The Innocence Project at Congregation Kol Ami
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On Friday night January 20 at 8:15 pm, Jason Kreag, a staff attorney at the Innocence Project and Alan Newton, an exoneree from prison will appear at Congregation Kol Ami, as part of their Synaplex event. The Innocence Project’s groundbreaking use of DNA technology to free innocent people has provided irrefutable proof that wrongful convictions are not isolated or rare events but instead arise from systemic defects. The Project seeks to free the staggering numbers of innocent people who remain incarcerated and to bring substantive reform to the system responsible for their unjust imprisonment. The Innocence Project believes that the personal stories of the exonerated provide the most compelling introduction to the problems of wrongful conviction.
Founded in 1992 by Barry C. Scheck and Peter J. Neufeld at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University to assist prisoners who could be proven innocent through DNA testing the group has assisted 280 people in the United States who have been exonerated by DNA testing, including 17 who served time on death row.
Jason Kreag litigates post-conviction DNA cases throughout the country. He also supervises students through the Innocence Project clinic at Cardozo. Prior to joining the Innocence Project in October 2007, Mr. Kreag worked as a staff attorney at the Southern Center for Human Rights. At SCHR, Mr. Kreag represented inmates on death row in Alabama and Georgia in state and federal post-conviction proceedings. Alan Newton was exonerated by DNA testing after serving 21 years in New York prisons for on a wrongful conviction for rape, robbery and assault.
The program is free and open to the community. Congregation Kol Ami is located at 252 Soundview Avenue in White Plains. For more information call Ilene Miller at 949-4717 ext. 111.
Police Report: Thieves Work Through the Holidays
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Thieves continued to work through the holidays, entering another Scarsdale home and breaking into several cars. Here are two weeks of reports from the Scarsdale Police: On New Year’s Eve a Park Road home was burglarized. Residents returned home at 12:30 pm on 12/31 and found a smashed glass sliding door and a broken motion detector light. The master bedroom and a second bedroom were tossed including dresser drawers and the master bedroom closets. A gold and diamond necklace and a silver and gold bracelet were among the missing items. Police contacted the neighbors but no one saw or heard anything unusual.
A building maintenance storage closet in the basement of Building 3 of the Chateaux Circle apartments was vandalized overnight on 12/19-12/20. The locks and hinges were broken and a bicycle and $15 in cash were stolen.
Car break-ins: A Tuckahoe woman reported that her Honda had been broken into while parked at the Scarsdale Library on December 20th between 11:29 – and 11:49 am. The front passenger side window of the car was smashed and a pocketbook containing credit cards, checks, cash and identification were taken from the car. There were no witnesses.
Two cars parked on Eton Road in the early morning hours of 12/21 were vandalized. The front passenger window of a 1999 Mercedes was broken sometime between 10:30 pm and 1:20 am and a gym bag was stolen. A 2010 Acura that was parked nearby was also damaged when the front and rear passenger side windows were broken. A purse containing credit cards, identification, $30 in cash and medication were stolen.
That same night thieves broke the driver’s side back window of a 2002 Toyota RAV4 that was parked on Montrose Road. Stolen were a cache of gifts that had been donated for needy children.
Theft: On 12/16, a pair of diamond “huggie” earrings valued at $650 were stolen from Jewels by Joanne on Heathcote Road. Police will review the video surveillance to see if they can determine what happened.
Missing Toads: Village Naturalist Katherine Murphy reported that two fireball toads were removed from their tank at the Weinberg Nature Center sometime between 12/30/11 and 1/02/12. Another naturalist reported that a family of six had remained at the center until closing time on 12/30.
Fraud: On 12/29 Sierra Cycles reported an incident that occurred via e-Bay. The bike shop sold a Gary Fisher bike valued at $1050 to a Texas man. However the purchaser said the bike was the wrong size and wanted to exchange it. When the bike was returned it had been disassembled and the derailer, shifters and pedals had been replaced with cheaper parts. The total value of the missing parts is estimated at $500.
