Gisela Marin resides in Tarrytown. On August 26 her daughter, Jessica Santos, died in a horrible tragedy. She was going to start her sophomore year at the University of New Haven, pursuing a degree in criminal investigation. She became an innocent victim of a heinous crime-- a drive by shooting in Yonkers. Her mother, Gisela Marin is establishing a foundation in her daughter's name (the Jessica N. Santos Foundation) which will primarily be for scholarships and educational funding. She has done the process of incorporating the foundation as a non profit and she has her tax ID number but is looking for an attorney who would be willing to look into the 501c3 for tax exempt purposes.
If you are an attorney and are willing to help please e mail GMarin@above.net or e mail me at pfeiner@greenburghny.com. The foundation will hold its first fundraising event on July 22nd, 2007--what would have been Jessica's 20th birthday.
For more information please visit the web site:
www.rememberingjessica.com
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37 comments:
Feiner you're an attorney, presumably admitted to the bar in NY, why don't you do it? Put your time and energy into something real instead of fobbing it off on someone else. Step up and be a real leader.
Here I am forced by stupidity to defend the American way of life, such as it is, against stupidity coming from nameless mud throwers.
On HIS blog, the Supervisor asked for professional help for a constituent.
Elsewhere on HIS blog he is lambasted by you and your kin for merely holding the Town Supervisor position for 16 years.
That would assume he has not practiced law for at least 16 years.
And we know that before Greenburgh he worked at the County Board of Legislators, not as Counsel.
Would you like to be represented in your hour of need by someone who has likely never practiced law and not likely to have acquired the special expertise to set up a tqx exempt foundation in the proper manner so that contributors would be comfortable knowing their donations would not be challenged as deductible? If you were a non-practicing attorney, would you take on this responsibility?
After all, all this resident really needs is someone, perhaps yourself, with The Dummy's Guide to Law.
To those would like to see Feiner not returned to office next Fall;
Is your cause helped being supported by the lunatic fringe?
Thank you Supervisor Feiner for caring
The people who hate Feiner can never understand the good that he tries to do.He reaches out many times a day to help others.Samis thank you again for your comment.You are a gentleman who speaks the truth without bsing.The first blog was a real idiot.
Samis has some nerve suggesting that someone else in the community is part of the "lunatic fringe."
After watching Samis carry on so pointlessly and hysterically at tonight's town board meeting that even his new pal Feiner had to gavel him to keep quiet, it's pretty clear that when it comes to the "lunatic fringe," nobody wears it better than Samis himself.
Samis makes good points. If he focused on only his message and did not yell or insult he'd be better. He is frequently right on the issues.
Samis is always right on many decisions that the town board should or should not make.THANKS,
You people who read this blog are presumably residents, pay taxes and are concerned about who is the government and, perhaps even more importantly but unstated, what form of government is in place.
Last night's "performance" was the six month anniversary of a very important issue to Residents. Unfortunately it had to be presented under the wrappings including both an unrelated issue and the same old, same old general Library exposure.
It probably involves the Library only peripherally because that is where the item occurs but it is only incidental in the sense that what it represents is widespread and business as usual and involves the willful participation of the entire Town Board: Feiner, Bass, Barnes, Juettner and Sheehan. Most of you are familiar with the bickering and the finger pointing at the Supervisor and sometimes it is justified. Those who see this as a green light to attack do so with the assumption that things will done better and more ethically by the Town Council: the issue from last night proves it just ain't so.
The entry point to the larger problem was given by an innocuous item on the preliminary Town Budget for 2007. I am referring to page 132, the line item 902.0 "Building Maintenance" expense amount. In 2006, this item in the Library Department budget was $310,750. In 2007, this item is $309,778. Note that a number ending "778" implies a very precise look at expenses and great care in its preparation. Such a line item would not likely be questioned by an outside auditor because, hey, municipalities have Libraries and building maintenance is an ongoing item and 2007 is in line with 2006. What an outside auditor would not know is that in 2007, Greenburgh would not have a building to charge this expense against. Thus, and I am rounding both years off for this writing to $310,000, the $310,000 is an entirely bogus amount; it cannot be spent on building maintenance for the Library; and it means that taxpayers are being charged $310,000 under false pretenses.
