(PICTURE: Rye City Hall by local artist Heather Patterson)
The city council's agenda for its *special* meeting on Wednesday, September 12, 2012 is out.
There will be a special meeting of the City Council of the City of Rye on Wednesday, September 5, 2012, at 8:00pm in the Council Room of City Hall. The meeting will be preceded by a meeting of the Litigation Committee beginning at 7:00pm in the Mayor’s Conference Room. The Council will convene at 7:30pm and it is expected they will adjourn into Executive Session to discuss real estate matters.
Office Hours of the Mayor by appointment by emailing dfrench@ryeny.gov.
Meetings are also aired on Cablevision Channel 75 and Verizon Channel 39. We'll also see you on the Internet (live and archive).
Let's check the batting order and highlights from the 8 agenda items.
- Sell It.Authorization for the City Manager to enter into a broker agreement between the City of Rye and CBRE to market the property located at 1037 Boston Post Road. Roll Call.
- Lester's Has First Dibs (for $3.6M). Authorization for the City Manager to enter into a Purchase and Sale Agreement between the City of Rye and Lester’s of Rye, LLC for the right of first refusal for the purchase of the property located at 1037 Boston Post Road.
- Lester's Paperwork. Authorization for the City Manager to enter into an Amendment to extend the Lease Agreement with Lester’s of Rye, LLC.
- Doug's "Honey Do" List. Continuation of Public Hearing to discuss potential capital projects to be included in a November, 2012 Bond Referendum and Continuation of Public Hearing to adopt bond resolutions for the November, 2012 Referendum for capital projects.
The next regular meeting of the City Council will be held on Wednesday, September 12, 2012 at
8:00pm.
Hi guys it's me, Skunk Piss! Just so you know I will be leaving town for a few days. While I'm gone you might want to look out for a big load of horse crap I saw coming this way.
Posted by: Skunk Piss | September 26, 2012 at 02:33 PM
‘TO SEE WHAT IS IN FRONT OF ONE’S NOSE NEEDS A CONSTANT STRUGGLE.”
I clipped this telling quote from George Orwell from the top of today’s lead Wall Street Journal editorial admonishing President Obama to take Iran’s vitriol against Israel at face value. But in another context, a very local context, it is also perfectly appropriate.
Take for example our Rye Golf Club, where the elected governing commission recently got a rude awakening about one of the key drivers behind their increasing cost structure which theretofore had previously been tucked away into an obliquely bundled financial reporting category making up about one quarter of their entire budget. Ouch! So much for fairly presented transparent managerial reporting.
http://www.lausdeo10580.com/lausdeo10580/2012/09/deficit-laden-whitby-castle-charged-400000-in-overtime-labor-by-staffing-company-with-reported-tiesto-rye-golf-club-gener.html
The golf commission’s rude awakening would never have taken place without the help of a watchful and inquisitive local media - assisted by members of our growing ranks of local good government reformers who are totally fed up with repeat performances by local bad actors. Readers here know the many municipal cesspools we’ve uncovered, and the good residents hurt needlessly by callus conflicted and less than truthful elected and paid city officials. The stories are certainly piling up - as is the evidence - some brought forth at personal risk by whistleblowers and other insiders who once knew a better Rye and feel like bringing it back.
As I told a longtime local senior Democratic Party leader this weekend, we’ve almost, but not quite, been reduced to stealing Rye public documents so as to bring these kinds of issues to light. It shouldn’t be like that; in fact state and federal law require it not be like that. But a kind of cancer has metastasized inside Rye City Hall that no official of government apparently wants to bother treating. Or even admitting. If you doubt this please take a look at this story first reported in early August and still unaddressed today -
http://www.lausdeo10580.com/lausdeo10580/2012/08/city-of-rye-corporation-counsel-hired-to-perform-duties-in-violation-of-nys-law.html
http://www.lausdeo10580.com/lausdeo10580/2012/08/ny-state-official-confirms-city-of-rye-attorney-kristen-wilson-acting-in-violation-of-law.html
So we will struggle forward, hopefully with growing numbers of helpers alongside, and we will prevail in returning Rye into that well managed town where integrity at city hall is unquestionable. Good luck to the Golf Commission – I understand they are meeting again tonight. And just so you know, we’ve got your backs.
