White Plains CitizeNetReporter - The Citizens Plan Committee Inviting All Residents to Talk City's Future

WPCNR MR. AND MRS. AND MS. WHITE PLAINS VOICE. January 8, 2004: The Citizens Plan Committee, a group of sixteen citizens, seeking to jumpstart a City Comprehensive Plan Review, responding to a recent exchange of WPCNR Commentary and Super Developer Louis Cappelli's response to that WPCNR commentary, has written WPCNR a letter going into detail on their upcoming citywide meeting at Ridgeway School Thursday evening, Janury 13, at 7:30 P.M., and the purpose of that meeting. In the course of the letter they invite all citizens of all walks of life to come on down and share their thoughts. Here is that letter:

ORIGINS OF THE CITIZENS PLAN COMMITTEE and the Call for Review: The get-together that got it all started, held last May at Our Lady of Sorrows Gymnasium. Robert Stackpole addresses a group of citizens on the state of the city. Photo, WPCNR News Archive.

The Big Three With The Dynamic Duo: John Bailey, left, Co-host of White Plains Week, with left to right, Mike Graessle, Commissioner of Planning Emeritus, Robert Levine, Robert Stackpole, and Co-Host Jim Benerofe will appear on White Plains Week Monday at 7:00 discussing their ideas on the Comprehensive Review of the City Comprehensive Plan. Photo for WPCNR News by Gary Stukes.

Dear Mr. Bailey,

We are writing in response to the two comments posted under your
January 5 article about Mr Cappelli and the rate of downtown
development in White Plains. The uncertainty acknowleged by both is
common to many in White Plains; residents are often not sure whether
the current rate and type of development is good or bad for our City.

That is why the Citizens’ Plan Committee was organized after an initial
public meeting last May. We wanted to stimulate our elected city
officials to initiate a community-wide, grassroots effort to re-examine
and update the City’s Comprehensive Plan. The Plan, prepared in 1997,
expressly called for annual reviews and a for five-year update by the
Planning Board with citizen participation. None of this has been done.

Obviously, there have been a lot of changes that have taken place in
our City since 1997, when 400 of our citizens worked hard to put
together a Plan that reflected a “vision” that made sense then. It
clearly is time for us as a community to stand back, assess where we
are, and decide, as a community, where we want to go. Given the
disagreements reflected in the two responses to your article, there is
obviously a need for broad community--wide discussion about the future
of White Plains – and how we get there.

On next Thursday evening, January 13, at 7:30, our Committee is
sponsoring a community-wide forum in the auditorium of Ridgeway School
(corner of Mamaroneck Avenue and Ridgeway). The purpose of this forum
will be to review what has changed in White Plains since the
Comprehensive Plan was accepted by the Mayor and Common Council almost
eight years ago, to assess what the impacts (both positive and
negative) have been on our City, and to discuss what now has to happen
to help make our City the best possible place in which to live and
work.

Please encourage your readers to attend this important meeting next
Thursday evening. We need to involve as many people as possible in
this effort if the outcomes are to truly reflect what the people of
White Plains want and need.

Sincerely,
Members of the Citizens’ Plan Committee

January 7. 2005

Note: A comment to this article asks who the citizens on the Citizen Plan Committee are. They are Terence M. Conroy, Claire M. Eisenstadt, Michael J. Graessle, Daniel P. Hickey, John B. Kirkpatrick, Robert H. Levine, John M. Martin, Robert H. Myerson, Marc Pollitzer, Robert Rosten, Daniel R. Seidel, Robert J. Stackpole, Lewis P. Trippett, John M. Vorperian, and Saul M. Yanofsky, and "others".


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