I would rather have found such a black and white issue in another Department so that it would not be just more of my concerns regarding the Library. However, because I am most familiar with the Library, I look at their budget most carefully and this was just a sizeable and glaring "error".
There is no justification for this without admitting to the Public what a charade the Town Budget really is. Things can change and money can be transferred during the year as shortfalls and overages appear. But this situation is one which pre-dates even the vote on the final budget and of course even before 2007 spending commences.
There is no clearer example of fraud to be found in the Budget. This makes the Valhalla School District?MayfairKnollwood imbroglio pale in comparison because this was done with the complete, conscious, cooperating collusion of all FIVE Town Board members, knowing that it was wrong in advance, having an opportunity to correct it before approving the Budget, not doing so and ignoring the issue ever since.
Public Hearings on the Budget are MANDATED by the State, for a purpose. The first Public Hearing on the budget was held in November 2006. On that occasion I brought the matter to the attention of the Town Board, in no uncertain terms: YOU CANNOT INCUR A CHARGE FOR MAINTENANCE ON A BUILDING THAT DOES NOT EXIST. Certainly you cannot spend the same as the previous year when there was a building. Public Hearings exist so that the Public can have the opportunity to express their views in the hopes that the Town Board will make some changes, spend more, spend less on items...etc. What I was doing was pointing out an ERROR, an error that could have and should have been corrected before the Final Budget was voted on. It would then have been a simple matter to acknowledge it, TO CORRECT IT, or even to hide the amount elsewhere, or even reduce the budget total by $310,000 or thereabouts. The accuracy of the Town Budget is attested to by the vote of the Town Board and the endorsement of the Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Feiner. If there is ever to be any due diligence and integrity in the Budget, this is such a clear and undefendable little item that it demands further examination of why the Town Board refuses to do so, acknowledge it or even respond.
So for SIX months I asked, wrote and cajoled them seeking an answer. An answer I and every resident is entitled to receive. If it is known IN ADVANCE of Budget approval that this money, being taken from the taxpayers, is
not intended for its stated use, then it is fraud, even without knowing where it is eventually going. What makes it any different, from the past, if it were really intended to be transferred to a School District or a Fire District or even to build a dog park. It clearly is not going to be spent on Building Maintenance for the Library.
Last night's show was to bait Mr. Sheehan; to give him the opportunity to put on his lecturer's robes and talk about everything but the issue. I have asked for six months where this money is and I have not been answered. If I have to yell and interrupt, the PROBLEM is not that I feel the need to do so, the PROBLEM is that the Town Board has joined ranks to hide the truth and remain silent.
Mr. Feiner has to be judged part of this conspiracy and just as guilty. However it is most interesting that when they, the Town Council, want to (and there is no opportunity to claim this time that they didn't know) they will do exactly the same thing -- both Feiner and the Town Council continuing the deceptive practices unearthed in the VSD/Mayfair Knollwood centerpiece. When will they ever learn?
The PROBLEM is not Samis. I get only five minutes; Sheehan can wax on for hours. The PROBLEM is the commission of FRAUD. The PROBLEM is that the taxpayers are being taxed upon the total of the expenses as shown in the APPROVED Town Budget. If $310,000 is a ficticious item, then taxes should be lower.
And, the lunatic fringe are those who ignore what the Town government is doing and focus instead on a resident who is shoving their deceit back in their faces. Why should anyone have respect for and play by the rules as defined by tyrants?
The $310,000 may seem trivial against the entire budget but it is a unique "black and white" issue with no shades of grey; there are plenty of other instances of grey but they can conceivably be defended. Residents are witness to them when the Town Board votes on "budget transfers" at practically every meeting. The bottom line is that the annual Town Budget review is a show put on by the Town Board and not one of the items, other than their salaries, is sacrosanct (other than adding new stipends) from the minute it is voted upon. Thus the Public Hearings also are meaningless because anything that comes out of them can be "transferred" away January 1.
