, and it turns out that was not true, Jack should be asked who gave him that information.

Anonymous said...

9:53 will never give up. He wil go down with a sinking ship because he will refuse to accept it is sinking, even as the water rises above him.

Anonymous said...

One of the nuttiest things to appear on this blog is the notion that it was improper to "co-mingle" revenues from Westhelp with other revenues.

The town doesn't keep a separate bank account for every item of revenue. The town has a bank account, maybe one or two others if there is a reason for it, but funds are deposited to the town's bank account.

It is the recording in the town's ledgers that identifies the source and purpose of the revenues. The money itself is fungible. There is no reason to have a separate bank account for Westhelp revenue, especially since it wasn't considered to be illegal until last winter when the State Comptroller said so in his audit report.

The accounting that the town comptroller provided traces everything and as far as I am concerned, there is no question about it. Sure the accounting should have been done differently back in 2003, but it wasn't. You can point fingers at the comptrollers or, better, at the outside auditors who should have corrected it.

Anonymous said...

No one says the comingling is "improper", except people trying to distract attention from the real issues.

What the comingling does is eliminate the ability to trace what happened to funds. Which is what people want to know. And what Feiner doesnt want people to know. Dont blame the controllers -- how many quit or left while this was going on? How many had questioned Feiner?

And as to the auditors? that contributed to Feiners campaign? Dont make me laugh.

Anonymous said...

No money was missing. The comptroller should be congratulated for his integrity and for standing up to those who like to smear others.

Anonymous said...

I hate to call anyone foolish but 1:42 is foolish when he says that what the comingling does is eliminate the ability to trace what happened to funds.

One traces funds by looking at checks paid and who the checks were paid to. If one is paranoid one also looks to see whether the checks were endorsed by the person or organization to which the checks were payable.

Does 1:42 not comingle his funds into his bank account? Of the Internal Revenue Service wants to audit his tax return isn't it enough for him to show deposits and cancelled checks? Of course it is.

How easy it is to get the anti-Feiner people going nuts by mentioning a word like comingling as though that is a sin. It's the normal way to do it, 1:42.

Anonymous said...

If the IRS asked for checks, they would ask for all -- not just the ones the controller chose to show. That is why the account reconcilation is the next steop.

Anonymous said...

As I said, Ho-hum.

Anonymous said...

No money was missing. The Town Board should hire an independent law firm to conduct an investigation of Bass-gate. Did they participate in an illegal meeting? Did the Board members offer Bernstein land for a village hall (Edgemont)? More specifics of the deed that was going to be given to Bernstein? Did Bernstein prepare the deed?
Bass, Barnes, Sheehan & Juettner should be required to sign a sworn affidavit.

Anonymous said...

Here is the comingling problem: once all the receipts are in an account with all other receipts, who can say what was disbursed from what funds? Now if the receipts were credited to a suspense or due to account or another balance sheet account and the checks written were also charged to that account we could see where the money disbursed came from. Was there a due to VSD, Fairview, MKCA accounts or some sort of suspense account associated with these transactions? Clearly it was intended that these funds were "due to" these organizations.

Anonymous said...

Is anon at 3:38 right? Should there be accounts on the ledgers that would show the other side of these entries? That would settle the issue, I think.

Anonymous said...

Let's put an end the controversies regarding Bassgate.
Steve--agree, voluntarily, to take sworn testimony about the alleged illegal meetings you participated in.

Anonymous said...

All the members of the council should take sworn testimony as to what happened at the illegal meeting.

Anonymous said...

Here is the litmus test:

If Candidate Berger has ethics and intregitry, she too will call for the four members of the Town Board to make sworn testimony.

If she does not, she is merely another political hack in the mold of Sheehan & Co.

Sounds very simple doesn't it.

Like they say, if you don't use illegal drugs, you never have to worry about the results of a drug test.

If you are operating in the best interest of the entire Greenburgh community, then there should be no fear of sworn testimony.

Anonymous said...

Becoming the supervisor of Greenburgh is considered a steping stone for Berger . How could she go against the hand that paved the way for her at the same time left a place for him to replace her since she hopes to become a judge.I don't think she knows what running a town entails. Anyone can represent the Democratic party as a chair person ,but that does not state they they are ready to take over the reigns of a town.

Anonymous said...

I'm sort of worried.

It's clearly time for a new Supervisor. (I'm disappointed that Mr. Feiner doesn't appreciate the value of term limits.)

Yet, Berger is clearly unqualified.

Are there ANY other possible candidates with a management background, regardless of party affiliation, whom we can entice to PROFESSIONALLY SUPERVISE the Town? (Personally, I'd like to see Mr. Lasser in the Supervisor's position, but I don't think he's interested.)

Anonymous said...

Direct your financial questions to the right person, that being Heslop,the town comptroller. Feiner is not an accountant.He could direct your requests but that's it,

Anonymous said...

suzanne berger will do just fine. feiner has been around for 16 years and the doubts (and ethics) about his abilities continue to grow with each year. his most recent term has probably been his worst. we cannot afford his incompetence, divisiveness, corruption any longer. its time for fresh leadership.

Anonymous said...

this past year in your eyes has been Feiners worst. I agree,BUT the problem is not Feiner it's the disfunctional four. He was doing ok until Sheehan came aboard and took over the town .If you read the comments regardless of the titles they all say the same thing that people want Sheehan out as soon as possible. He took over the minds of the other three plus he has taken over every dept, head .He has decleared himself the boss .He has his finger in every pot .So don't say that Feiner has done nothing ,he can't. If it does not come from Sheehan it will not be done.

Anonymous said...

One can see that Berger is not ready to oversee Greenburgh. If she's keeping the seat warm for Sheehan We are in more trouble than we think we have today. We know what we have and boy whats trying to come in is not for Greenburgh,We have the opportunity to change a few council seats this coming election lets vote to save Greenburgh.BROWN AND MORGAN IS THE WAY TO GO.AND OF COURSE LET'S NOT FORGET FEINER.

Anonymous said...

only if you want 2-4 more years of mediocrity. feiner and his slate only promise a return of rubber stamp feinerism - the same junk government that brought us to the current mess. after 16 years of feiner, the town is torn and frayed. its time for something new. its spelled BERGER.

Anonymous said...

What world are you living in. Berger is not for a government job to deal with town problems. We have not had it as bad as you write. Things change when chief Sheehan came aboard. First we has Bass he too was and is eyeing the supervisors job.What ever Feiner said it was wrong. Then came holier than thou and things got worse. Feiner has done a good job trying to keep everyone in the town happy. He is on the job 24 hours a day. If we remove the ones that are tasting Feners position we will have a better open government. Bass and Sheehan have divided the town in so many respects.Officials against officials villagers against villagers,and most of all Edgemont from the villages.Boy one can come to Greenburghand one can see how easy it is to start a conflict.
Berger has got to learn much much more about neighborhood politics. First of all she must learn how to silence people without being an uncuth person that she is. She must learn how to speak to an audience made up of residents whoare seeking some assistance of some sort or another
Putting two and two together and looking into my crystal ball it tells me that Berger is the wrong choice for supervisor.Maybe the supervisor has been in office too long but we cannot bring someone as incompetent as Berger.