Reproduced with permission of The Journal News.
Editorial: Greenburgh endorsement
Greenburgh's new Town Hall is an issue, and so is the proposed land deal with the Unification Church, and there's also the question whether the town should bite the bullet and hire a manager to handle day-to-day affairs.
But more than anything, the race for supervisor, pitting Republican-Conservative James Lasser against six-term Democrat Paul Feiner, seems to be about Feiner's personal style — how he insinuates himself into issues, how he keeps his own counsel, how he quite clearly gets beneath the skin of challenger Lasser, who berates Feiner as "self-aggrandizing."
"Town government shouldn't be left to the whims of any individual," Lasser told the Editorial Board. The former president of the Edgemont Board of Education said he once was a Feiner supporter. Obviously, that's changed. After so many years in office, Feiner no longer "remembers why he was elected," Lasser said.
Would that more office-holders possessed such recall -- on a daily basis. But the record does not support the view that Feiner's personality and style have been impediments to progress in Greenburgh. He may properly take credit for many of the gains that have kept the town on the right track.
Lasser paints Feiner, also on the Independence line, as a spendthrift whose undisciplined habits will lead Greenburgh to ruin. On the contrary, the municipal bond-rating agencies look favorably on Greenburgh, with Moody's Investors Services upgrading the town's credit status three times during Feiner's watch.
Lasser criticizes Feiner's handling of the Town Hall project, wherein Greenburgh spent $6.8 million for a former insurance building on Hillside Avenue, subsequently converted into a badly needed new home for government. Lasser said Feiner paid too much for the 48,000-square-foot building, which Feiner notes was built at a cost of more than $12 million a decade ago. Lasser says this was "too good to be true," but goes no deeper in his criticism.
The challenger chides Feiner as well for not fully divulging facts regarding a proposed purchase from the Unification Church of 180-plus acres at Taxter Ridge -- land to be protected from developers. Given that Greenburgh's share of the sale price would approach $4 million, our position is that the supervisor cannot be forthcoming enough. Additionally, he should not hesitate to seek out public comment on this and other major projects.
There are other issues, including whether Greenburgh should hire a manager. Lasser is pro; Feiner thinks things are being run well enough as is. He is essentially correct. Re-elect Feiner.
There are no contests for two seats on the Town Board in the Nov. 4 election.