There is something very rotten in Greenburgh and the cure is not to be found from any of those currently seated on the dais.
And if Edgemont weren't so busy politicking and seeking to gain privilege, their great concerns for good government would include the Town Budget and the Library expansion as well. And what do we hear from those seeking office?
Having said that, I shall continue to defend Feiner on those issues where he is not the cause or the problem, such as the topic that this posting is written under.
But I want to convey, that the new "government" in the form of the Town Council is really no differnent than the old. Nothing has changed. Having new names on the marquee might change things but Sheehan, as an example, has only made it worse; he is ultimately the more dangerous because he knows how to use facts to his advantage. Not all the facts, just the ones that work for him. He has illustrated meeting after meeting a willingness to attack residents and with impunity because he knows that he can speak without restraint or time limit and his victim cannot respond under his rules -- other than to yell or interrupt (my rules) which, I concede, is his intent knowing how it will be viewed by the general public.
But the unanswered issue remains.
This is the issue that is costing taxpayers money, not Samis.
And lest I forget, the Town Comptroller Jim Heslop will perform any command to hold onto his job. Something that two previous Comptrollers were unwilling to rationalize.
What are bloggers going to do, waste words on me or look at the issue?
Dear Mr. Samis: I want to make sure that we are doing the right thing. I will ask the NYS Comptroller for an opinion.
And could you please ask them how much of the Valhalla money we should demand be returned??
Mr.Samis you brought this problem of $310,000.00 to the board so many times and Regula defended it. You're right why should taxpayers pay for a building that does not exist. Is someone filling their pockets.Let the comptroller check into this and then you could rest assured that someone or many will take a hike.Yes Edgemont is always silent when it comes to spending other peoples money.Edgemont wants what they want regardless of how much,money it will cost.We should make this into a federal case, since it is happening too many times.one needs this to be investigated real soon..
What do you mean, Edgemont is silent about spending other peoples money???
Edgemont is part of unincorporated Greenburgh and part of the library district, so it is Edgemont money.
Maybe what you meant to say is that the villages demand the rigth to spend other peoples money.
Edgemont civic leaders are silent on matters relating to spending even their own money. They do not seem concerned about paying for $310,000 for maintenance on a building that doesn't exist.
Edgemont civic leaders are silent on matters relating to the looming crisis regarding what will be a Library eventually opening without furniture or technology (part of the original budget) and now dependent upon fund-raising. That is after all the "value engineering" cutbacks and the original scope of the library of the future was reduced. But, no problem; they just won't exceed the $19.9 limit.
However the $310,000 is a simple matter. As much as certain civic leaders would like to see Feiner gone, they don't dare touch this matter because the noose is also around all their housepets' necks: Bass, Barnes, Juettner and Sheehan.
If one goes down, they all go down.
And at the proper time (after the outcome of the next Town Board meeting) I shall be posting MY own letter to the Comptroller along with a few additional budget items to look at.
I shall even be happy to pay the higher postage rate.
If the library board believed in good faith that it needed $310,000 to cover building maintenance costs for 2007, which it did, and such costs include the library's costs for personnel and related costs associated with maintenance this year at the various library satellite locations, which it does, and the town board, including Feiner, reviewed and approved that expenditure, which it did, why is it so important for Feiner to be writing to the state comptroller on this?
All because Samis disrupted last night's town board meeting with his baseless and intelligence-insulting allegations of fraud and mismanagement?
Why isn't Feiner man enough to tell Samis to his face on TV that he, Feiner, knew exactly what he was doing when he voted last December to approve the library's budget, including that $310,000, and that there's nothing fraudulent about that line item whatsoever.
Or is it the case that Feiner can't look Samis in the eye and tell him that because he, Feiner, really didn't know what he was doing when he voted for the budget, including that line item?
Isn't it time the town had a leader willing to stand up to the town's lunatic fringe?
If an allegation is made that the town is doing something wrong it should be reviewed. That's why I'm asking the comptroller for an opinion.
the above comment was from me
Oh and PS, wanna bet that if the Library did not pay its share of maintenance at the satelite locations, etc., Samis would be the first to complain.
