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GREENBURGH, N.Y. – Town officials are celebrating after state lawmakers gave their last-minute approval to a law needed to bring a seasonal tennis facility to Greenburgh.
On Thursday, the final day of the legislative session, state senators approved a piece of legislation that will allow a winter tennis bubble, open to the public, to be built in Anthony F. Veteran Park. Supervisor Paul Feiner and members of the town council said it was an exciting day for Greenburgh.
The legislation “enables the town to increase recreation opportunities for our residents, to generate significant revenue for the town from a private tennis court operator and to improve the infrastructure of our tennis courts at no cost to the taxpayers,” Feiner and town officials said in a prepared statement.
For weeks Feiner has been pushing to get the measure passed, which allows residents outside unincorporated Greenburgh to use the potential tennis facility. Feiner cited a chance for the town to generate more than $3 million in revenue during the span of the 15-year lease. Earlier this week, state assembly members approved the measure before it was sent to the senate.
As the days went by, however, at least one state lawmaker questioned whether the bill would be able to make it through the senate logjam. Now that it has been passed, Feiner said the town is expected to invite companies interested in leasing the tennis courts during the winter season to submit bids to the town.
“We now have the potential to turn our tennis facility into one of the best in the northeast,” the statement read.
The bill was necessary because of 20-year-old state legislation, the Finneran Law, which allows only residents of unincorporated Greenburgh to use the park’s facilities. Potential renters had said that without letting everyone use the tennis facility, it would not be profitable enough, according to town officials.
Hastings Mayor Peter Swiderski, who had publicly spoken out against the legislation on behalf of the coalition of village mayors, said that while he would have liked to see different wording in the legislation, he was not opposed to the decision made in Albany.
Swiderski and the other mayors had objected not to the concept of a tennis bubble, he said, but to wording they feared left village residents vulnerable for picking up costs that may arise.
Feiner and the town board, however, have pledged to pass a resolution indicating only residents of unincorporated Greenburgh will enjoy the revenue from the facility but will also be the only ones footing the bills – protecting the villages from incurring any costs, according to Swiderski.
It’s not the perfect solution, the Hastings mayor said, but it works.
“We would have preferred other language but we didn’t get it so we will settle for the resolution,” he said. “It’s not the end of the world.”
Comments (13)
I find halmarc45's posts refreshing and honest and sometimes a bit too sarcastic. While I have been back in Greenburgh for several years now, I AM disheartened to see how illegally and immorally Feiner and the Town Board operates. I find a lot of useful information at www.abettergreenburgh.blogspot.com. It's difficult enough for most of us to just get by when we are saddled with yearly double-digit tax increases, a failing infrastructure, a questionable water department, certiorari adjustments whose amounts are budgets themselves for small Towns and Villages throughout upstate NY, a sewer tax fiasco that has still not been addressed and was screwed up more by Edie McCarthy, et al. The list is almost endless. In our Parkway Homes area of Fairview, we have speeding, flooding, trees not trimmed, and accidents that needn't happen. Stop bashing the people who ultimately serve us as our watchdogs and do as halmarc45 suggested and get involved. He's right by suggesting you can start by attending the Board meetings. Don't be a Feiner lapdog because the messenger brought news you don't want to accept.
a lapdog? ok, there's that dead horse down on saw mill rd that's needs some beating when Hal is finished. since you and hal seem to know everything,,,here's an idea, why dont you run for his job, you sound liike you know how to do it better and I don't feel you would have a problem being on call 24hours a day 7 days a week, to respond to emergencies and such, Feiner runs un contested, time after time, you guys think you can do a better job, put up and run against him or shut up
Hey Dad,
There's a difference between being "on call" 24/7 and actually doing something. Please cite EXAMPLES of what you call extraordinary service, that which being on call for these all-comprehensive hours suggests. As for responding to EMERGENCIES, do you think that the heads of any government, anywhere won't do the same? You don't think about it because the obvious for other leaders is so obvious that it needn't be publicized. You are impressed only because Feiner promotes himself for doing what is obvious AND REQUIRED.
As for running for office, this takes big bucks to run against the incumbent who makes full use of the advantage of the office which means, in Greenburgh, access to the Town's email list and the ability to use the dais at meetings for his campaigning. Feiner has amassed $127,000 from people like yourself who fall victim to the folklore, the scams and the 24/7/365 barrage of self-promotion. People like yourself never question where the time comes from that Feiner spends on Feiner in all media. If he ran the Town as well as he toots his own horn, we guys would shut up. But since you are enamored only by the possibilities of 24/7 "service" you ignore the problems created by Feiner in the few hours he commits solely to his elected office. As for his "broad" appeal to all interests and finding the flavor of the day, consider a recent example (trivial, yes, but one that says it all in a nutshell): instead of proposing that the County put bike racks on its Beeline buses, Feiner should be first providing a bike rack for the Greenburgh Library which has none. 'nuff said?
Hal Samis
let the Feiner bashing commence. have you ever taken a vacation Hal?
Do you question what I've written or are you only concerned with how I spend my leisure time?
