This blog site continues to get lots of traffic. This weekend we reached the 150,000+ blog visit. The blog was started in the late summer of 2006.
Please feel free to post your comments about Greenburgh town issues on this blog. Your comments are appreciated.
THIS WEEK--
Interviews with comptroller candidates...
Meeting with Board, Theodore Young Community Center Tuesday night...
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11 comments:
Dear Mr. Supervisor,
I have been reading about the improper assessments of properties and incorrect taxation concerning the town's sewer districts. The State has now intervened and is auditing the town. Given the deafening silence from the town, we must assume that the information fowarded to the State by town residents has been considered and acknowledged to be accurate. I have the following questions; Does the Town have in place a contingency plan to deal with the litigation that undoubtably will be forthcoming? Does the Town have in place a plan to change the way you tax residents? Next month the new tax bill goes out which includes sewer taxes. If the State says you have taxed people improperly and you STILL send them the same tax bill, the town is being placed in legal jeopardy. The residents of the town who are being taxed illegally have a right to be made whole again. I hope that the town department heads have considered the long range implications of the State's decision and have contingency plans in place.
Paul 150,000 visitors is great but I have a ? for you. How many times does the Supervisor re visit this blog site to update people on what he posts? It seems like most of the comments hardly are ever updated by the Supervisor. care to comment?
School transport to other schools:
Some residents of Greenburgh are asking the simple question: Why should Greenburgh Town School buses transport children from the Town of Greenburgh who have decided to go to private schools in other towns (Dobbs Ferry, etc) rather than the schools in Greenburgh? Should not such students find their own way to school if they decide not to attend Greenburgh schools? Is it not unfair to allow some families to drain the resources of the Town by deciding to send their kids to other schools or is there a plus/minus thing here, that is by children going to schools in other towns they create some space for another kid in the Greenburgh schools?
State Law mandates that what ever services are provided to public school children must be provided to private school children also. We pay taxes too. all the school district provides to privates school students is, buses and a couple of text books. I think in Greenburgh #7 there are around 600 private school students,that choose not to attend the local schools. Just imagine how much more money it would cost if they all opted to go to Greenburgh schools, more teachers would be needed ect..
Dear 5:15
School tax and town tax are two separate things. One has nothing to do with the other.
There are approximately 1200 Greenburgh students attending other schools private or otherwise.
The families of these students contribute roughly 8.4 million dollars in taxes to the Greenburgh School District.
The extra cost to bus these children to their respective schools was 55K in 2006. I’m sure it’s gone up, but, it is incidental. The reason that the amount is so low is because they is an overlap off services to both the GC kids and those attending other schools. For example: One bus, one driver. He/she makes one run to pick-up & drop of kids to GC and then makes a run for kids in other schools, completes the 2nd run. Same with the afternoon schedule. So, they don’t really hire extra drivers and they don’t need extra buses. If not in a private school, these kids would have to be bussed to GC anyway. Gas is most likely the biggest expense.
The service to the students is substandard to those students in GC as they are ‘fit into” the GC schedule. Many of these students endure long rides as the trips are scheduled to pick up as many as possible despite where they live or what school they are headed for. Many of these students arrive at school late, routes are changed frequently, drivers are rotated often & they barely get acclimated to the route before a new driver shows up. This causes many problems.
Each year that the Greenburgh Central budget vote comes around, there a threat made to pull the busing for these students IF it gets voted down. It’s akin to extortion. Thankfully, there have been school board members bright enough to realize that they would rather have 8.4 million UNQUESTIONED tax dollars then have all of these families who freely fork it over, question where every cent goes, if there were to be annoyed. Given that Greenburgh spends 26.7K per student to give their students a mediocre education, pay staff outrageously high salaries and mismanage funds, I’m sure they see it as a 55k well spent.
I think this answers your question.
Close the center it will bring us more trouble.
A blogger suggested to make a senior housing complex where the center stands now.
This would be the best site for such a building since everything is just a stone throw away.
The schools in Greenburgh do have almost all of the programs
that the center has.
The town is looking to get rid of duplicate services well the center has what you are trying to accomplish.
We can't close the schools but we could close the center.
EXTRA! EXTRA!
Hello Mr. and Mrs. America and all the ships at sea...
"Not The Journal Inquirer" reports in today's business section:
Google to counter Microsoft/Yahoo merger with own offer to buy Feiner blog!
Is Doc Stockmann actually the Reagan supply-side guru David Stockman who is under Federal indictment. His comment was impossible to understand. Maybe it was an inside joke. Maybe something out of the Shawshank Redemption, the Big House, or 20,000 at Sing-Sing.
Milton F.
Dear Mr. Friedman (Uncle Miltie),
Doc Stockmann is a character in Ibsen's "An Enemy of the People", the one who spilled the beans.
Although Bed, Bath & Beyond, Linens N' Things and Chef's Kitchen all offer excellent jars with locking caps which can be used to store beans, rumor has it that the committee(s) to interview Town Comptroller candidates are having great difficulty in moving past bean counters and up to hiring a bean spiller.