See now I also have to defend Feiner, who I am opposing, as just one member of the Town Board.
Maintenance for the entire Town Hall Building in 2006 was $321,208.
In 2007 it was in the budget as $339,922. The Town Hall is 46,000 feet. The old Library was 22,000 feet. The space occupied by the Library in Town Hall and the Multipurpose Center is less than 5000 feet.
Do you think that the Library's share of $339,000 (Town Hall maintenance) plus a few bucks for the 300 feet at the Multipurpose Center should be $310,000?
Alternatively, the Credit Union pays roughly $25,000 a year for their space which is just about the same as the Library. They are also supposed to pay pro rata charges for maintenance. Do you think that they would be paying for dinner last night if their annual bill to the Town was:
$25,000 rent plus $310,000 maintenance.
And before it was space for the Library was it not a Town Hall employee cafeteria, a training room and the lobby/entry to the building? Did these uses not require their share of the maintenance dollar?
Where did you get the idea that additional DPW personnel were added to the maintenance budget?
And for once, the Library Board had no input or anything to do with this matter: maintenance is Al Regula. I'll let you know when to blame the Library Board.
What I object to in your comments is again trying to surgically remove the Town Council members Bass, Barnes, Juettner and Sheehan from the vote.
Feiner is not about to tell me I'm wrong because he knows otherwise, as do the members of the Town Council. They ALL HAD SIX MONTHS to do so.
And, the State Comptroller is just waiting around for his next laugh from Greenburgh? "Oh yeah, sure, Greenburgh, Feiner, yeah tell him its ok with me, we do it all the time, he should already know that you don't need any justification to raise taxes much less a legitimate one, now get out of here, I got more serious things to do like work closely with Brodsky."
Again, regarding this matter, five turkeys on the Town Board all agreed to share the roost in harmony. Four will later cackle "We didn't know, Tim Lewis said it was ok".
That does not justify fraud. And, like it or not, that is what it is.
Before you order the T-shirts with "Lunatic Fringe" perhaps you would prefer "The Surly with the Fringe on Top".
Anon 3:46 asks why isn't Feiner man enough to tell Samis to his face on TV that he, Feiner, knew exactly what he was doing when he voted last December to approve the library's budget, including that $310,000, and that there's nothing fraudulent about that line item whatsoever.
The reason that Feiner isn't man enough is the same as why the Town Council isn't man and woman enough, and it is because they didn't know what they were doing and they don't want to admit it. The writer who says there is nothing fraudulent about such an obvious fraudulent expenditure also can't admit that his Council friends screwed up. Or is it possible that they knew that they were committing a fraud and they are now stuck?
How sure are you that Feiner voted for the 310grand.Could it be that he was outvoted on this,as always.He was against the library from the onset,but you will not give him credit for it.Check the video tapes and see how the vote went. This should be investigated as soon as posible. Fraud is what I see from the onset.
Feiner voted for the budget, including the $310,000 line item in question.
What Feiner isn't man enough to explain to his constituents is that these maintenance costs were allocated to the library by the town's Department of Public Works, which is responsible for allocating its building maintenance expenses as overhead among all town buildings, including the library.
Allocating overhead provided by one contralized entity -- in this case DPW -- to other decentralized entities is normal and customary budgeting practice among municipalities and corporations.
Greenburgh does this all the time, as do most companies in America.
The reason the overhead costs here are reasonable is that just as the library didn't fire any of its staff while under reconstruction, so too no one at DPW was fired either.
The only fraud here is the fraud being practiced upon those naive enough to be buying into what Samis is saying.
And as for Feiner's comment, it's just startling that on a matter as simple and straightforward as this, the town's chief financial officer (which is what Feiner is) doesn't have the courage of his convictions to defend what he did.
Instead, his writing to the state comptroller -- instead of defending what was done -- seems cowardly and irresponsible -- the epitome of "passing the buck."
It is amazing to read this blog, and see how some people attack Paul Feiner for everything and absolve the other Town Board members of everything.
