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GREENBURGH, N.Y. – According to Edgemont civic leaders, the small community continues to be left out of Greenburgh town decisions.
Greenburgh Town Council members unanimously approved a pair of controversial resolutions Wednesday, the same night many in Edgemont were at their Annual Community Council meeting.
The move has drawn the ire of some in the community who say the town board was taking advantage of an opportunity to pass the legislation without any vocal opposition.
“It’s the same old, same old,” said Edgemont Community Council President Geoff Loftus. “Edgemont is being ignored once again. But we’re not the only ones in Greenburgh who will suffer from either of these laws.”
On Wednesday, Greenburgh Town Council passed a resolution that will require residents to bag or mulch their leaves in the fall. Loftus pointed to Edgemont resident Stuart Seeley’s study that said the move could end up costing taxpayers 30 times what the town would save.
But the town board has a history of ignoring concerns from the community, Loftus said.
“They operate the way they want to operate,” he said. “They don’t listen to anybody.”
The same night, the board also passed a resolution that will revamp how has stations are zoned along Central Park Avenue, paving the way for Cumberland Farms to build on the intersection of Central Park Avenue and Old Army Road.
Town Supervisor Paul Feiner said Edgemont community members have had a number of opportunities to have their voices heard throughout the process of finalizing the two pieces of legislation.
“This hasn’t been a secret,” he said. “The gas station we’ve been talking about for almost a year.”
Comments (8)
Bonnie Orden from Edgemont was a superb judicial candidate. Yet she could not get elected despite strong support in Edgemont. Unless we get term limits or district representation, Feiner will be the supervisor. He doesnt need Edgemont to get re-elected. This is political reality.
Did someone mention Niagara Falls?
Back to the article above which reported that two old issues were voted upon on a night when Edgemont residents were likely to be attending the annual meeting of the Edgemont Community Council. Neither issue scheduled for a vote was particularly time sensitive and both could have easily been held over had the Town Board wanted to appear "concerned" about insulting Edgemont residents. Both issues were particularly relevant to Edgemont civic leaders: a law affecting Central Avenue gas stations (Central Avenue runs through the middle of Edgemont) and a leaf-bagging law which will create a new financial burden upon homeowners without providing any demonstrable tax relief. But even if it was old news by Wednesday night, the Town Board could easily have held off the vote -- even if only moving it to a Special Town Board Meeting attached to next Tuesday's Work Session. I am on record opposing the increasing volume of town business which now gets handled at Special Town Board Meetings but given the growing animus between Feiner and the ECC, Feiner might have tried to dial down existing tensions by postponing the vote on these two Resolutions to a more congenial time. The gas station code change is but 8 months old (a relatively short rite of passage) while the bagging law is less than 4 months -- leaves don't drop until late Fall.
What Feiner did was allow separate public comment on the Resolutions -- a generous "gift" but a calculated one knowing that only Ella Preiser and myself were likely to speak (neither of us residents of Edgemont). While the gas station's 8 months in the making does not qualify as a "rush", the fact remains that the newest version of the code was not available until only a few hours before the vote. Ella and I both commented that it was not good form to hold the vote when those most affected by the laws were unable to attend.
What makes it even more perplexing is that the Town Board is scheduled to appear at the next monthly meeting of the ECC in early May. Wouldn't it have been better politics to start the meeting with a less cluttered slate rather than starting with the most recent memory being an administrative slap in the face to the hosts of the meeting? But that's how Feiner promotes marginalization to his benefit.
Hal Samis
Oh in 2012 ecc folks claim 2005 study was flawed
Diehards try again.
Funny how bob bernstein casts off alliances
With villagers while he is working with villager herb rosenberg
To get the valhalla money back
from the new york times in 2005 pertaining to getting people to focus on Feiner and considering incorporation for Edgemont where you pay a fortune in taxes and cannot elect your own reprentative:
... like most Feiner critics, he (Mr. Bernstein) has struggled to gain the attention of voters busy with work and children -- voters much like the Robert B. Bernstein of two years ago.
''Most folks don't pay a lot of attention to this,'' he said. ''They look at whether the garbage is picked up or a pothole is fixed.''
Ok, lets jump from 1920 to 1967 - a vote on incorporation was defeated 3:1
ok lets jump to 2005 - exploratory committee report on Edgemont incorporation lands flat.
subsequently state government passes law to encourage municipal consolidation.
romney says, corporations are people my friend.
dear friends in edgemont, incorporation is best left to business. Its just not real and its bizarre it keeps coming up. reason? - see quote from NY Times above.
In my comment earlier today, I said Edgemont was larger than Dobbs Ferry. I had meant to say Edgemont was larger than Elmsford. Edgemont will ultimately do what is in Edgemont's own best interests both politically and economically. It will not turn on what village residents or town Democrats or town officials may want us to do; nor should it. Indeed, "alliances" are laughable. Nor will it turn on on dissatisfaction with any elected or appointed town officials. It will turn instead on whether Edgemont feels that it can provide the municipal services we need better and more efficiently than the Town. Most village residents in Greenburgh tend to be happy with their own village governments and do not seek to consolidate with the Town, This is because they place a premium on local control. Given the huge success that Edgemont has had operating its own school and fire districts, I believe most Edgemont residents, if given the opportunity, will agree with the Town's village residents -- that village government, while not perfect, works best. Incorporation doesn't turn on what life might have been like in the 1920s and we'll all know how Edgemont really feels about the issue when the matter is put to a vote.
Dobbs Ferry has over 11, 000 residents so its larger than Edgemont. Of course, Dobbs Ferry has its own village board. Many years ago residents of the Town of Greenburgh challenged in Federal Court the right of village residents to elect members to the Town Board who primarily govern the unincorporated areas such as Edgemont. The court upheld the right of village taxpayers to vote in townwide elections because the Town taxes them even though village residents, if they acted in concert, could elect folks to the Town Board that favored their interests to the detriment of the unincorporated areas. What has actually happened is that the villages want little to do with the Town (other than approve fire district contracts) and with the disintegration of the GC7 school district, Hartsdale has lost any political identity and Fairview seems relatively happy so long as the Town keeps the Theodore Young Community Center funded. In other words, the Town is completely balkanized and truly exists in name only (there of course being no such mailing address as Greenburgh, New York except at Town Hall.
go tell it to the mountain - the town democratic party that endorses feiner and his third tier gang of
lemmings. does diana juettner say anyting other than "second" every feiner motion especially when he says move to adjourn the town board meetings? short of incorporating as a village ( an idea discussed since the 1920s and which has not been well received by anything close to a majority of edgemont taxpayers), edgemont's recourse is to make alliances with village taxpayers to end career politican feiner's reign of mismanagement, dysfunction and abject inability to govern or even be interested in governing. Instead he is busy with the Tappan Zee bridge, Indian Point etc.
Edgemont is not a "small community." it has a population in excess of 8,000, which makes it about the same size as the Village of Hastings. It is larger than the villages of Ardsley, Irvington and Dobbs Ferry. It has it's own school and fire districts, for which it pays around $60 million in taxes a year. Edgemont pays nearly 25% of unincorporated Greenburgh taxes. Therefore, when the town government continuously ignores Edgemont and thumbs it's nose at its civic leaders, which it seems to do on a regular basis, they do at their own peril.