Unwanted: Fenimore Road homeowners called police on 12/25 to ask for help removing their 38 year-old daughter from the house where she was not welcome. Penn Boulevard residents called police for help on 12/25 when their 23 year-old son came to the house. They wanted him out of the house but he refused to leave. After he picked up a few items he agreed to go.
Harassment: A painter, at work at a Greenacres Avenue home, was threatened by a former employee on the morning of December 21. The painter owes the employee $300 and the man was demanding payment. The employee threatened the painter, saying he would “kick his ass” and “break his jaw” if he was not paid.
Phone calls: A Fox Meadow Road woman reported that she received a suspicious phone call on 12/19. The caller claimed to be her grandson and said he was involved in a car accident in Mexico and needed $2,000 to fix the damage on the rental car. He instructed the Scarsdale woman to send the money to a lawyer. Since the woman did not recognize her grandson’s voice, she asked him to call back so she could verify the story. The caller never called back.
On 12/29, a Cayuga Road man reported that he had been receiving threatening phone calls for the past two months. He believed the calls were coming from someone with whom he had business dealings. The caller said, “I’m coming over with some guys and we are going to mess you up good,” and “we know where you live and where you go when you least expect it.” When police contacted the number from which the calls were made to say that a report for harassment had been filed, the harasser told the policeman to “scratch his ass.” However after the caller ascertained that it really was the police calling he gave his word that he would stop contacting the victim.
Death: Police were called to the ARC group residential home at 1 Foxhall Place shortly after midnight on 12/26 when an 84-year-old female resident was having trouble breathing. When they arrived the woman had passed away. The victim was identified as Patricia Sutton, and her doctor reported that she was hospitalized for a heart condition and high cholesterol two months ago. She had been living in the home for five years.
Also at ARC, a 79-year-old mentally disabled resident was the victim of identity theft. A fraudulent credit card account was opened in his name was opened at Capitol One Bank and two charges were made on the card; one for $215.67 at Walmart in White Plains and another for $13.62 at Subway in Mount Vernon.
Dog bite: A Walworth Avenue dog bit a deliveryman who was bringing a package to the home on 12/21. Renfeng Li of Flushing, NY sustained a dog bite on the leg. Though the dog was on a leash when the resident opened the door, the dog lunged at the man who was taken to White Plains hospital by SVAC. The dog is current on its shots and vaccines so rabies is not a concern.
Fight: A Lockwood Road a boy called police on 12/26 when he got into a fight with his younger brother over a cup of apple juice. In the fight, the younger brother broke a chair. When police arrived they spoke with the boy’s mother who said no help was necessary.
Mischief: At 3:30 am on 12/30 a Fox Meadow resident called police to report that a group of kids in a dark colored SUV was stealing the street sign at Wayside Lane and Carstensen Road. At the time, police were completing a case report for a missing street sign at Archer Lane and Stratton Road.
A Shawnee Road man called police at 10:42 pm on 12/30 when someone rang his doorbell and left a bag of dog feces on his front step.
Locked in: A man who was cleaning the Bank of America branch on Christie Place was locked into the bank at 10 pm on 12/28. Police were able to get him out by pulling up a security gate to the office.
Homeless: Marsha Jones of the Bronx showed up at Scarsdale Police Headquarters at 1:43 am on 1/1 and wanted shelter for the night. She had no identification and said she was homeless. Police tried to find a shelter but the nearest one with available space was in Peekskill. Police drove the woman to the bus depot in White Plains so that she could take a bus to Peekskill.
TVCC Issues Report on County Budget
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The County Fiscal Affairs Committee of the Town and Village Civic Club of Scarsdale has issued their report on the 2012-13 Westchester County budget. The in-depth report on County finances was written by Jackie Irwin, Bill Kay III, James Wetmur and Mark Lewis.
The report was issued to the public by the Executive Committee under the expeditious treatment procedure of the TVCC by-laws. The full membership will act on the report at their next membership meeting on February 2, 2012. County Executive Rob Astorino will attend the 2/2/12 meeting and give an address on the "State of the County" and take questions from the audience.
Here is a summary of the conclusions of the committee’s report. The full report can be viewed here.