If you are still confused, I'd like to help you out. Which way did you come in?
Speaking of conservation and the use of alternate means other than fossil fuel, these remarks were said almost four years ago.
How Time Passes!
Four years ago I was criticized for suggesting that we use wind power. I may have even mentioned the summit of Taxter Ridge as a possible location and I was excoriated by members of the CABAL. Now some of these same people may be part of the anonymous carping critics who, as usual, are blowing hot air at the Supervisor and the new Board. It was the old Board that ignored this statement. As I recall it was our super lawyer friend who accused me of abusing the pristiness of Taxter Ridge. Frankly, as I recall I mentioned parts of Veternan's Park and along the Hudson River. Eventually we will pay an even higher price at the pump, or with some of our vistas.
This past Wednesday, on my show, "The Advocates" I had on Michel Lee, who is an active member of IPSEC, and other nuclear watchdog groups and we discussed the various avenues that we could explore regarding the replacement of the 2000 MGW's now being produced by Indian Point. If we don't start looking now, another few years will pass, and our costs will continue to escalate and drive both businesses and people from our region.
Of course, the naysayers, then and now, scorned these suggestions, and mocked the idea. They were worried about people having loud windmills in their neighbor's yards and the environmental damage to Taxter Ridge. Did they really believe that? Probably not! They just were a combination of NIMBYISTS and people opposed to anything said by a friend or supporter of the Supervisor. Well look at his energy initiatives. They were at the cutting edge. Also, let us recall that many of the same people opposed the "energy office" and the solar panels at Town Hall. Every journey starts with a small step.
By the way one can hear Michel Lee and her remarks on Indian Point at http://advocates-wvox.com.
Wind Turbines an Alternative to
Fossil Fuels
Message
To
Town of Greenburgh Parks and Recreation Advisory Board
May 5, 2004
Richard J. Garfunkel
Today we face an ongoing problem regarding the usage of fossil fuels. Obviously, from a market perspective the price of oil seems to be on an upward path, not destined to be ameliorated or tempered by positive market factors, short of a recession, for the foreseeable future. Also the dependency of overseas suppliers adds to our trade deficit and exacerbates our ongoing political problems. Places like Nigeria, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and the like are in the near term and long term, potentially unstable. Today Iraq and Venezuela are prime examples of nations with huge reserves that are currently under jeopardy for totally different reasons.
Therefore from a geopolitical perspective the search for alternate and renewable resources should be paramount on the minds of both the government and the public it serves. Wind power is an increasingly significant renewable energy resource, producing no environmental CO2 emissions. The wind turbine collects kinetic energy from the wind and converts it to electricity. There are three bladed types that are operated “upwind” and two-bladed types that operate “downwind.” Wind turbines are manufactured by many companies around the world and this country, and come in all sizes with different though similar configurations. They are engineered to fit into the power grid, and they can be easily adapted to our current electrical system. From an environmental perspective their noise levels are equivalent to quiet bedroom at night. In a sense they would be 30% quieter than listening to a car travel by at 40 mph from a distance of 100 meters. Wind turbines can be extremely cost affective depending on the height of the tower and the constant speed of the wind. As per example a small wind turbine typically lowers one’s electricity bill between 50 and 90%. A typical wind turbine starts produce power at 6 mph. Of course, depending on the size and its efficiency, the payment may take a varied amount of time. Generally it takes 8-9 mph average speeds to make one’s site quite viable.
Presently the Town of Greenburgh, which includes villages and unincorporated areas, also has a long stretch of land that parallels the Hudson River. This may be the appropriate time to look carefully at some of the parkland, neighborhoods with wooded buffer zones and the Hudson River frontage as places where wind turbines could be placed.
As per example; in Searsburg, Vermont, 11 wind turbines, which cost $11 million to build, with $4 million from the DOE, produces 6 megawatts- that provides the energy for 2000 homes. Of course these are large “wind turbines” and they serve different, but similar ends.
My suggestion is that we form a small working committee to establish a “task force” on alternative sources of energy. This “task force” should not be limited to wind turbines, but explore solar energy, hybrid cars, and conservation.
Richard J. Garfunkel
Richard,
If Greenburgh wanted to help with the environment, we would think local. My pet peeve -- the traffic exiting the garage at the Hartsdale station. In a convulated Rube Goldfarb layout, cars wanting to leave and go east on Hartsdale Avenue have to exit going west and then go through the garage behind the stores to go back onto Hartsale avenue. This results in traffic in the garage backed up level after level. What is needed is a police officer to direct traffic AND KEEP IT MOVING, AND ARRANE FOR A LANE EXITING TO ACTUALLY TURN ONTO EASTBOUND HARTSDALE AVENUE. But this will never happens. No one cares. Feiner certianly doesnt. So tilt at windmills. But it would be nice if someone could look at local solutions to cut polution.
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