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GREENBURGH, N.Y. – The Greenburgh Town Council passed a proposal Tuesday with a plea to state representatives: draft a resolution that will allow the town to lease or license a tennis facility at Anthony F. Veteran Park that is open to the general public.
“We’re not the drafters,” Supervisor Paul Feiner said of the law Tuesday at a special meeting. “We’re basically asking them to do something to help us achieve our goal of opening up tennis courts to private vendors.”
The resolution, rewritten Tuesday after concerns were raised about the likelihood it would be approved by state lawmakers, is a continuation of the town’s attempt to bring Sportime, an athletic facilities company, to Greenburgh.
The company has pledged to build a “tennis bubble” at the park that would include a sheltered tennis facility covering nine courts, allowing residents to play tennis year-round.
Supporters of the plan, including Supervisor Paul Feiner, tout a potential for $3 million in revenue over the next 15 years from the lease of the facility and improvements to the aging tennis courts at no cost to the town.
Opponents argue the park is funded by residents of unincorporated Greenburgh and should, therefore, only be open to them.
But amid a series of last minute emails and conversations with state representatives and village mayors, the town board said the resolution, as it was written, may have had trouble passing through the state.
“They wanted something more general,” said Council member Francis Sheehan, referring to State Sen. Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D-Yonkers) and Assembly member Thomas Abinanti (D-Greenburgh).
As a result, the town is deferring to the two representatives, asking them to draft something more likely to pass, with or without changing the wording of the controversial Finneran Law of 1982, which restricts the use of the park to only residents of unincorporated Greenburgh.
Without finding a way around that law, or an actual amendment to that law, Sportime has said it will not come to Greenburgh because the current law significantly restricts park usage and would not profitable enough.
As an alternative to amending the law, which was previously proposed, town officials are now open to gaining approval to lease the land while leaving the law untouched.
“This way we don’t get into Finneran Law,” Feiner said.
The town’s hope is that with Tuesday’s approval of the resolution, state lawmakers will be able to address the issue before they break for recess this summer.
But opponents to the plan, including Edgemont lawyer and civic leader Bob Berstein, said the Edgemont Community Council and a number of other civic associations will continue to urge legislators not to adopt a proposal as it will leave residents in unincorporated Greenburgh exposed and without protection to a bad contract with Sportime or any other vendor.
The proposal could also lead to a lift of restrictions on all town property that are currently supposed to be limited to unincorporated residents, Bernstein said, warning that could lead to huge costs for unincorporated residents.
“We will do everything in our power to persuade the state legislators that this is a truly bad idea and they should not embrace it at this time,” Bernstein told the board.
Comments (6)
While the town board did agree last night to allow two residents up to three minutes to speak on the proposed Finneran amendments, the town board refused to accept the suggestion that whatever contracts with private vendors are entered into by the town -- supposedly for the benefit of unincorporated Greenburgh -- be reviewed for fairness by the state comptroller's office. In every other town in New York, those who are taxed for part-town recreation have a legal right to have all such contracts entered into by a town board reviewed for fairness by the state comptroller's office. If Mr. Feiner feels that whatever contracts the town board agrees to with Sportime or any other private vendor would be fair to unincorporated area residents, then why is Mr. Feiner so reluctant to let the state comptroller's office review them for that purpose? That should be a major red flag for every taxpayer in unincorporated Greenburgh.
And, to make matters even worse for unincorporated Greenburgh taxpayers, the Town Board last night first said it was removing from its proposal any reference to accepting state and county grants because they seemed to understand that such a proposal could potentially allow use restrictions to be lifted at all town parks and recreational facilities, thereby potentially subjecting unincorporated area taxpayers to even more costs than those resulting from the town's current violations of the Finneran Law in that respect -- and then the Town Board at the last minute put the references to the county and state grants back into the proposal.
This additional measure has, of course, nothing whatsoever to do with the tennis bubble proposal, but it does underscore just how underhanded and devious the Town Board has been in not being candid with the residents on this matter. For this reason, among others, the Council of Greenburgh Civic Associations last night passed a resolution objecting to the Town Board's proposal to get Finneran amended -- thus joining the Village Officials Committee in opposing the amendments as well.
We accepted public comment at the Board meeting last night and made a change in the wording after listening to a resident---revenues from the tennis bubble will go to unincorporated Greenburgh--not the A budget.
PAUL FEINER
"We accepted public comment at the Board meeting last night..."
Feiner makes it seem so cloyingly democratic yet even appearances can be disappearing when you go behind the scenes. Strange too that Feiner doesn't mention the name of the "helpful" resident who made 'sense'; perhaps because Feiner is so busy wasting dollars and now looks to save the cents that not awarding the coveted certificate of appreciation would incur as a printing expense. However just what does "We accepted public comment" really mean? Not anything that would make proponents of Open Meetings Law cheer.
What it does me mean is that first you hold the vote on an important Resolution during a Special Meeting when past practice has been to exclude public comment. Then you hold the Special Meeting in a small conference room because either you want to show off your newly donated "previously owned" chairs or, because you don't really expect anyone to show up. Then you don't publish an Agenda for the Special Meeting despite being reminded two times during the day -- no Agenda as of 3:00. And, you don't have a reliable Resolution for the public to see before the meeting -- or even one for the Town Board to vote upon. But most of all, you don't expect to see many of the usual suspects because you schedule the Special Meeting for the convenience of a Town Board member and do so knowing that for decades the Council of Greenburgh Civic Associations has claimed the 3rd Tuesday of each month for their meeting. At last night's Council meeting were Madelon & Rod O'Shea, Ella Preiser, Danny Gold, Alice Moroney, Domenick Caratozzolo, Tom Bock, Maria Gomez (all frequent visitors to Town Hall) and my humble self (auditing the session). This just might explain why attendance at the Special Meeting was expected to be sparse. This combined with the reasonable expectation that silence is the usual reward for attending a Special Meeting.