Posted by: tedc | September 26, 2012 at 01:01 PM
At some point, Robert Zahm, we have to agree to disagree. I said the Record covers more topics not issues. How much clearer can I be that it's not about whether I like or dislike the Record's coverage but whether the paper is being used as a tool for the Jovanovich's political purposes while seriously bullying anyone who disagrees? Did you not read Andrew Dapolite's post? If that doesn't disturb, like I said, at some point we have to agree to disagree. To be called absurd and a gadfly kind of feels like a big puff of skunk piss in my face...I apologize if the metaphor offends you.
Posted by: Anne McCarthy | September 26, 2012 at 11:57 AM
Wow, Anne, Skunk Piss? I missed a couple of days here trying to find enough tomato juice to wash off all of what you threw around.
You called my logic child-like, but you did not refute the point that the Record covers the local issues. Again, clearly not to your liking, but they are reported. Saying otherwise remains absurd.
Returning to the gist of this thread, the Record is not the “Establishment” paper as in the City of Rye’s mouth piece. I base that conclusion on the Record’s critical reporting of the City and School District on taxation/spending, academic performance, and pedestrian safety/traffic law enforcement. Could the coverage be more critical? Certainly. [Andrew Dapolite’s saga is a true crime – not his behavior, but the way he was treated. Yes, the Record’s coverage could have been better on that.]
But Ted C’s original thesis, that the Rye Record is the incumbent is correct; it has taken a 3rd reading of his post for me to see that as his point. And I agree with it. The Record was in place before the e-journals. And it is a relative economic success (not sure I’d invest in it regardless of the number of real estate ads it gets). Clearly, the other publications must do everything they can to upstage the Record – publish scoops, provide more detail on the latest newsworthy event, etc. – if they are going to get readership. I’m skeptical that that readership will produce sufficient revenue to keep them going which will probably result in them collapsing into the equivalent of a vanity press dependent on individuals donating their time to keeping them going.
Posted by: Robert Zahm | September 25, 2012 at 10:13 PM
You're telling me a guy that makes $18 an hour pulled in $4,000 working at the golf club for two weeks... I should have applied for a job there, not a membership. And the place loses money, what a joke.
http://www.lausdeo10580.com/lausdeo10580/2012/09/deficit-laden-whitby-castle-charged-400000-in-overtime-labor-by-staffing-company-with-reported-tiesto-rye-golf-club-gener.html
Posted by: Rye Golf Club | September 25, 2012 at 05:39 PM
Andrew your assessment of the Rye Record is right on the money.
Peter and Robin have become shills for the likes of French and Pickup. They appear to not care about the truth and don't report on anything that will reflect badly on Peter. For example, the apparent misappropriation of $5,000,000 from City of Rye operating funds.
How about that "Dewey defeats Truman" headline when the Jovanovich's falsely announced Killian;s appointment while neglecting to report on the May 5, 2012 antics of our former barefoot contessa Councilwoman.
In my opinion the Jovanovich's have an insatiable desire to be accepted as Rye residents, they are phonies, they lack of credibility and ethics, and have a disturbing bias towards anyone who dares to tell the truth about Rye's corrupt administrators. I believe this has made the Rye Record and the Jovanovich's the laughing stocks of Rye and throughout Westchester.
Posted by: TheLegalFeesAreTooDamnHigh | September 24, 2012 at 06:32 PM
I agree with Anne McCarthy’s assertion that The Rye Record has become increasingly biased. The example I’ll use is one I am very familiar with: the concealment and public tampering of the Fire Department Workshop video by Scott Pickup and Nicole Levitsky.
Within one hour after I emailed a letter to the City Council on February 13th, I received an email from the Rye Record. Somehow, an unknown Councilperson spoke to the Rye Record about my seven page detailed account of what occurred at Rye City Hall and Rye TV Studio: beginning with Councilman Sack asking Mr. Pickup if the Fire Department meeting he missed was videotaped, Mr. Pickup lying on live TV, Nicole Levitsky ordering subordinates to lie to back the Manager, and her telling members of the Fire Department and other media outlets that no such tape existed. When Councilman Sack found out that the workshop was actually videotaped 2 weeks later, he ordered Mr. Pickup to post it to the City website. Ms. Levitsky lowered the audio levels by 7 decibels. (I remind you that on this videotape, you will see a heated exchange between Councilwoman Parker and Mayor French. French tells Parker that there is no longer a need for her and Sack to co-author a study on the Fire Department. He would prefer for the report to come from the City Manager. There were fireworks to say the least.)