Feiner passes the buck excuses the waste of $310,000 by saying that the DPW didn't fire anybody. I guess he is saying that $310,000 worth of employees who were dedicated to library maintenance are just sitting around waiting for the new library to be built. If that is the case, then they should be laid off. If they are doing other work then their salaries shouldn't be charged to library maintenance. You don't have to be a CPA to know that.
The Town Council goes over the Supervisor's preliminary budget with a fine tooth comb. They change plenty of items, but they didn't touch this one. Why? Because they wanted $310,000 worth of DPW employees sitting around waiting for the new library and doing nothing in the meantime?
No, Samis has the real reason. It is a way of giving the library $310,000 above the approved referendum amount. That's fraud, and you don't have to be a lawyer to know it.
But Feiner passes the buck is right on one count. Feiner should make a decision, not write to the State Comptroller. The State Comptroller isn't the town's deputy attorney. The Town Council shouldn't duck. Either justify the expense or eliminate it.
Dear Bob passing the buck,
You go your way and I'll go mine.
The difference between one year's budget and the next year's budget is supposed to be different, to reflect changes and not to represent what was done in the past but instead what is expected to happen in the coming year. That is why we just don't take last year's budget, change the date and make new copies. What was determined as the "operating" business plan of DPW in 2006 when they provided maintenance to "X" number of locations cannot be recycled again using the the same formula when they know for certain (Mr. Regula heads the Town's current construction project, the Library so he was aware that there was no building) that the staffing requirement in the coming year would be to service "X" minus 1 location; that the old Library building's maintenance staff would not be needed for at least two years.
But let's asssume for this conversation that no one was dehired in maintenance and everyone was retained but had less to do because serving the library space (at Town Hall and the multipurpose center (300 feet max) was already being serviced by the existing maintenance staff for those buildings when the functioned exclusively as Town Hall and the multipurpose center. If we go with that analysis then what this says
then is that the Town Council in its exhaustive analysis of the line by line items of each Department should have acted to reduce the DPW's staffing roster so that the costs of retaining these workers -- an annual cost of $310,000 (a figure which does not include the medical and other benefits which would ADD another $100,000 to the Taxpayer's nut) --would not continued just so it could be spread out over the Departments that it still provides service to. Thus Bernstein would taxpayer's believe that cleaning the Town Hall Lobby is the Town Hall maintenance staffer AND the Library maintenance staffer who used to clean the Library. See it wasn't fraud at all.
If we accept Bob's argument, then it makes the Town Council, which provides refinement to the Supervisor's Budget, look pretty stupid. Indeed Mr. Sheehan took twenty minutes the night of the vote on the Final Budget to compliment his Town Council on the exhaustive work they had done analyzing and making changes to the Supervisor's Budget. And they did make some minor changes amounting to I think, $50-$60,000 in a $60 million budget. Let's give them a round of applause.
OK That's enough applause. Remember they also cost taxpayers $400,000 with benefits, either by not seeing the duplication of services or my preference, the fraud.
I guess since I am responding to a litigator I had best dot all the t's and cross all the i's so let me hammer home that at the first Public Hearing on the Budget, the Supervisor's Budget was what was being discussed, the Town Council had not yet produced their version. Thus, it was the Town Council (Bass, Barnes, Juettner and Sheehan) who ignored my comments, either my informational there was no building or, have it Bob's way, failed to see that DPW was not adjusting their staffing to lessened requirements and thus creating a considerable burden to Taxpayers. Either way you pay.
What Mr. Bernstein tells us is normal business practice in America is strange advice coming from an "expert" who has mainly foreign clients but the rest of us lay people who happen upon the occasional obscure business story of large corporations which have gotten into trouble for manufacturing income from divisions that did not exist, from sales that didn't occur, from products that were never shipped, from inventories that never existed. And Greenburgh should follow their bookkeeping?
Perhaps then we in Greenburgh should be honored that out Comptroller can stand shoulder to shoulder with some of those corporate Comptroller's.
