What Has Con Ed Done to Improve Service in Scarsdale Since Hurricane Sandy
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After the power outage on Tuesday night in Greenacres, several readers wrote in to ask what Con Edison has done since Hurricane Sandy to improve service and decrease outages in our area.
Scarsdale10583 asked Assistant Village Manager John Goodwin to outline what has been done and how you can get additional information. Here is his reponse:
In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, the Village Board of Trustees wrote a letter to Con Edison's, dated December 12, 2012 outlining their concerns with Con Ed's power restoration operation. In response to this letter, the Village Board met with Con Ed on January 23, 2013. At the meeting the logistical, staffing, and communication problems that were apparent in Con Ed's emergency management response were discussed as well as Con Ed's capital expenditures and maintenance for the Scarsdale electrical grid.
At the meeting, Con Ed committed to work with the Village to "storm harden" the Scarsdale grid, especially
in areas where there are recurring outages. In regard to improvements in general, Con Ed stated that they continually look at services and what causes outages and that if an outage is caused by equipment failure, improvements are sought. They also stated that no capital improvement can prevent a tree from taking down a wire or pole.
Since Hurricane Sandy, Con Edison has been active with their tree trimming program and making improvements on their overhead system. The improvements to the overhead system include installing new poles and new span wires which involve adding "smart switches" to the system that will minimize customer outages. This work was performed at various locations throughout the Village including Mamaroneck Road, Weaver Street, Drake Road, Post Road and Boulevard. Con Ed has also provided the Village with their feeder/grid map which will help identify system outages and held meetings with staff to perform "blue sky" desktop review of operational and communication issues. Post Sandy, Village staff has meet with Con Ed both individually and as part of a County wide effort sharing concerns and receiving important updates on ways to better manage these type of storm conditions. More detail of the work that Con Ed has been performing in Westchester County including Scarsdale can be found at the following link: http://www.coned.com/newsroom/news/pr20130614.asp.
It should be noted that Con Edison is regulated by the New York State Public Service Commission, not local governments within their service area. As such, Scarsdale's ability to influence Con Edison's operations is limited to filing complaints with the Public Service Commission, contacting State elected representatives or meeting directly with Con Edison officials. With that said, the Village has made every effort to do what it can to work with Con Edison to help improve the services they provide to Village residents.
Can You Identify These Suspects?
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Scarsdale Police are asking for your help in finding three suspects who were involved in a robbery at Sam Lehr Jewelers in Scarsdale Village on June 29th. Police have forwarded these surveillance photos of the three suspects who made off with $50,000 worth of gold rings. If you have any information to help identify the suspects please call the Scarsdale Police Department, Investigations Section at (914)-722-1200 or email police@scarsdale.com.
Suspect One:
Tall Hispanic male in late 20's wearing a light colored t-shirt, dark sunglasses and dark jeans. He has a medium build, was clean-shaven and had a shaved head. He had a tattoo on his right forearm reportedly of "three crosses." He was carrying a baseball- style cap in his hand and acted as the primary diversion. After the larceny was perpetrated by suspect two below, this suspect feigned an attempt at apprehending suspect two, telling the proprietor: "I'll help you get him." He fled the store and did not return.
Suspect Two:
Short Hispanic male in late teens or early 20's wearing a blue and white plaid shirt and light colored shorts. He also wore sunglasses and carried a bag across his shoulder. He had medium-length dark hair and spoke both Spanish and English while in the store. This suspect perpetrated the actual entry into the jewelry case and stole the five rings, fleeing the store on foot.
Suspect Three:
Short heavy-set Hispanic female in early 20's wearing a short-sleeved flowered shirt and light colored "Capri" pants. This suspect spoke both Spanish and English. The suspect was communicating via cell phone while inside the store. This suspect provided cover/concealment for suspect two while he entered the jewelry case. Upon suspect two's flight from the store, this suspect fled on foot in the opposite direction, walking at a normal pace.
Debate Over Affordable Housing Continues in Westchester
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The battle over the 2009 Westchester County Affordable Housing Settlement and $7.4 million in community block grants for Westchester continues. County Executive Rob Astorino is now claiming that HUD is reaching beyond the scope of the original agreement and demanding that Westchester build 10,678 units as suggested in a 2005 Affordable Allocation Plan, rather than the 750 required by the settlement. Astorino is also charging that Westchester communities, outside the 31 named in the settlement, will also be required to construct affordable units.
In response, James Johnson, the Federal Monitor for the case has written to Astorino to demand that he remove these "misleading statements" from County press releases and the County website. In his letter, Johnson explains that in March 2013, in an effort to resolve issues around the suit, the Monitor sent letters with preliminary findings on zoning and requests for additional information to the individual municipalities. These letters included the benchmark counts for affordable units as set in the 2005 report. According to the Monitor, the court found that though these allocations "do not carry the force of law, passing a zoning ordinance that prohibits multi-family or high-density housing is calculated directly or indirectly to thwart the fulfillment of the need of the town and region, presently and in the future."
Johnson concludes that these benchmarks "neither expand nor supplant the County's obligation to build the 750 units" and that in fact, "the Monitor does not have unilateral authority to upwardly revise the number of units required in the settlement."
However, Johnson does reassert that the County is obliged to conduct an analysis of impediments to fair and affordable housing that
includes an analysis of local zoning ordinances. The study must "identify zoning practices that would, if not remedied by the municipality, lead the county to pursue legal action." HUD expected to have an acceptable analysis from the County in 2009, however the Monitor says that in the past three years, the "County failed to submit an A1 deemed acceptable to HUD." But according to Astorino, "The County has conducted several comprehensive reviews of all 853 zoning districts in Westchester and found no evidence of exclusionary practices based on race or ethnicity."
