I want to share something with you that I just received minutes ago from a colleague.
It reworks the RFP for the Armory and I will quote the exact language… “The City of New Rochelle invites qualified development teams, cultural and civic associations, colleges and universities, non-profit and for profit entities to submit proposals for the adaptive reuse of the former Armory located at 260-70 E. Main Street, New Rochelle, N.Y.”
The contact person is Suzanne Reider, Senior Project Manager, Department of Development.
I will not repeat my oft-delivered point that the best resource would be a committee of local and experienced citizens headed up by Ron Tocci, former State Assemblyman. I am urging Tocci take his proposal throughout the City, to every Synagogue, Church, Association, etc. to indicate that his team has a multi-usage scheme that would both form a lead into Echo Bay and our sorely needed commercial development to ease the tax burden.
I can recall many recent cants by the Administration citing resistance to this neglected propery, then its need to develop revenue for it to be considered at all.
Yet this RFP invites non-profits, colleges and universaries to bid… citing either an blatant lack of common sense, commitment to the community, or perhaps, enmity held by Noam Bramson in terms of the unbundling of Echo Bay and his dislike, likely shared, of Ron Tocci.
My problem is that it seems like a open invitation for Monroe College to continue their acquisition of valuable property and now, likely, unless addressed, their acquisition of the Armory to advance their adventurous athletic programs and goals. Perhaps the social engineers among you ought to take a close look at both the considerable amount of real estate acquired here as well as what a Monroe education winds up costing people, most of color, in terms of debt and the difficulty of obtaining jobs in a depressed economy.
NO, you paragons of social virtue why don’t you look at the large campaign contributions paid to a ceremonial mayor, democratic council members and the democratic party itself.
Look at ask yourself, why is Marc Jerome the head man here for Monroe in charge of the BID. I allege, repeat allege, that this is an excellent springboard to control the land zoning and property acquisition through being in the best position to do this and by flying under the radar. YOu won’t even see mention of him in Talk of the Sound to speak of, but perhaps someone close to the Armory team will fill in some absolute numbers to that regard. This is a clever man who, while not doing anythng evil or underhanded, is stripping you of your ability to get a return on your investment and permits crime to flourish, taxes to rise, taxes to transmogrify into fees and, while the City burns, the Council tunes up the fiddle.
Matt, I am going to acknowledge in advance, that I am a man of spiritual conviction, an adherent of Jesus Christ, a student of my historical underpinnings through the majesty of the Jewish tradition so I say, live with it.
Not you community. Christians cannot put away their heads and hearts when Good Friday passes anymore than Jews can abandon justice and righteousness at the close of Yom Kippur.
What has just transpired is securlarly wrong vis a vis both the City Charter in terms of roles, responsibilities and relationships and the 1996 Comprehensive Plan, especially Section III-1 where the primary focus re: land use and community values lies with restoring and rebuidling our business district.
I need to scold you… what the hell is wrong with you; advocates of the administration or foes alike? Do you really think that your equity value will even remain steady-state at a complete failure to avoid a proper business district that recoups lost property to non-profits, Monroe and the dolllars stores?
Are you comfortable in a situation where all of the city government is housed in 515 North Avenue like Fort Apache in the South Bronx during the troubling sevenites? Can you understand that the City Charter has not been amended so our mayor is ceremonial but has all of the power of a strong mayor. Don’t you remember voting against a strong mayor referendum twice in the past twenty or so years?
Do you really want to pay a full salary and benefit package totaling over @250,000 to both a mayor operating imperially, imperiously and out of Charter bounds and a City Manager? Where Noam good enough to recognize the opporunity to restore some dignity to the Non-North side by not standing in the way of the Tocci team, we would have had the beginning of a rebirth.
Council members if you give Jerome the project, you are morally and professionally stained. You are the true oversight and policy people making almost one-third of the cermonial mayors’ salary. Do you really give a damn about justice and reformation.
Jesus did and if uncomfortable with this, think secular Jesus. I do not apologize for following the greatest philosophical leader of all times.
He said, (sic) “Love thy Lord thy God with all of your might and “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” There is more, but your neighbor is not a hollow man nor should your responsbility end at the end of the aformentioned atonement evenings. It is a daily responsibility.
I call for Noam Bramson, Al Tarantino, Jared Rice, Shari Rackman, Louis Trangucci, Ivar Hyden, and Barry Fertel to think beyond the ideological, the checkbook, and the politics displayed for years by council members who were too mesmerized, lazy or plain self-interested to ignore what our Consitution in New Rochelle says and that is our City Charter.
I usually get about 400 or 500 reads tops on my long postings with few comments. So I will comment and then end this…. I accuse all of you as well as myself of being a community that has forgotten to unite, to hold its elected official to higher standards, to conventiently or ignorantly failing to see the clear relationships among events. You are damn well your brothers’ keepers, and you really need to love thy neighbors, all of your neighbors.
Noam, brilliant as he is, has little appetite for a “return to the future.” He is, like many others here, throughout our nation and the world, a dinosaur. Politics change or your children will continue to learn that the lines we walk are rarely straight.