Another discouraging reason not to attend the Special Meeting is the Town Board's usual trick of letting the public stew and fume while the Town Board members don't have the courtesy to start their own meetings on time. Work Sessions and Special Meetings, scheduled for the convenience of the Town Board, rarely start when scheduled and last night was no exception. The Special Meeting, scheduled for a 9:00 curtain unraveled as anticipated but like the lottery "you never know" so if you go, you take your chances. Over time, this tends to discourage the public from attending -- Tuesday mornings at 9:30 being the normal start but the practice is to start a little before 10:00 and sometimes as late as 10:30. (Feiner on camera never announces accurately when the meeting starts but often makes of joke of "around 9:30").
So, Greenburgh watchers know that even once the meeting begins, winning the lottery offers higher possibilities than speaking at a Work Session or Special Meeting. In turn, this is why the Town Board has chosen Special Town Board Meetings as the venue of choice when voting upon really important Resolutions. My congrats to Bob Bernstein and Herb Rosenberg who had the foresight and temerity to attend last night and were successful in wresting 3 minutes to make their points. Not allowing these two to speak (Bob the voice of unincorporated and Herb the voice of incorporated) would be the equivalent of the White House shutting the door in the faces of both the British and the Russian Prime Ministers. So perhaps the gesture was not so much one of acknowledging open government but the calculated desire to remain the elected government.
Hal Samis
Feiner is so bent on having a bubble in the town he keeps bringing it up every two years. First it was 2007, then 2009 and now in 2012. We all know his buddy Abinanti will do give him whatever he wants - payback for trying to keep Fortress Bible Church out of Abinanti's neighborhood. There isn't even a contract on the table for this. Villages have Mayors and Village Boards to protect them. Us? We have Feiner, and his sad group of minions NOT protecting anyone but their own self interests! Let's vote them all out of office!
cont.
So how can AMEND the law be taken as anything other than amending the law?
But all of this is smoke and mirrors to hide, using Sportime as the ruse, the go for it cheese on the trap of the intended, fiendish plot to nullify Finneran and render it harmless. Anyone wonder what accepting State and County grants has to do with operating a tennis bubble? And why not throw in Federal grants for good measure? When you accept grants from a higher governing body, you have to allow their constituencies to use the facilities which the grant covers. Can you imagine the fuss were someone from Buffalo whose State taxes were used to provide Greenburgh with funding for its Town Park arrive at Veteran Park on a hot August afternoon and be denied access as a non-resident? Can you more likely imagine someone from Ardsley being turned away were State funds used to repair the Pool?
The real cooperation came from the duplicitous Village Mayors who "opposed" the Resolution. Not unlike Bre'r rabbit cowering in fear and begging that whatever they do, "don't throw me in that there briar patch". If it sounded too good to be true, maybe it was too good to be true.
And were the Resolution, the imagined one reported by Mr. Blutman, real, does that not constitute a material change from that which was presented at the "Public Discussion last week"? 'Seeking an Amendment' to 'not seeking an Amendment'? Or was the use of "Public Discussion" during last weeks vacation period held as such so as not to be bound by testimony presented at a "Public Hearing"?
Peace of mind is clearly not the by-product of Town Board tinkering.
Hal Samis
Funny how I get the completely opposite impression from "But instead of amending the law which was previously proposed, town officials are now attempting to get approval to lease the land while leaving the law untouched". Yep that's what it says right above in Mr. Bultman's article.
The only problem I have is this is what appears on the Agenda for the Special Town Board Meeting at which the Resolution was adopted. Special Town Board Meetings (vs. regular Town Board Meetings) are used when the Town Board needs to vote but doesn't want to allow Public comment.
Agenda for Special Meeting of the Greenburgh Town Board Tuesday, April 17, 2012, 9:00 PM
Roll Call: Town Clerk Judith Beville
TOWN BOARD – 993-1544
TB 1 – 4/17/12 Resolution requesting that the New York State Legislature amend
Chapter 891 of the Laws of 1982 (“The Finneran Law”) to allow receipt of State and County Grant Funding, as well as to permit both residents and nonresidents of the Town to use tennis facilities at Anthony F. Veteran Park, in the discretion of the Town Board after a Public Hearing
In fact the revised Resolution sent mid afternoon Tuesday reads:
RESOLUTION REQUESTING THAT THE NEW YORK STATE LEGISLATURE AMEND CHAPTER 891 OF THE LAWS OF 1982 ("THE FINNERAN LAW") TO ALLOW TOWN RECEIPT OF STATE AND COUNTY GRANT FUNDING, AS WELL AS TO PERMIT BOTH RESIDENTS AND NONRESIDENTS OF THE TOWN TO USE TENNIS FACILITIES AT ANTHONY F. VETERAN PARK, IN THE DISCRETION OF THE TOWN BOARD AFTER A PUBLIC HEARING