Politics on the Hudson

With just a month left until the general election, state Sen. Andrea Stewart-Cousins, D-Yonkers, has a war chest more than six times bigger than her Republican challenger Liam McLaughlin.

The two-term incumbent reported a closing balance of $201,586.96 in her 2010 32 Day Pre-General Report Summary, which was due on Oct. 1. Stewart-Cousins also reported that she took in $76,477 in contributions for the reporting period.

McLaughlin reported that he received $91,630.27 in contributions, which is greater than Stewart-Cousins’ haul, but his closing balance for the period was $29,639.58.

The City Council adopted an ordinance on Tuesday that would empower police to crack down on slumlords and it’s sparked competing press releases from City Council members.

The public nuisance abatement law would allow the police to impose penalties and sanctions on the owners of properties that are repeatedly the scene of arrests.

Given the frequency with which police respond to certain properties, such as 77 Locust Hill Ave., where two men were murdered in July and where two men were shot in 2009 and 2008, the ordinance seeks to force property owners to take control of their properties and evict troublemakers.

City Council President issued a press release on Wednesday stating that he, Councilwoman Patricia McDow and Councilman Wilson Terrero believe the bill is flawed.

“As a former business owner in the area I can see the potential for how this new law can give our local government the authority to single out certain property owners with over zealous prosecution,” Terrero stated in the release. “The law is too broad and in addition to being misused, it can really threaten the property rights of small business and homeowners, and dampen business in the community.”

Councilman John Murtagh, hailed the adoption in his press release.

“Good landlords who are involved in their properties and concerned about their tenants will have nothing to fear,” Murtagh said in his release, “but absentee landlords who merely collect the profits while neglecting their tenants and their neighborhoods will now be called to account.”

The law now goes to Mayor Phil Amicone, who must hold a public hearing before either signing or vetoing it. Today, Amicone’s spokesman David Simpson said the mayor was not yet ready to say whether he will sign the bill.

The public hearing for the proposed law is on Oct. 13 at 4:30 p.m. in the Mayor’s Reception Room at City Hall.

Here are copies of Lesnick’s and Murtagh’s releases (more…)

Police apprehended an Eastchester man accused of stealing petitions from a volunteer with the campaign New York Assembly candidate Mike Ramondelli, a Republican challenging Assemblyman Mike Spano, D-Yonkers.

Yonkers Police announced this morning that on Monday they arrested Julio Sophia, 33, of 22 Park Ave. in Eastchester and charged him with fourth-degree grand larceny, a felony, for allegedly taking a clipboard with approximately 275 signatures from Joseph Dalli.

The alleged larceny occurred on Aug. 11 at the Shoprite Supermarket located at 278 Tuckahoe Rd. in Yonkers. Police said that Dalli handed the clipboard to Sophia to sign and then he ran away with it.

Last week Ramondelli’s campaign accused Spano’s campaign workers of being behind the incident.

Today Denise Egiziaco in Spano’s office said that Sophia does not work for Spano’s campaign. She said that Sophia is the friend of one of Spano’s nephews and she e-mailed a statement from Spano.

Former Yonkers Corporation Counsel Frank Rubino’s new gig at Harris Beach comes at a fortuitous time for the law firm because it filed papers on July 7 in the federal court in White Plains indicating that it will now represent the defendants in the case of Irma Marquez against police officer Wayne Simoes, the Yonkers Police, the City of Yonkers and other Yonkers cops.

Rubino was corporation counsel at the time Marquez was picked up by Simoes and thrown to the ground in a Palisade Avenue restaurant, an act caught on video and replayed often on television.

Harris Beach’s July 7 filing does not state whether Rubino, who joined the firm in May, will be involved in the defense of the firm’s new clients.

The Yonkers City Charter has a number of sections addressing  former city employees’ subsequent employment. Here’s one of them:

§C1A-10(B) imposes a lifetime ban with regard to any matter the employee worked on while with the City, defining “works on” as, “substantially involved with the matter or personally supervises or directs how the matter is to be handled.”

The issue of Rubino’s post-Yonkers work was recently raised by Hezi Aris, the author of the Yonkers Tribune.

Aris thought Rubino’s employment by Harris Beach is a conflict of interest because of Harris Beach’s work for the Yonkers Industrial Development Agency, so he wrote to the Yonkers Ethics Board.

The Ethics Board wrote back indicating that it found no ethics violations, but the board’s July 19 letter did not make any reference to Harris Beach’s new status as the city’s representative in the Marquez case.

Here is Harris Beach’s court filing:

Harris Beach takes over body slam brutality suit

Earlier this week Mayor Phil Amicone’s spokesman David Simpson accused the Department of Public Works union, the Teamsters, of an illegal job action because so many Yonkers residents did not have their trash picked up on time, or in some cases, more than 10 days late.

