WPCNR NEWS COMMENT. By John F. Bailey. July 21,2004: The Democratic Party in White Plains has an abundance of riches. They dominate the city voter registration roles. Their former City Committee Chair Adam Bradley is now District 89 Assemblyman, and in light of the fact his opposition has not even begun to campaign yet, even declining a White Plains Week appearance to meet with his financiers, Bradley, unless he seriously gaffs, should win reelection.

The only prize they do not have is control of the Mayor’s office in White Plains. Now that George What-Was-His-Name has departed for the much richer coffers of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Mayor Delfino’s leadership skills will be shown for what they really are.

The Horses Approach the Paddock

 Bill Ryan, appearing more statesmanlike than ever recently as Chairman of the County Board of Legislators, has made no secret of his ambition to be the Mayor.

 There is Tom Roach, personable, with John F. Kennedy Jr. charisma, but 100% more brains than JFK, Jr. I can’t imagine Tom Roach flying over open ocean at night without an instrument rating.

The word from inside the Democratic party is that Roach will run for Mr. Ryan’s County Legislator position next year, replacing Mr. Ryan easily should Mr. Ryan get the White Plains Mayoral nomination for the Democratics.

Mr. Ryan though will have to hogtie the irrepressible Glen Hockley, who has used every legal means at his disposal to hang onto a Common Council seat he has clearly been shown to have lost. But, he is still there.

The Outsider

Hockley wants to be Mayor, loves the political spotlight, upstages his fellow Common Council members at every opportunity and works very hard at being a man of the people. Unlike Mr. Ryan he takes stands on issues and raises them before the public’s attitude is known. However, it is unlikely Hockley will be nominated. But as The Coasters record, Run Red Run, says, "I tell you sport, don't sell that redhead short, because he's a travelin' son of a gun."

Hockley now can appeal as a man of the people, on a campaign of the man who really knows White Plains, and he can claim the Housing Task Force as a credit, the new headquarters of the Housing Authority as his credit, the African American Juneteenth Celebration to his credit, and I am sure I have forgotten something...all in 27 months on the Common Council.

The Heir Apparent

 There is Benjamin Boykin, Jr. to consider. Can Boykin, as an African-American talk the Democrat city aristocracy into running a minority candidate for Mayor against Delfino? They lost once doing that with Bill Brown. Moreover, what about the Hispanic constituency, the Democrats are not even paying attention to that segment?

The Lack of Minority Spokespersons

And, on that subject of minorities, actually now majorities in White Plains, when is a black leader other than Ron Jackson going to speak out and take political stands. When is an Hispanic leader going to take charge and speak out? Do not the Hispanic and African-American businessmen, leaders, clergy, teachers, care about issues in the city? It appears they do not. Only Ron Jackson, "The Last Activist:" does. He is the only man speaking for anyone of color in this town. That is hard to believe. But it is true.

 The Democrats owe the Hispanic committee big time for dumping Eridania Camacho-Quinn unceremoniously last spring, in favor of Arnold Bernstein for Common Council this past fall. Will Ms. Camacho-Quinn continue to play good-looking bench player for the Democrats, or will she muscle them. I mean they should have run her in 2003. 

Eridania Awaits.

Will Quinn and the minority coalition of African-Americans and Hispanics have the moxie to pressure the Democratic City Committee to give her the nod for Common Council in 2005, when Mr. Hockley, or Mr. Delgado his summer rerun replacement (as of Tuesday afternoon), Mr. Roach, and Ms. Malmud are up for reelection to the Common Council?

 This, of course, assumes Mr. Hockley through his obvious use of the courts to hang on to his bogus Council seat, will still be on the council.

 The question is if Hockley is finally plucked off the council permanently by the quo warranto action, will the Democrats run him again against Mr. Delgado, presuming Delgado is finally rightfully placed on the Council (where he should have been all along if the Democrats had not used the courts to duck a run off election).

 The unceremonious dumping of Glen Hockley, actually happened at 4:45 Tuesday afternoon when Mr. Delgado was sworn in to the council and Mr. Hockley quietly made Citizen Hockley once more.

 Give it time, he’ll appeal, and appeal, and stay and stay. You never know with the New York State courts.

 Or, will the Democratic City Committee opt to run Eridania Camacho-Quinn instead for council, paying off and finally paying attention to the Hispanic-African-American constituency, and snubbing Hockley, whom the majority of his council members do not like.

At Long Last Rita, the Voice of Concern.

 Or will Malmud run for Mayor, finally, now that the city is on the road to solvency? Will Malmud feel up to it? Can she step up? Ms. Malmud, though tentative, and easily buffaloed, was the only councilperson to go on record as questioning the city sewer condition and Mr. Nicoletti’s dissenting opinion. Malmud was genuinely concerned, while the rest of the council just sniffed and treated the sewer subject as something unpleasant. They simply did not want to get at the truth once and for all.

 Malmud deserves credit for at least responding to the Nicoletti concerns, though she did not call for an independent study of the sewer system capacity, something that has still not been independently verified by any body.

 An independent sewer study would have made sure the vacillations of Mr. Nicoletti were correct on the city sewer ability to the City Center, and that a Nicoletti bypass sewer would be adequate to allow the city to carry away the effluent from the Cappelli Main Street Hotel-Condoplex.