- We support County initiatives to seek contributions toward the primary cost of healthcare from all County employees. …We also believe that securing employee participation in paying for healthcare should be a component of any upcoming union contract negotiations.
- We reluctantly support the reduction of 336 positions from County government and recommend that these positions not be restored, as has been the practice of the Board of Legislators several times in recent years. …Our support is reluctant because this headcount reduction requires 210 layoffs which disrupts families and will force those laid off to try to find jobs in an already difficult employment environment.
- We recommend that the County continue to fund the contracts for three neighborhood health centers for at least three months into 2012 to provide a transition and study period, rather than terminating the non-mandated funding for the contracts with the health centers on January 1, 2012.
- We commend the County’s decision to pay all of its 2011 New York State pension fund contribution liabilities in full and recommend that the County consider its participation in the New York State Pension Stabilization Program, if any, year by year.
- We believe the County should urge the Cornell Cooperative Extension to adopt a regional model that encompasses larger areas of the State rather than administer separate offices more locally, in many cases in each county. To help facilitate this transition, we recommend that County government continue to fund the Cornell Cooperative Extension program Westchester for 3 additional months, or other reasonable but finite transition period, into 2012.
- County government should continue efforts to consolidate departments and services to control costs and cut expenses wherever possible.
- The County Executive should release preliminary budgets for expenditures and capital by the end of September including reorganizations of County services and departments if any are contemplated and where any more than nominal lead times are needed
NextG Must Demonstrate That Antennas Can't Be Located in Non-Residential Areas First!
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Here is a letter from Edgemont resident Bob Bernstein concerning the NextG application to install cell phone antennas on residential streets in Edgemont. As the author of the ECC legal opinion on the NextG application, I feel it is necessary to correct a number of misconceptions and misstatements in the article about the NextG application that appears on this site.
First, while Federal law does not allow municipalities to bar cell phone antennas solely on health grounds, Federal law has for years balanced the rights of residents concerned about health issues against the need to develop cellphone coverage nationwide by allowing municipalities to restrict cell phone antennas to nonresidential neighborhoods and allow them in residential areas only upon a showing that they cannot be located anywhere else in order to achieve the so-called "seamless web" in cell phone service.
Greenburgh's town code, which has been on the books since 1998, is consistent with Federal law. It requires all cell phone antennas to be located in nonresidential areas unless the applicant can demonstrate that all reasonable efforts to locate antennas in such areas have been exhausted and such antennas are needed in residential areas to eliminate gaps in service.
Here, the Town's Antenna Review Board considered NextG's application for over a year. NextG insisted that it could not locate its antennas on telephone poles and monopole towers along Central Avenue, among other nonresidential locations, but was never asked to provide -- and did not provide -- any substantiation for that assertion. The Antenna Review Board, which has an Edgemont resident as one of its three members, certified NextG's application as having been complete without demanding any such evidence. That was wrong.
Under the Town code, when the Antenna Review Board deems an application to locate cell phone antennas in a residential area is complete, the application goes before the Town Board for a special permit. The special permit may only be granted upon a showing, among other things, that the antennas cannot be located in nonresidential areas and that all efforts to locate them there to "fill gaps" in cell phone service have been exhausted. Residents have not been told that that is the issue.
In fact, Town Supervisor Feiner has cast the issue not in terms of whether the required need has been satisfied, as the Town Code requires, but rather whether federal law limits the Town's ability to deny the permit based on health risks, which it plainly does. As a result, residents and environmental activists not familiar with the Greenburgh Town Code and the law in this area are understandably being misled.
The focus must be on whether the required need has been met and on the basis of the record before the Town thus far, it plainly has not.
As for the required notice, here too Supervisor Feiner has some explaining to do. Every resident who might be impacted by the location of a cell phone antenna near their homes should as a matter of common sense be notified the moment an application to install a cell phone antenna within 500 feet of their homes is filed. The Town Code, however, does not require any such notification until the Town's Antenna Review Board has deemed the application "complete" which could take a year or longer.
