Astorino Challenges HUD Secretary on Affordable Housing Settlement
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For the fifth time, Westchester County’s plan to comply with the 2009 Affordable Housing Settlement has been disapproved by HUD. This time in addition to rejecting the plan, HUD has added new demands to the original agreement.
In a letter dated May 13, HUD lays out their reasons for the disapproval and makes far-reaching demands for corrective actions to bring Westchester into compliance. In response, County Executive Rob Astorino called HUD’s actions “unprecedented bureaucratic overreaching” and said that the demands were an “unwarranted trampling of local zoning rights.”
Astorino has scheduled a meeting with Shaun Donovan, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in Washington to review the letter and to ask HUD to retract the demands that are “economically and legally” impossible to meet.
Some of the requirements in contention are as follows:
Zoning: the May 13 letter calls for County to overcome exclusionary zoning practices and challenge local zoning ordinances. Furthermore HUD is asking for an outline of steps the county will take if a municipality fails to remove a prohibitive ordinance including “funding suspension, termination and litigation.”
However, according to former Mayor Carolyn Stevens who has studied the issue, economics, not restrictive zoning has been the problem in providing affordable housing. She said, “The impediment to building affordable housing in Westchester has never been zoning, but rather one of economics. Without substantial subsidies, the land cost and the taxes in Westchester make it economically unfeasible to build traditional affordable housing.”
Source of Income Legislation: The HUD letter demands that Westchester ban “source of income” discrimination in housing. This refers to a practice where if the source of a prospective tenant’s income is revenue other than a traditional pay check, landlords might deny a prospective tenant a lease. The Board of Legislators passed legislation prohibiting source of income discrimination, but Astorino vetoed it. HUD is now demanding that the legislation be reintroduced, promoted and passed. In the interim, HUD has stopped funding Community Development Block Grant projects which could potentially cause the loss of 18 jobs, and puts $6 million of funding at risk.
Increase of housing for families with children: Beyond legislative changes, the letter calls for the County to provide more housing for families with children. The original settlement called for 750 units and did not dictate the sizes or number of bedrooms. Now HUD is seeking to require the County to make 50% of those units three bedrooms or more! No additional funding is required and Astorino estimates that 375 units would cost $56 million. Since the total subsidy for 750 units is $51.6 million there would be no money left to build the remaining 375 units. Furthermore, the letter does not consider who will be eligible to rent these larger units. In fact, according to Carolyn Stevens, those who rent the larger units will need to have a “higher income level making these units less rather than more affordable.”
Astorino reported that the County is moving forward with affordable housing. To date, 164 units have been approved by the federal monitor which is ahead of the agreed upon timeline. In addition, an additional 102 units are pending approval.
In other news on the settlement, former Scarsdale Trustee Sharon Lindsay attended a County Board of Legislature Housing Committee meeting on July 21 to hear an update from Mary Mahon who is Westchester County’s point person on the settlement. According to Lindsay, Mahon gave an extensive presentation, covering multiple meetings, as recently as July 14th, with the Court appointed Monitor, Johnson, and representatives of HUD from its regional office in NYC, all in an attempt to resolve the issues. The Monitor has the power, under the terms of the Settlement Agreement, to mediate disputes between the County and HUD.It should be noted that the settlement agreement is the subject of litigation, under the jurisdiction of the United States District Court. If the County and HUD cannot reach an agreement the Court will have the last word.
Lindsay agrees with Stevens that the major obstacle to affordable housing in the County is financial. Acquisition of land, construction costs, and the tax level are all prohibitive. At the July 21 meeting Lindsay said, “it was quite clear that the Board of Legislature has no appetite for allocating more money than called for in the Settlement Agreement for this purpose. “
So, where does this leave us? In Scarsdale, the Planning Board will continue discussions on the adoption of the model code ordinance at their July 27th meeting. Upon approval, the code will be considered by the Board of Trustees. And to deal with the County’s woes, Astorino will go to Washington to speak to Secretary Donovan with the goal of “getting affordable housing built in Westchester.”
More Drinking, A Fight and a Shoplifter, from the Greenburgh Police
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Drunk driver: At 2:26 am on 7/8 Greenburgh Police responded to an accident on Rockledge Road in Hartsdale. They found a 2009 black Honda Accord with heavy damage to the front of the car. A man was leaning into the car to remove the keys and an airbag had been deployed. Police spoke to the man who identified himself as Jeffrey Strauss and admitted to being the driver. He said “I was going to fast around the bend to get the parking spot and just lost control.” Strauss appeared to be drunk and stumbled when he walked. He failed sobriety tests, was arrested and found to have a BAC of .16%.