No one stepped up Except Ms. Malmud,

 Roach has the most brains, and as of yet seems to have hung on to his reason and integrity and not succumbed to political expediency on the Common Council.

 However, his failure to engage on the sewer capacity issue when George-What’s-His-Name was demonstrated to have withheld Joseph Nicoletti’s hand-wringing over the City Center effluent and the Main Street sewer capacity to carry it, indicates that he did not have the stomach for taking a stand on something that really has not been resolved.

 Everybody is crossing their fingers that City Center apartment dwellers are very regular and  very constipated.

 Another issue that Roach really has not spoken up strongly on is the repression of fiscal numbers by The Mayor’s Office. Would Roach be stronger if he ran for Mayor?

Hoping Those Cash Registers Ring

 He, and the rest of the Mayoral wanna-be’s have to be willing to grapple and solve the perhaps temporary financial mess that the Delfinos have created because if the Democrats win in 2005, the finances, the infrastructure needs, the unenforceable zoning codes based on Delfino Administration precedents, are going to be their problem, not Joe Delfino’s.

An Old Smoothie

 Ryan as Mayor, on the other hand, is the consummate Teflon politician. He can spin with a straightface, and is so self-effacing and convincing you believe that a salary increase is an upgrade of a position.

 He encourages trust and has that all-around nice guy-concerned-for-you image that the voters love, just note the instant love affair with John Edwards’smile.

 Whom Ryan would bring in to run the city, how he would run it, what his vision for it would be is something he needs to define. That is where Mr. Ryan is weak. (Mr. Kerry the Presidential nominee-to-be has the same problem.)

 As a legislator, Mr. Ryan can see which way the wind is blowing on issues then luff his sails into the wind to ride it. As a Mayor, he has to set the course into the wind, something he has not had experience in doing.

 It is a sad fact of life in democracy that a good smile, a soft, cool image, and a look of earnest concern will get more votes than performance, solid ideas, and well-thought-out plans.

An Even Older, Not So Smoothie, Mr. Numbers

 Now, what about Robert Greer, the architect of the city’s current dismal financial position, (member of the City’s financial committee), who along with Ted Peluso, and Mr. Boykin (who also serves on that committee), has blithely allowed the city to burn its fund balance, burn its parking authority fund balance, and bond for operating expenses such as police rolling stock, police staff, and, of course the City Center garage.

 Will Greer, having lost the Mayoralty once with a no-issue campaign  in 2001, talk the city committee into running him again?

Baggage

 Will Boykin run against Delfino on the grounds that he shaped the future of the city and is the man most financially astute to move the city out of its current financial red ink. A defendable position, but Boykin is vulnerable on the finance and the sewer and the infrastructure issues, because he and his five colleagues did not call Mr. George What-Was-His Name on the carpet for twice withholding information from the Common Council.

It was embarrassing and a disgrace that the Common Council did not publicly sanction the Mayor’s Executive Officer for his suppression of information on both the sewer and the bond rating troubles. Where was the outrage? Where was the guts?

Those persons on the council thinking they want to be the Mayor have to grow in their ability to take the right actions.

When a City Commissioner makes a mistake, the council takes no prisoners, they pillory him or her in public. 

Remember The Nicoletti Torching?

This reporter vividly remembers Councilman Rita Malmud’s 2 A.M. grilling of Joseph Nicoletti for the $1-1/2 million cost overrun on the new Department of Public Works garage.

Didn’t the Executive officer’s finessing of a very important Nicoletti memo stand to do much more damage to the city by its suppression than a typical Nicoletti cost overrun? If Nicoletti is right and something really serious happens, the Common Council, by not censuring that Executive Officer for burying the Nicoletti concerns, has left the city open for horrendous damages -- let alone get at the truth of what the real situation is. 

Didn't that warrant just a little comment from ONE of the six Common Council members. Just one? Wasn't anybody incensed they had been finessed (one might even consider it lied to), by the Mayor and his men?

 I guarantee if somebody withholds information from me that makes me look like a jackass for having approved a project when my public works officer says the sewer can’t handle it, and I don't read it in the resolution, I want that person fired. He is out the door. No councilperson peeped about it. You have to be stronger than that to be the Mayor.

Or what if Nicoletti was just nervous?

Or, if the public works officer is wrong, I want to know it, too. He can't hang up a city-saving project on weak technology. And I want him out the door. No one on the Common Council said a thing. And that is negligent and weak of all six of them: Hockley, Malmud, Roach, Bernstein, Greer and Boykin. Beyond weak, it is incompetent. If you're going to be the leader you have make the tough decisions not the easy ones.

No Democrats' Picnic

It is going to be no picnic on East Post Road, picking who will run for Mayor. Let the backstabbing begin.

Or William King, the ex-councilman might run for Mayor independently and really give the Democrats a problem.

But whoever runs and wins will not be in the catbird seat.

They will have much to contend with: the deteriorating finances, the precedent of allowing developers to define  their own zoning,  the infrastructure time bomb, the traffic mess, and the shrinking tax base.

 The consultants are rubbing their hands in anticipation of the study fees now.