Greenburgh cannot provide maintenance services at a cost of (thanks Bob, I might have overlooked it except upon my composing this reply) that the real cost to Taxpayers is $400,000 for a building that doesn't exist, would not exist for any part of the year other than to be torn apart, is not expected to exist in fiscal 2008 and perhaps beyond.
If you think this is good accounting then you must believe in phony receivables, phony assets and...Santa Claus. You are the right man in the right Edgemont role to go to the Bank to refinance the mortgage on the Edgemont Town Hall.
And if you believe the Library staffing expense figures, you will see that if positions were not eliminated or fill vacancies, the Library did cut back on part time positions. I don't want to sound disrespectful and I certainly don't have the Edgemont credentials but the Library staff is well trained, achieving pay levels by passing tests and are also user friendly as they deal almost exclusively with the public and need to have extensive knowledge in many areas. Their severance would be the loss of a tremendous resource when the Library eventually opens sometime in 2009. Let me act the lunatic and predict what the Construction Manager still can't predict. However, it is also true that if the existing staff could hardly be contained in 22,000 feet, how can they be contained in 5,000 feet.
So yes, Feiner did participate and did what he did which is what they all did. And the vote was cast by all of them to approve the entire Town Budget something that had to be done by a date certain just after mid-December. If these votes have to occur by this date and it is known every year when the date is, then the Town Board should start the Budget process earlier in the Fall so that there is more time for them to jerk around and ignore what is staring them in the face or listen to what they hear from the Public at the appropriate venue, the Public Hearing on the Budget.
So, if this all boils down to you say potatoh and I say potatah, or you say only Feiner the Chief Financial Officer is responsible for both his and the Town Council's Budget and I say they are all responsible, fine. Either way, the taxpayer's are stuck for a bill for $400,000 for a Line Item which simply does not exist and there is no reasonable expectation that it will exist or spent on that item's appropriate line for that Department for the next two years.
But if you are so certain that this is the way to go and that nothing is wrong, then I guess taxpayers can expect to see this number to grow by 3% next year (2008) so that those people not doing the work on the building which doesn't exist can get their contractual wage increases.
Or "we can just call the whole thing off".
Dear amateur accountant,
Just read your posting.
Great minds do think alike
and ships do pass in the night.
Samis is selling snake oil.
For a variety of reasons, the town board, Feiner included, made the decision early on that no town staff should be fired during the library renovation.
That applies not just to library staff, but also to DPW staff.
The town's practice is to allocate its DPW maintenance costs among the various town buildings that utilize those services.
If no one is being terminated, then those maintenance costs allocated to the library are likely to remain relatively the same, even when the library is under construction.
The suggestion that this is some secret way to raise money for the library is nonsense. The DPW expense covers the cost of its budget. Instead of being layed off, those DPW employees not working on maintaining the library are being deployed elsewhere -- just as the library staff that wasn't layed off is being deployed elsewhere.
Unlike what Feiner did with the WestHELP money, here there's no secret off-the-books slush fund. Everything is transparent and fully-accounted for.
Nevertheless, it seems that Samis and his anti-library cohorts will say or do anything they can to trash the library and, since DPW head Al Regula is the town's point man on the library, they trash DPW too.
Town council members have already answered Samis in spades about all this, but because the answers he gets don't fit neatly with his anti-library screed, he could care less what they say.
Feiner of course knows all this too -- after all, he's been allocating the DPW budget this way for as long as anyone can remember -- but in the teeth of Samis's unrelenting and ill-informed tirade, Feiner's apparently too timid to set the record straight.
When residents make allegations that the town is taking action that is not appropriate, I like to check out the allegations. I may think we're doing things right. It makes good sense to seek second independent opinions after our decisions have been questioned.
Here's Bob Bernstein back wearing his snake oil moniker.
"The Town Council has already answered me in spades..."
but I still win with 7 no trump.
However, when did the Town Council answer me much less take out their marked deck of cards. Please, prety please, what did the Town Council actually say? If you know take pity on my faulty memory and tell what the Town Council said.