Underage drinkers: Two 19 year-old Scarsdale boys were stopped in the parking lot of 763 South Central Avenue at 8:20 pm on 7/7. Both were found to be carrying Four Loko, an alcoholic beverage. They were charged with unlawful possession and released.
Fight: Police were called to Colony Drive in Hartsdale on the afternoon of July 5th to intervene in a dispute between 19 year-old 
Coty Everly and Priscilla Hamilton, age 20 of Hartsdale. The two were fighting about money when Hamilton scratched the trunk of Everly’s 2009 Honda Accord. Hamilton claims that Everly kicked and scratched her. Neither party wished to pursue charges.
Disputes: A Hartsdale man, who was missing a trailer since January, 2011, spotted the trailer in the driveway of his ex brother-in-law in White Plains on July 5th. He got in touch with the man who was unwilling to return the trailer. Police also saw the trailer and attempted to contact the brother-in-law about returning it but they were unable to reach him.
Thefts: The manager of Panera Bread had her cell phone stolen while she was at work on July 7th. She placed it in a secure place but when she returned her iPhone was gone.
A White Plains man had his bike stolen from the Hartsdale Train Station where he had locked it on the morning of July 7th. When he returned for the bike at 7:30 pm the $400 mountain bike was gone.
Christian Vidal, age 33 of Whitestone New York was caught shoplifting at Best Buy on Central Avenue on the evening of June 9th. Vidal came to the store with a media storage box that the store security office marked paid. He then returned the media box and put the “Paid” pink sticker on a set of speakers. When he attempted to leave the store without paying for the speakers, store security detained him and he was arrested.
Let the Sunshine In On Scarsdale's Nominating Process
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Here is a letter from Robert Selvaggio, a longtime Scarsdale resident and a write-in candidate for Scarsdale Village Trustee in the March, 2011 election. Selvaggio is commenting on the Scarsdale Forum Non-Partisan Procedure Committee’s report released on June 16, 2011.
I see two significant problems with the Forum's evaluation of the "non-partisan process": the first is that many of the signatories to the report are themselves or have been vested in that process as key players and therefore cannot be expected to provide an unbiased critique; and the second is the report's insistence on a confidentiality that can only breed suspicion and distrust at its best, and provide cover for fraud at its worst.
A Scarsdale Forum critique of the "nonpartisan process" is no different than a chef's evaluation of the cooking he has performed for decades -- both can argue that had they not liked the taste of their cooking they would have changed it long ago. It is enough to point out that among the signatories are individuals who are personally involved in situations that the "nepotism" part of the report addresses directly and who were personally involved in the decision not to drop the candidate among the three with the lowest vote total on the first ballot. I am not arguing that there is anything improper about these and this point needn't be belabored -- these are all citizen volunteers with good intentions -- it's just that if our citizens want a true audit of the "non-partisan process" we need to commission outsiders, not insiders to the process, to conduct that audit.
Where I believe the report truly has it wrong is in its insistence on confidentiality through the nominating process. There is little doubt that the cleansing power of sunlight would allay many of the concerns of dissatisfied voters (so many of whom see voting as an exercise in futility and a waste of time and gasoline) and might also encourage a wider swath of our talented and busy Scarsdale residents to run for office and serve the community.
While certainly most citizen volunteers of the Scarsdale Forum and the CNC (indeed a number of Scarsdale Forum committee members are also or have been CNC nominators) choose to serve out of a true desire to give to their community, some (as in any large group) will have narrow, self-interested goals in mind and will act with single-minded passion to advance their own private agendas. Enforcing confidentiality as recommended by the report simply gives these individuals a screen behind which they can hide their misbehaviors, and frustrates and discourages the honest, generous CNC volunteers who must tolerate these miscreants until their own terms of service are mercifully over. Ultimately CNC members might view themselves as consorting to the untoward behavior they witness if they are forced to honor a code of silence under the threat of disciplinary action for their whistleblowing.