Earlier today the Teamsters’ chief shop steward in Yonkers, Anthony Manzo, denied that his union staged a job action and he said that none of his members have been charged with wrongdoing by the city.

“Nobody got written up, nobody got fined as of today,” Manzo said. “I would be at the hearing and there isn’t a soul that got written up yet.”

Manzo said the disruption in garbage collection for the past two weeks is due to a number of factors, but mainly due to the fact that all of the DPW’s youngest workers were laid off, and they are the ones who typically did the garbage runs.

“They’re sending all the cripples from all the other departments to sanitation. Those are the people going to the hospital,” said Manzo, referring to DPW workers who were hospitalized earlier this week because of heat exhaustion. “They’re sending people with hip replacements, heart attacks, knee replacements. They’re sending these people out and they can’t do the work.”

Manzo said the 55 layoffs in his department will be complicated by a retirement incentive that may induce another 20 workers to leave.

As for uncollected trash on some city streets, Manzo said that the city’s ordinances required sanitation workers to leave behind trash left in supermarket plastic bags. The city’s rules also has limits on garbage can weights, which were initially observed but have been relaxed since the first week of the new collection.

Manzo also explained that the older workers stopped doing garbage routes 10 or 15 years ago and have forgotten the routines.

Manzo said his union gave up $500,000 in concessions the last time the city announced layoffs in December of 2008, and it offered the city $500,000 in concessions this summer.

“It didn’t work out. I think the mayor and his staff told us it wasn’t enough money and that’s where we left off as of now,” said Manzo, adding that he would attend this afternoon’s City Council budget-adoption meeting in hopes of working out a last-minute deal.

Yesterday City Council President Chuck Lesnick said he favored restoring twice-a-week garbage collection. Lesnick couldn’t say yesterday how the city would pay for that, suggesting a combination of union concessions and a greater tax increase than 4% tax rate increase proposed by Amicone

Yonkers Councilwoman Joan Gronowski, D-3rd District, issued a press release last night criticizing Mayor Phil Amicone and a city union for the city’s garbage disaster, which as of Wednesday had left some city residents with no pick-up for more than 10 days.

“This situation is totally unacceptable and it is shameful that the City of Yonkers has come to this – cuts in quality of life services, not “extras” – which have been sacrificed to city cars, cell phones, free parking, a downtown waterfront development sub-agency with more than $320,000 in annual salaries, mayoral aides funded by one agency and sitting in another,” Gronowski wrote in her release. “All of these egregious situations still exist and are slaps in the face to the taxpayer.”

Yesterday Amicone’s spokesman David Simpson blamed the Teamsters for the garbage mess, which began on June 28 when the city switched to one-day-a-week collection because of layoffs due to its budget crisis.

Simpson said the city has brought charges against some of its workers, accusing them of an illegal job action. He said some would face $500-a-day fines, though he could not say how many workers had been charged.

“As with anything civil service, there is a process in place and we are going through the process. Several crews and individuals have been questioned and some have been given disciplinary hearings. Others are being closely monitored. Penalties have yet to be determined because we have to give the unions time to respond. I think the point is, a clear message was sent that the mayor will not tolerate a work slow down,” Simpson wrote in an e-mail yesterday.

Here is Gronowski’s complete release:

Councilwoman Gronowski cites Mayor Amicone, DPW and union leaders for lack of response to garbage and COMMINGLE collection in Yonkers

Yonkers Third District Councilmember Joan Gronowski is calling for the Amicone administration to immediately take action in responding to the outcries of Yonkers residents that have garbage piling up in their neighborhoods.  Gronowski’s office has been inundated for two weeks with calls of angry residents that are disheartened by the dismal quality of life in their neighborhoods and that they no longer know where to turn for help.

Gronowski stated, “Today my office has received numerous complaints from residents who have not had any garbage pick up for two weeks – from the very start of the newly imposed one-day per week garbage collection.”  Varying accounts by both the DPW Commissioner and the Mayor have attributed delays to adapting to new schedules/routes and intentional work slow-downs, respectively.  Gronowski stated, “This situation is totally unacceptable and it is shameful that the City of Yonkers has come to this – cuts in quality of life services, not “extras” – which have been sacrificed to city cars, cell phones, free parking, a downtown waterfront development sub-agency with more than $320,000 in annual salaries, mayoral aides funded by one agency and sitting in another”.  “All of these egregious situations still exist and are slaps in the face to the taxpayer”.

Angered tax payers have reported, sanitation workers taking two to three hour breaks, selectively picking up garbage from some streets and leaving others, skipping partial to whole routes and picking up city garbage cans but not residential.  Gronowski concluded, “This is a severe health risk to many of our residents in Yonkers and the tax payers deserve an explanation and immediate action taken by the administration to rectify this situation.”

Councilwoman Joan Gronowski, D-3rd District, issued a press release this morning calling for an end to free parking for city employees at the Government Center Garage next to City Hall to help the Yonkers Parking Authority with an $800,000 debt it can’t afford.