"Everthing is transparent and fully accounted for"
The only transparent thing is the scotch tape that the taxpayer money is sticking to. How do you spend $310,000 on a building which doesn't exist? How do you account for it? I don't think you can now say that Town Hall requires $339,000 before the Library plus the $310,000 after or the total of $649,000 of building maintenance plus the contribution from the Credit Union as their share. Nor is anyone visiting Town Hall going to come away with the impression that Town Hall is spotless.
"The Town's practice is to allocate its DPW maintenance costs among the various town buildings that utilize those services."
Samis says:
Where is the Library? Doesn't the above suggest the need for a building to utilize the services?
The Town Board made the decision not to fire any staff during the renovation. First off, they cannot lay off the Library staff, only the DPW maintenance staff. With whatever quasi status the Library hides under, the Library has succeeded in convincing the Town that theirs is a no fly over zone. Ok course anonymous the alleged expert on corporation bookkeeping manages to overlook that the humane decision is not necessarily the correct one.
Even while the Library Board never considered the cost of payroll in the two plus years of down time.
But what the author is trying to ram down my throat is that if a DPW maintenance worker assigned to the Library is not being utilized as, say a sanitation worker, his salary is charged to the Library maintenance budget and the Sanitation budget gets the worker for nothing. OK, where is the footnote that explains this? How would an auditor know that a Department with (I'm picking a number) 10 employees only is paying 8 of them? And this is acceptable accounting? I think not.
But what have I actually written.
Look back on my previous comments and you see not the anti-Library screed that anonymous says but an almost apologetic statement to have to find this accounting problem in the Library Budget and that I don't hold the Library responsible for the line item.
Yet the snake oil comments say that I have made a suggestion that the $310,000 is a secret way to raise money for the Library. Here are the blog postings, scroll up and find where I've said that?
It's the same old story, use an anonymous name and be free to say anything with a shred of proof.
Then let's examine the thought that everyone's working elsewhere. Please offer some proof of this. Where are they working? Was this a vacant position? or is this a make work assignment? Why isn't this work charged to the appropriate Department instead of being called building maintenance? With such ascribed transparency in place, is this an example of it? Are Library staffers now being called maintenance workers? The bottom line is that this is more bullshit and there is no proof to sustain that it is otherwise.
And again, it is Feiner's fault, "he" has been allocating the DPW budget this way for years. What is definitely Feiner's fault is that apparently Feiner's been doing everyone's work all these years and allowing taxpayers to waste money on the various Department head salaries: Comptroller, Attorney, DPW and the Town Council. What have they been doing all these years if Feiner has been doing their jobs? What a great deal for them, Feiner does their work and they get the paycheck. Of course we already know that Barnes and Juettner aren't worth a nickel. Bass' script is written by Bernstein and Sheehan gets paid 11 cents a word. Incidental #1: Juettner missed another Library Board of Trustees meeting tonight and the next scheduled one is Thursday when the Democrats meet. Where will she be?
Incidental #2 The Library Building committee reported that the old Town Hall is going to need an ADDITIONAL and unanticipated $100,000 worth of asbestos removal. Get the change order ready. Who messed up? Ask Mr. Regula but I'm betting on Triton.
Finally if I'm selling snake oil, then let me report my income the way the Town Comptroller would.
I sold two dozen bottles two years ago @ $1.00 per bottle for $24. Last year with the onset of the 100 year storm, my ENTIRE inventory was lost in the subsequent flooding and I wasn't able to sell anything but, not to worry, I still made $24 because my factory always produces two dozen bottles for sale, come rain or shine.
The Town Board should analyze what Mr. Samis says, even if they don't like the messenger. Mr. Samis has been right on the money when it comes to the library. The 4 council members have not done their job overseeing the library construction.
The comments on the blog have always praised Samis ,of his knowledge about,the library fiasco. The four board members,were totaly against hearing his message. People expressed,their sentiments on the blog about the four and their do nothing policies.Feiner and Samis were against the library ,SAMIS knew the monies involved were ridiculous for the footage.Who needs all that space anyway with the new computer age.Feiner wanted to wait till the November election,to put forth the referendum,but the four said no.The blame has to fall on the so called board members, who sit there making believe that they represent the residents.We do not need the four members .Elections are coming up,we could start by getting rid of two.