Who was it in the eleventh hour of balloting that leveled scurrilous accusations against one of the mayoral candidates? Was any attempt made to allow that candidate to respond to the charges? Which candidate received the lowest number of votes on the first ballot, and why was the tradition of eliminating the low-vote candidate ended that night? We'd all like to believe that the victim of the scurrilous charges was the one given a second chance, but only a handful of citizens know for sure. Were all candidates truly evaluated fairly or did horse trading occur to balance the self-serving concerns of various special interests? What was the relationship if any between the Village Hall "poll watchers" engaged in what some regarded as intimidating behavior on Election Day and the CNC? Is there actual evidence that allowing husband/wife teams on the CNC leads to bad outcomes? Voters want answers, but the report and subsequent defenses of it seem much more concerned about circling the wagons and asserting that all is just fine than in establishing, maintaining and projecting the integrity of "the process".
Wouldn't it would be best for our community if someone at that meeting last winter who is not yet heavily vested in the system were to give an honest public accounting of the CNC selection process on that night so shrouded in mystery? Why not televise future CNC nomination proceedings or second best, at least allow members of the local media access to the deliberations? The arguments made for secrecy are not compelling -- candidates for nomination fully expect that their CVs will be scrutinized, references contacted, and their relative merits and suitability for office debated. And who questions the public's right to know the qualifications and backgrounds of those who would be put in a position of public trust? Candidates also want to know that the debate about their candidacy is a fair one and only openness can provide that guarantee. Individuals who are willing to go through the nominating process deserve no less than the assurance of fairness that full public disclosure will guarantee.
Scarsdale citizens want more openness about the nominating process, not less. While punishing whistleblowers achieves no good end in politics (Merriam-Webster: "the art or science of government"), cleansing sunshine energizes the honest citizens already serving, encourages others to serve, and engenders confidence in our elected servants and in the political process.
Bank Robber Caught on Central Avenue
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Bank Robber Nabbed: Quick work by the Greenburgh and White Plains Police lead to the capture of a man who robbed the TD Bank at 495 Central Avenue on the morning of July 4th just minutes after the heist. Despite the holiday the branch was open, and a homeless man entered the bank around 8:30 am and made threatening gestures and then passed a note demanding money to one of the tellers. The teller handed over some cash which the man put into a white plastic bag. He fled on foot into the parking lot of the nearby Central Motel. Police then saw him climb over a chain link fence, onto a retaining wall and then south on Central Avenue through the parking lot of Omni Fitness. Police stopped him there and also recovered his hat and the bag of cash.
White Plains Police brought a TD Bank employee to the scene and he positively identified the suspect who said, “Is this a Federal charge? How much time do you think I’ll do? The suspect identified himself as Eric Hoffstead, age 40 and homeless.
Police recovered $3,720 in cash along with a TD explosive dye pack and the note the man passed to the teller. A dye pack is a radio-controlled incendiary device used by some banks to preemptively foil a bank robbery by causing stolen cash to be permanently marked with red dye shortly after a robbery. In most cases, a dye pack is placed in a hollowed-out space within a stack of banknotes, usually $10 or $20 bills. This stack of bills looks and feels similar to a real one and are difficult to detect by a criminal handling the stack.
Taking a dip: At 3 am on 6/27, three youths were reported to be swimming in a pool at a Central Avenue apartment complex. Their ages were 
16, 17 and 21 and police caught them as they were leaving the pool. They were released to their parents and the super of the building did not wish to press charges.
Feud: Neighbors on Elizabeth Street came to blows on the morning of June 28th. The ongoing dispute surrounds the construction of a large new house on a steep slope adjacent to an existing home on Elizabeth Street near Camp Hillard. The homeowner of the existing home was surprised to learn that the man who purchased the empty lot next to her house also laid claim to the bottom of her driveway. He is using the driveway to stage the construction of the new house, and it is unclear where the true property line lies. On Tuesday, the resident was taking a video of the construction work being done by the new owner, Micha Marom of Baldwin. Marom dumped dirt from an excavator onto her head and she narrowly missed being struck by a rock. The entire incident was filmed and will be filed with the police report.
Spierer Sighting? At 7 PM on June 29 Jim McHugh of Purdys, New York reported that he saw a girl that looked like Lauren Spierer dazed and confused at the back of the Sunoco Station at 17 North Central Avenue. Police searched the area but were unable to find the girl.