Don't be bashful yourself; there are lots of others fathers in Greenburgh: all paying for Feiner's faux pas. And I'm sure this too went over your head.
we already know how you spend your leisure time, bashing Feiner.
Maybe your leisure time could be spend more productively had you a correction to make to what I write.
Whatever helps is knowing that anonymous fools get rankled from what they call Feiner bashing yet can't find anything in my comments to prove me wrong. Classic "shoot the messenger" at best; more like sneaky Kevin at his worst.
Sneaky Kevin? Bashful? (doesn't make any sense at all) sounding slightly psychotic......I'm not shooting the messenger, slightly sick of hearing you and Bob, with the same crap over and over, according to you guys Feiner is responsible for everything that goes wrong in this town, from what I know of him, he responds to every email I write him ,with concern to Greenburgh, within an hour and if we have an emergency here in Greenburgh, Paul Feiner is the first one I hear from, Offering assistance and passing on vital information important to the situation. whether it be 2 in the afternoon or 2 in the morning, Paul Feiner is dedicated and no one can argue that. I don't agree with everything he does, but I don't think he deserves the public bashing you guys throw at him, day after day after day, when you think your finished with Feiner, there's a dead horse over here on saw mill river road that needs beating
Amen! well said!
Responding to situations is what Feiner is supposed to do, what do you think his job is? Blogging?
However, creating problems is not his job either. If you took the trouble to attend a Town Board meeting and read the Agenda for the evening, you would note that the overwhelming bulk of the Resolutions voted upon and passed are not my, Bernstein, or the handful of others who speak out, subject of our distress. We (collectively) are concerned with but a few issues but these are major matters and affect the majority of Greenburgh taxpayers. We're not concerned about matters on your block or even our block(s) but of the larger issues which Feiner manages to screw up consistently.
The current screw-up is replacing the revenue that Feiner allowed to slip away when he did not take a proactive stance on renewing the WESTHelp lease when he had the opportunity before a new County Executive assumed office. With the $1.2 million no longer coming Greenburgh's way, the three replacement leases that Feiner is pursuing have their own individual warts and blemishes but even if all were signed up and paying rent, the taxpayers would still be out of pocket about $200,000 a year
while the continuing loss without WESTHelp and no replacement so far has cost taxpayers $1 million in dollars lost and not being replaced by these leases.
Additionally the spotlight on Sportime and GameOn should not be viewed as a creative step in the right direction. All they are doing is trying to fill a budget gap that Feiner created. Had he been such a good Supervisor as you make him out to be (because he answers the phone and passes the problem over to a Department head) these two new sources of income would have been added to WESTHelp's renewal and thus the Town would be around $500,000 ahead -- not $200,000 behind (an annual spread of $700,000 not in Greenburgh's favor).
And to get these two leases signed and the third, Ferncliff (all three together still fall short of just WESTHelp by itself) the process and the concessions to get to these leases are not to Greenburgh's advantage.
So if bringing the facts to the public is what you call bashing, so be it and look forward to more of the same only because Feiner gives me and others so much material to work with.
Feiner is an expert at marginalization: substituting your problem for the larger issue which doesn't work when the next guy's problem conflicts with your own.
And this week Feiner submitted "his" idea that the County's Bus line should install racks for bikes.
You'll call it bashing but how do you explain that to County's management is not what he was elected: in Greenburgh, where Feiner was elected to lead, there is no bike rack at the Library.
When you learn not to trust Feiner simply because he says it is is so, you will have a better idea of just whom he is. Certificates of Appreciation may buy love (parents, friends and family) but Feiner is running Feiner into the ground faster than its municipal neighbors and the regional economy. The man was born missing both the truth and shame genes. Have a good time with this but I'll be back in time for the next bit of "news" and not responding here to your misplaced enthusiasm which avoids facts in favor or fandom.
Hal Samis
whatever helps you get through the day Hal.....
Lest anyone pop the cork on the champagne bottle, a bit of reality need be invited to the party.
The"devil is in the details" and only when we get to a lease stage, will taxpayers know the truth.
The original lease with Sportime is proof enough.
But whatever the rent that Feiner & Company are waxing over; it won't be enough by a long shot to replace the $1,200,000 annual rent (WESTHelp) that the Town lost through Feiner's negligence. I shall repeat this "news" every time Feiner unveils his "news" about an important source of revenue.
Allowing $250,000 for Sportime, allowing $250,000 for GameOn and even allowing $500,000 for Ferncliff and the Town is still short $200,000 a year. What Feiner should be, but cannot, is brag about $1,200,000 from WESTHelp, $250,000 from Sportime and $250,000 from GameOn and thus point to $1,700,000 of annual income -- instead of $1,000,000 if all these chips were to fall into place. Of course, nothing will bring back the $1,000,000 of income already lost (and growing by $100,000 a month) due to the vacant 108 residential units of affordable housing that were occupied by WESTHelp.
As for the announced June 28 posting of the GameOn lease, easy enough to say but with Feiner on vacation who knows what will happen (or was that the plan)?
Hal Samis