We need more Killorans, the young women who recently were honored at City Hall, and yes, certainily Ray Rices.
Sorry for the length, but I am breathing fire and declaring war and will take no prisoners. I will be compassionate, forgiving but back in my future, I was Mister G. and I return.
Goodbye, Warren…
As you have read, I was surprised at Cox’s first disagreeable response, since bloggers don’t usually attack their posters, especially since ‘bemoaning’ is what keeps his silly little blog alive. I took issue with your idea that he ‘deserves’ my respect, and now completely reject it.
A person has to EARN respect. He does not.
I find it very curious that a person, especially one interested in public office, would become so enraged at a reasonable suggestion on a silly little blog, but hey, his blog, his rules.
So, this is it for me. Good luck to you, Warren, and take care.
Good luck in your optimism about the future of New Rochelle. Sadly, I believe the City of New Rochelle is finished, for good and for ever. I hope I am proven wrong.
USED
I hope you reconsider but I do agree and support you in all ways.
I sincerely will miss your strong views and know your history. like many of us, has not been what it should be and what you deserve.
I urge the readers to look beyond any personal disagreements and look at the bigger issue of what USED brought to the table.
This man cared period. Most of us, silent or otherwise want a City that works and, speaking for myself and perhaps others, at no harm to those who have not sensed the obligation of public stewardship and the call for MUSTS over Shoulds.
I would love an organized, carefully planned waterfront but it takes a back seat to a city that restores and rebuilds the anchors necessary to bring us forward.
We are on the preciipice of being the next Mt Vernon or Yonkers and I say this without disrespect for the residents therein; many trapped by the same circumstances and cultural anomie that cripples us now and will destroy us tomorrow.
“A House Divided Cannot Stand” and neither can those denied a voice. We have another casualty, by all measnures a fine man, likely a “lifer” in New Rochelle.
Maybe it is fitting to think of the recently departed Rodney King who pleaded for all of us “to get along.”
Noam and council members. This is literally so easy to begin, to proceed, and to finish. It will demand sacrifice on all of our parts but I tell you that your name and the name of your council colleagues will always be remembered as the restorars of New Rochelle and that would be a proper and blessed appendage to our 325 Anniversary.
Why is it easy? Well you bury the Should and elevate the Must. You support business and common sense. You draw a line in the sand on the business district and resurrect it beginning now and you listen to all voices, NSEW; a 360 degree circule from where you sit.
If you don’t you, along with your benign (apatheic) and malevolent (contributors with a hope of gain) enablers will know you had the golden opportunity that often comes along but once in a lifetime, to do the right thing. It is good and necessary to be selfless over selfish. Ask your Rabbi, Priest, Pastor, yuor children.
I am viewed in TOTS as the optimistic one but I am considerbly older than my wife and if she asks me to leave because her equity or safety is threatened, I will go.
Healing is a process; a miracle is not provided. Don’t be unaware of the voices throughout your City. And, symbolically, if you do not turn over the Armory to the poeple, Tocci’s group, who stepped up, you would have failed a clsssic case of cupidity, self-interest, and simply, lost an important opportunity to band people throughout New Rochelle together.
They will do what is right and for one, I will relentlessly see that they do.
God Bless our City and all threin.
New Ro Sex, Drugs and Land Games!
Warren, I added the sex and drugs to get people’s attention. It seems New Rochelle going down the drain has no sex appeal. Now that we have your attention, please take the time to read the posts and the many responses to the posts on this site. Many of them hit the nail right on the head and are very informative. Yes, some don’t and can get a little spicy but you can at least let your opinion be known through this site. It’s the one place to turn to speak your mind and not worry about any retribution or fall out. Use your moniker or call name. Be creative. Inspire. But speak up, this is not a Game!
Arrogance, ignorance, incompetence or just plain old insider trading,
The Mayor, The City Council, City Management and City Staff are like little kids playing a game of monopoly. The rules change as the game goes along when someone doesn’t like the way the games is going. Then people begin to make deals and alliances to their benefit just like many of the land development deals in New Rochelle. They don’t release the correct info for the Weyman Ave deal and others and now for the Armory they do? Don’t forget our friends at Forest City and Cappelli they already have the inside moves on Park Place and Boardwalk some of the most valuable real estate left in the game. I don’t want to go into Iona and Monroe College, Transportation, Schools, The Utilities and about the City Yard deals. Those are a whole other subject to look into. The only objective is to win the game at any cost and it doesn’t matter who you drive into bankruptcy or out of the game completely. Those that don’t have the inside track are bound to lose all of their money and property or just give up and leave the game.
New Rochelle this is no game of Monopoly, this is real life and you can’t bend or change the rules for the benefit of someone else to give them the upper hand. Mr. Mayor and City Council, your sole responsibilities are in the interest of the taxpayers of this city only. The biggest problem here in New Rochelle is that The City Council, City Management and City Staff are playing with real taxpayer money, our businesses, our homes and our family’s lives are involved. We aren’t just putting the game away to start at another time. There is no second chance. This is no Game!
“Common Sense for the Common Good”