Trouble at TJ Maxx: Chanel Lauren Dulyx, age 24 and Rashanea Osholaja, age 21, were arrested for stealing $200 in merchandise from TJ Maxx on the evening of June 20th. Police found one of the suspects walking with a small child on Central Avenue with a young child. The second suspect was the mother of the child. The two women were booked and released on bail. On the afternoon of June 30th, another suspect made off with a bag of merchandise and fled on foot northbound on Central Avenue. In her haste to get away, she left behind her shoes and a stolen Nike bag filled with mens underewear, sock and a Michael Kors purse.
Steven Palmgren of the Bronx was arrested for Petit Larceny after he took $445 of merchandise from Shop Rite on Central Avenue and left without paying on June 28th.
All in the family: A Hartsdale woman reported that 15 credit cards and $100 in cash were missing from the top drawer of her dresser on June 27th. She suspects that her sister, who was visiting for the weekend, took the cards and cash before she returned home to Florida.
Asleep in the street: On Saturday morning at 5:36 am a man was found lying on N. Washington Street in Hartsdale near the intersection of Central Avenue. Police woke up the man who identified himself as Daniel Souza, age 51 of White Plains. Souza told police that he had been drinking all night and was en route to a friend’s house on Fox Glen Drive when he decided to take a nap in the street.
Goodbye, Mr. Klemme
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John Klemme, the principal of Scarsdale High School, will retire this week after 12 years of service to the school. Mr. Klemme was the principal of SHS throughout my four years of high school. In a school of this size, many students only knew Klemme if they were called into the Principal's office, but I had the privilege of getting to know the man who ran the show. As a result of my participation in student government, I had the opportunity to spend time with Mr. Klemme. He always encouraged me to put forth initiatives, supported me when I asked for help and inspired me to make the most of my four years at SHS.
Overwhelmed with obligations and homework assignments, I rarely appreciated how fortunate I was to be getting a Scarsdale education. Mr. Klemme helped me to put things into perspective and to value the excellent teaching that would allow me to thrive later on. Now in college, I see how his words rang true. As an advocate of the move from the AP program to AT courses, Klemme enabled students to stop memorizing and to begin to think analytically. His initiatives and advice have made me into a more creative thinker and have made it possible for other Scarsdale students to distinguish themselves in college. I know I am just one of many in the community who has been impacted by Mr. Klemme and will be sad to see him go.
Before he moves on, I asked him a few questions about his years in Scarsdale and future plans and here is what he said:
What will you miss at Scarsdale High School?
I suppose I will most miss the superior environment for learning at SHS. I often tell teachers new to the building that Scarsdale High School is the kind of place where all the variables in education come together in the right way: motivated students, supportive parents, an excellent faculty, and the resources that make it all work so well. It's in that synergy that Scarsdale is especially distinctive.
What were some of the highlights of your term here?
Many highlights: moments of crisis where I believe I provided the leadership required: Columbine, 9/11, Homecoming 2002. But also moments of transformation: heightened emphasis on reducing stress among students, the movement from AP to AT in the interest of promoting deeper and richer learning, and the hiring of over 90 new faculty members during my tenure which sets the stage for another generation of excellence. No public school, to my knowledge, has yet followed in our AT footsteps although many seem genuinely interested. We've affiliated with the Independent Curriculum Group, a consortium of mostly private schools that do not offer AP, and we sponsored a conference in late April on critical and creative thinking that was well attended by New York area schools.
What are your plans?
I will be returning to the English classroom at The Oxbridge Academy of the Palm Beaches, a new private school opening its doors in September with 75 students. I'm thrilled to be going "back to my roots" because the transaction between teacher and students is something most administrators say they miss the most.
What are some of the books on your list for your class next year?
The other English teacher and I have prepared a summer reading list which is a blend of contemporary and classic works, fiction and nonfiction. Among the titles: Lewis Thomas' Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, Thomas Hardy's Return of the Native, and a wonderful new work--The Housekeeper and the Professor, which is the story of a math professor with a memory that lasts only 80 minutes and his relationship with a young boy.
What is your advice to the Class of 2011?
My advice to the class of 2011 is the same as always: recognize how well Scarsdale High School has prepared you for the future, and remember your responsibility to others outside the world you've lived in here in Scarsdale. There's a special meaning for me this year, though: I'm "graduating" with the class this year as well and know that leaving is a difficult process but one that's also full of opportunity.