Robin Jovanovich called me the next day. She said she had a copy of my letter in her possession. She recited entire sections and asked me “how could you do such a thing?!” as if I had done something wrong. She said that she was concerned because “there are more important issues for the Council to deal with”, listing off her favorite capital improvement projects: sidewalk and street repairs, downtown parking, etc. Renea Henry over at Rye Patch reported on this Rye Record leak.
Robin defended her paper’s reputation. She publishing a front page story with a cutesy headline like a one-trick pony: “Leaks, Lies and Videotapes” which insinuates that I myself was not being truthful, and I was to blame for Peter’s beloved City Manager about to enter the pressure cooker. This story was not labeled as an editorial, yet it was ridden with conjecture (Tapegate? We didn’t think so” and “Did that mean Dapolite wanted the City to conduct a far reaching and costly investigation?”- her attempt I presume to rouse the support of overburdened taxpayers). Robin also took my sarcastic statements out of context from an off the record conversation, and attributed them to me as if I was apologizing to her: “I really thought you said you’d read the letter. I’m sorry if I misquoted anything [to other media outlets]”.
In the very same edition of her paper, Robin ran an editorial further diminishing this very serious issue of truthfulness. Her article was titled, “A Legacy of Less”. Ms. Jovanovich asserted: “With so much City and Council staff time being devoted to what the Mayor, the City Manager, the Corporation Counsel, the Building Department, the RyeTV Coordinator did or didn’t do, very little else is happening. Go forth, City Council.”
In the months that followed, Robin was selective in what she published on this story. But when The City Manager issued me an unfounded reprimand and we filed an Article 78 suit to repeal it, this story sprung to life again with the explosive headline, “Dapolite Sues City As Ethics Board Mulls His Fate.”
No, Robin. I did not sue the City- nor were MY actions ever before the Ethics Board. As my attorney, former Rye Mayor Judge John Carey explained to you, Scott Pickup does not equate to “the city” as his interests are different. In our case we argued that Pickup was using a fabricated reprimand as leverage against my allegations, which formed the issue that was before the Ethics Board. And sure enough, a settlement of the unrelated lawsuit was enough for the Ethics Board to conclude their review, another controversy that materialized on the Council dais last month, and went unreported by The Rye Record.
Robin clearly has an agenda: undoubtedly, there are things in this city that need to get done, and we need a Council to focus on those things. I happen to agree with most of Robin and Peter's opinions on capital improvement projects, but I for one do not believe intersections and downtown parking are more important than the integrity of the city we love.
-Andrew
Posted by: ADapolite | September 24, 2012 at 12:23 PM
What a bunch of skunk piss from Robert Zahm. Once again flawed logic and adding nothing but insults to the discussion. "Okay so you both feel strongly that the Rye Record doesn't represent your point of view." That has nothing to do with the debate. Wow, left field logic, child-like. Very few newspapers, websites or periodicals represent my point of view. I still read them, use them as a news source, generally respect them and look for differing points of view in them. Although they may not share my view, they report the news. And then he goes on to say how "absurd" it is to say the Record doesn't report on flooding. This is the logic of a simpleton: saying the Record has -in its history - reported on flooding. It did not - FACT - report on the Sluice Gate in the issue that was highlighted. You added nothing but skunk piss to what was previously a constructive discussion.
Posted by: Anne McCarthy | September 24, 2012 at 09:05 AM
I wonder if this has anything to do with it?
https://vimeo.com/47034186
Posted by: Ray Tartaglione | September 23, 2012 at 10:32 PM
How about this one?
http://www.ryerecord.com/news/no-emergency-yet-folks.html
Maybe Robin and her husband the Deputy Mayor can tell us why in August, Greenwich is asking its restaurants with outdoor dining to close a half hour before sunset, New York City and Long Island is spraying to eliminate the West Nile threat but in Rye we should not worry. Why is it Ok for Hen Islanders to store thousands of gallons of water and breed mosquito’s by the millions in their acres of Rye City allowed dump sites?
Posted by: Ray Tartaglione | September 23, 2012 at 10:26 PM