Feiner and Samis are preaching only to library opponents when they attack the library project as a "fiasco."
It's clear their relentless attacks are rooted in local politics -- presumably all part of a Karl-Rove-like desire by Feiner to do a better job than he did last time of mobilizing his base.
In the two years since voters approved the project, not one single vocal supporter of the project has been persuaded that the project is in any difficulty whatsoever.
It's too bad that a worthy civic project like a library has to be mired in the muck and mud that Feiner and Samis continue to fling -- all in the desperate hope (and they keep getting more desperate with each passing day) that something they say will actually have merit.
Feiner and Samis are not preaching about the library. They have stated the facts from the very begining. They were only stating the truth. For some the truth hurts.They were looking at the big picture ,well they proved themselves right.
The "facts" as manufactured by Feiner and Samis are nothing more than self-fulfilling prophecies intended to show that they were right and the voters were wrong.
Their mudslinging appeals to no one other than those who were opposed to the project in the first place.
The more malicious and hysterical their attacks, however, the more determined those who support the library will be.
Preaching to the choir is bad?
You object to this?
Don't come to the blog.
No one forces you and I'm sure you are important and have better things to do.
But let's say my market is not to "persuade a single vocal supporter of the project but instead all those little people who don't speak up but can read.
People who can read may even be people who use the Library. People who thought that the Library Trustees knew what they were doing.
A Library is indeed a worthy civic project and who said otherwise.
That does not mean that all Library expansions are worthy; that all people running these projects are worthy; that the Greenburgh expansion in specific is worthy; that the Greenburgh Library Board of Trustees should be running the project.
Let's not try and fit everything and everyone under one umbrella.
If you are preaching to me, a vocal critic, you are similarly wasting your time.
Actually, you might be more on target if you accused me of overkill. I don't have to say anything more at this point because the project is already under water and I don't mean due to a hundred year flood.
If you don't see merit in even pointing out that the construction which was to start Spring 2006 but didn't until January 2007, if you don't understand that the Construction Manager expected the Project to be COMPLETED November 2007, if you aren't troubled knowing that they still aren't at the go-ahead stage for the HVAC system four months into construction, then I don't have to cite the other 101 proofs of fiasco.
Other than my enjoyment in playing with fools like you, I don't have to say anything...the project is already underwater and sinking under its own weight. I write these postings so that taxpayers won't be surprised when the project is called finished.
And, two years after the referendum was passed in May 2005, the job is four months underway and the Construction Manager still doesn't know when the Library job will be completed. I can assure you that this is not on the checklist of a healthy project.
But don't let your own faith interfere with the process. When the Library asks you for money to complete the Project, give generously on behalf of all in belonging to the anonymous choir.
The unknown and anonymous poster at 1:27 says that Feiner's and Samis' facts are nothing more than self-fulfilling prophecies. Well, if they are self-fulfilling they must be correct. If they are not correct then they wouldn't be self-fulfilling.
By the way, I don't know why you are including Feiner. He hasn't said anything bad about the library project since suggesting that the referendum should wait a few months, and he has been proven wise on that one. It is Samis who has been giving us facts. I appreciate what Samis has been saying, because no credible answers have been given to his questions. Probably it is too late for the Town Council to give credible answers without risking losing the election.
FEINER AND SAMIS THANK YOU.To bad the rest of the board will not give you and us the answers to all the questions that were asked throughout the years.They had better see if they can do some damage control,before we get hit with another raise in taxes for the library .
Anonymous said...
I was reading the local paper today, the headline is Mt. Kisco Cops get support. Deputy Mayor expects officers to be cleared.
Would be nice if the Town of Greenburgh Police Department Officers had YOUR SUPPORT in the upcomming federal law suit mess that you have created !!!!
Should be funny when you come ask the POLICE OFFICERS for their support in your upcomming election ...... just makes me laugh
You can ask the Police officers for support during an election, but it doesn't really matter because not many of them live in Town to Vote.
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