Three years ago the ECC tried to remedy the situation by drafting legislation to amend the Town Code so as to require all applicants to give the required notice to residents when their application with the Town is FILED -- not when the application is deemed COMPLETE. That way, residents could follow the progress of the application before the Town's Antenna Review Board and raise questions along the way as to whether the Town's requirements for completing the application have in fact been met. Unfortunately, the chair of the Town's Antenna Review Board refused to allow her board to vote on whether to recommend the legislation, and even though the matter was presented by the ECC to the Town Board at a work session, along with a copy of draft legislation I wrote that had been approved by the Town Attorney's office, not one member of the Town Board was willing to introduce it.
The opposition to changing the law, and thereby giving residents the notice we were seeking, was led by Feiner himself. The only other people opposed to giving residents notice were local lawyers representing the cell phone antenna industry. These lawyers are one of the Town Supervisor's largest single group of political contributors.
I encourage concerned homeowners to attend the Town Board's next hearing on the matter and to demand that the required need be demonstrated and if it is not demonstrated, to either reject the special permit, or send the application back to the Town's Antenna Review Board to insist that the application be re-reviewed for completeness -- this time with evidence to substantiate the applicant's self-serving contentions as to need. And for the same doing, residents who don't like the fact that they weren't given adequate notice should demand that the Town Board introduce and adopt the ECC's draft legislation that would give residents the right to notice of these applications when they are FILED instead of when they are deemed COMPLETED.
Bob Bernstein
48 Old Colony Road
Hartsdale, New York 10530
Guggenheimer to Chair Scarsdale Bowl Committee
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Randy Guggenheimer has been named Chair of the 2012 Scarsdale Bowl Committee. Jackie Irwin, President of the Scarsdale Foundation, announced the appointment. As Bowl Committee Chair, Guggenheimer will head the Scarsdale Bowl nominating committee and the community celebration dinner to be held on Wednesday evening, April 18, 2012 at Lake Isle Country Club. The Scarsdale Bowl is awarded annually in the spring to a Scarsdale resident in recognition of his or her outstanding voluntary public service to the community. This year’s Executive Secretary/Treasurer of the Scarsdale Bowl Committee is Deborah Pekarek.
The members of the committee serve staggered two-year terms. The newly appointed class of 2012 includes Linda Hillman Chayes, Merrell Clark, Amy Cooper, Alice Herman, Howard Nadel, Jim O’Connor, and Sara Werder. The continuing Class of 2011 includes Jane Buck, Marc Carter, Malula Gonzalez, Liz Gruber, Anne Moretti, Bill Natbony, and Robert November. Seth Ross, Scarsdale Foundation trustee, will serve on the committee as the liaison. Jackie Irwin, president of the Scarsdale Foundation, is an ex-officio, non-voting member.
Guggenheimer is a Managing Director at Young and Partners, a New York-based investment banking firm serving the life science and chemical industries. He
The 2012 Scarsdale Bowl Committee will begin its work in early December to select the 2012 recipient of the Scarsdale Bowl. The Scarsdale Bowl, has been awarded annually since 1943 to an individual, or in rare instances, to a husband and wife, who has given “unselfishly of his/her time, energy and effort to the civic welfare of the community.” The founding donors of the Bowl believed that “many who serve generously and voluntarily, without office, honor or publicity, are those deserving of having their names permanently inscribed on the Scarsdale Bowl.”
The Scarsdale Bowl is administered by the Scarsdale Foundation which operates as a not-for-profit community foundation to promote the civic welfare. It does so by supporting institutions and individuals in a manner that encourages educational and human development in the community. The Foundation provides financial aid to college students entering their sophomore, junior and senior years. It also administers a number of special purpose funds, and makes grants for specific purposes which have included the Scarsdale Volunteer Ambulance Corps and the Scarsdale/Edgemont Family Counseling Service.
The Bowl Committee enthusiastically welcomes community input. It will hold its first meeting December 11, and requests that residents contact any member of the committee with suggestions of potential recipients. If you have any questions, please contact Randy Guggenheimer at 725-2301.