The Yonkers Parking Authority needs $800,000 for an expected settlement of payment dispute it has with the former owner of a property at the corner of Saw Mill River Road and Lockwood Avenue.

The authority took the property using eminent domain and put a municipal parking lot there, which has been a money loser.

Last week Yonkers Inspector General Dan Schorr issued a report recommending that the city take out an $800,000 loan for the expected debt and have the authority slowly pay it back.

Gronowski writes that the city workers who currently get free parking should be required to pay for their parking to help the authority meet its debts.

Here’s her release:

Councilwoman gronowski questions city council bonding to pay parking authority settlement

Yonkers Third District Councilmember Joan Gronowski is criticizing a plan that calls for the Yonkers City Council to bond an $800,000 settlement facing the Yonkers Parking Authority stemming from its 2001 seizure of property through Eminent Domain.

The property is a parking lot at 310 Saw Mill River Road.  According to Deputy Mayor William Regan, also Chair of the Parking Authority Board, the agency doesn’t have enough money to pay for the settlement.

The City Council CIP bonding was an alternative financing option suggested by Yonkers Inspector General Dan Schorr, which includes annual repayments of approximately $85,000 by the Authority to the City of Yonkers until 2024.

In April 2009, Gronowski issued a statement calling upon the city administration to require all Yonkers employees using the Government Center Garage at City Hall to pay for parking.  Gronowski stated, “there are scores of employees – including Commissioners and elected officials and their staffs, who do not pay for parking at the facility”, further noting that she first highlighted this fact during her campaign for city council.

The Administration suggested city council legislation might be entertained,  but Gronowski had no support for her proposal.  However, Gronowski states,  “The Yonkers Parking Authority, at any time, could have implemented this policy which would have demonstrated good business sense and fair and equitable parking fee collection.  Perhaps if these procedures had been put in place in past years, the Authority would have had the necessary means to pay their own legal fees”.

Gronowski further noted that free parking, city cars, gas and cell phones all contribute to the sense of entitlement by city officials which have greatly contributed toward the fiscal problems facing us today.

Yonkers Councilman John Murtagh, R-5th District, issued an e-blast this afternoon about this week’s garbage collection, which has angered many people in the city.

In some cases, residents whose garbage was supposed to have been picked up on Tuesday didn’t get collected until Thursday, when city sanitation workers threw garbage and recycling into the truck. (The recycling was supposed to have been done on Wednesday.)

Here’s Murtagh’s statement:

As I am sure you have seen this week, it appears that the union representing our sanitation workers has decided to respond to necessary budget cuts with a work slow down and job action.  It is unfortunate that, as Yonkers struggles with a 90 million dollar budget shortfall, our municipal unions have consistently resisted helping the taxpayers and residents get through this difficult period.  Instead they have only called for more taxes.
In order to restore services and stop layoffs their way it would have been necessary to raise property taxes over 30 per cent. Since such a tax hike would be an unfair and outrageous burden, Councilmen Larkin, Shepherd and I had called for all City workers (including elected officials) to take a 5 per cent pay cut. This simple sacrifice, along with coming state aid would have avoided the need for one day a week garbage pick up and virtually all other service cuts.
Unfortunately, because the Unions would not step up to the plate, cuts became necessary in every City department including police, fire and sanitation. Now with the results of their refusal at hand, it appears the unions are now compounding the problems with a slow down. Unfortunately, I can only beg your patience as the Mayor, Councilmen Larkin and I fight to instill  some fiscal restraint during this difficult economy.
Thank you for your understanding and do not hesitate to contact me with you questions and suggestions.
Sincerely,
John M. Murtagh
Yonkers City Council, Dist. 5
Minority Leader

Former Yonkers Councilman Liam McLaughlin distributed a press release about his campaign kick-off even in which the Republican criticizes the incumbent he wants to defeat, state Sen. Andrea Stewart-Cousins, D-Yonkers.

Here’s what McLaughlin wrote: (more…)

Yonkers City Court Judge Richard F. Sweeney kicked off his campaign on Wednesday for reelection to his seat.

Sweeney, 51, a Republican, was appointed in March by Mayor Phil Amicone. He now wants to serve a full term and he touted his experience in a press release.

“Before becoming a judge, I practiced in every court within the Yonkers City Court system, giving me a wide variety of experience. I have prosecuted and defended. I have done criminal law and civil law. I have conducted felony jury trials and have drafted contracts and legislation. I have represented landlords and I have represented tenants.  I have dealt with all kinds of evidence. And because of this wide variety of experience, I know the good arguments from the bad, the winning ones from the losing ones. And that is why I am the most qualified candidate for City Court Judge.”

Here is a link to a video he’s posted on the Internet.

Here is the full text of his press release: (more…)