Democrat Ken Jenkins, who chairs the County Board of Legislature also got involved in an effort to end the impasses and secure the release of $7.4 million in Community Development Block Grants from Fiscal Year 2011 that HUD is threatening to reallocate unless the County complies with the suit. Jenkins, said, "Instead of race-baiting and issuing false and discriminatory statements regarding the Housing Settlement, County Executive Astorino 
should be working with all parties to comply with the settlement and lead our communities on a path that ensures fair and affordable housing will be a big component of a strong and prosperous future. Instead of promoting amicable cooperation here, he's fostering animus and conflict, which can only be detrimental for everyone involved. This unproductive and misleading rhetoric regarding the settlement needs to end today."
In the meantime, Federal Monitor Johnson's letter tells Astorino that if he fails to correct the website and his statements, the Monitor "will ask the Department of Justice to include this unresolved issue in its status report to the Court to be filed on June 14."
Fourth of July Celebration Planned for Greenacres
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The Greenacres Association will be holding its annual Independence Day celebration on Thursday July 4th at the Greenacres School field. All Greenacres residents are welcome to attend the breakfast with your neighbors of bagels and cream cheese, doughnut holes, coffee, watermelon, water, and lemonade starting at 9:00 am.
Family games for preschoolers, kids, teen, and adults will start at 9:30 am. Games will include foul shooting, a 50-yard dash, a sack race, a 3-legged race, a spoon race, and the ever popular candy hunt. At 11:15 am, there will be a patriotic program followed by the balloon toss. The annual Greenacres Gallop will cap off the celebration and conclude with a water spray from Scarsdale Fire Department trucks.
For more information visit www.greenacres10583 or contact Barry Meiselman at barwest2@aol.com or 914-723-5807.
Comptroller DiNapoli Concedes These Are Tough Times for Local Governments and School Districts
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NYS Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli was in Scarsdale on June 6, 2013 to address the League of Women Voters of Westchester and I stopped by to see what he had to say about ballooning pension and retirement fund payments, unfunded state mandates and the tax cap that are decimating local school and village budgets.
Before he turned to the issues that mattered to me, he provided an outlook on our economy, reporting that "statewide numbers are trending toward recovery with all of the indicators on the positive side." He called it a "tenuous recovery in slow motion" and told the group that unemployment numbers in the lower Hudson Valley were at 6.7%, better than the statewide statistic of 7.8%. He added that "Sequestration is causing problems for the NYS economy and in the next five years we could lose $5 billion dollars if this is not resolved."
Turning to local issues he agreed that these "are tough times for local governments and school districts," and offered little consolation 
for local municipalities. In fact he said, "local stress is going to be the new normal. Healthcare and pensions will continue to go up and in the long term there will be impacts that will cause policy changes. With 2/3 of the school budgets that exceeded the cap defeated, the tax cap is going to force tough choices about spending."
According to DiNapoli, when Governor Cuomo put forth the 2% tax cap "there was an expectation of mandate relief to make it easier to comply. However, mandate relief did not occur."
What to do? Unable to offer any financial benefits to strained school and village budgets, his office is publishing a list of "those cities under the most stress." Since, according to Di Napoli, the state does not "have money for bailouts, stress reporting will be an early warning system" for those facing possible bankruptcy.
Telling the group that a "well-funded pension plan is important for everyone," he claimed that New York has "the best funded pension plan," and has taken five years to work through losses suffered in 2008. He reported that for the past year they had a 10% positive return and after 2014 local schools and governments should see a reduction in the increases in payments for the fund.
During the Q&A, time ran out before I could ask further questions about what mattered most to Scarsdale. I chased him down as he was leaving and told him about the resounding defeat of our local school budget for the first time in over 40 years, partially due to increased pension and retirement fund payments and state mandates. A resident of Great Neck, another district that prides itself in great schools, DiNapoli looked genuinely surprised about the news. I asked him if there was any hope that Governor Cuomo would negotiate with the unions for pension reform and he answered, "labor law is tricky stuff," and conjectured that "nothing will happen until after the election." We also discussed the tax cap and he said that in Massachusetts, when a cap was passed, the state came up with funds to shore up local budgets, which was not the case in New York.
So what's the long and the short of it? Though he is clearly articulate and competent, DiNapoli doesn't appear to have answers. So let's take it to Albany and lobby our state senators and assemblymen, along with Governor Cuomo, who is balancing the state budget on our backs. The tax cap may have made him a hero to some, but to anyone who's attended a school or village board meeting this year, Cuomo is anything but heroic.
Meanwhile, State Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins just announced the passage of a bill in the state senate requiring the state to pay for unfunded mandates.
The bill requires the state to fund any mandated program imposed on local governments and school districts and would protect local municipalities from bearing the cost of programs created and/ or originated by the State, allowing local officials to set their own priorities without the possibility of future unfunded mandated programs disrupting their budgets.
"Unfunded mandates create real struggles for local governments and school districts, so any steps we can take to relieve those burdens are welcome news. Cash-strapped local governments have had to make difficult choices through the recession and unfunded mandates have made that task even more difficult. This legislation places the responsibility of funding State mandated programs where it belongs, on the State," said Democratic Conference Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins.
The legislation, S.1294, defines an unfunded mandate as "any state law, rule or regulation which establishes a new program requires a higher level of service for an existing program which a municipal corporation is required to provide, and which results in a net additional cost to such municipal corporation." It requires the state to provide school districts and local governments "compensation or funding... of the full amount of the net additional costs" of any unfunded mandate it imposed upon localities.
