WPCNR MR. & MRS. & MS. WHITE PLAINS VOICE. May 10, 2006: A reader points out sarcastically that the city budget was cut at the expense of open space:

Mr. Bailey,

What planet are you reporting on?

Is your information flawed on budget cut dreams, perhaps your slipping up on your accumulation of public information as the citizen’s journalist? Or is this just another Bailey sensationalism story.
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Budget cuts, cut backs, less spending, very funny John, I find your humor entertaining, perhaps you’re reporting on some other city or is this part of your dream press conference shenanigans again.

If my lapsed memory is correct the last budget cut I remember being told by a Common Council Member at the March 6, 2006 Town Hall meeting on record is that “our city taxes might go up 14% and to balance the budget in perfect world I would not sell Railside property, but this is not a perfect world” so I vote yes to sell Railside.

Now our taxes only go up 7.2 % or an estimated $143.00 per property owner in White Plains, that is this fiscal years projection.  14% to 7.2 % cut in the city’s spending budget.

Now that's a budget cut, 50% less of our tax dollars supporting political welfare.

Next year I assume we can expect to incur the other 7% property tax increase based on the Railside property inventory being depleted, increased union labor cost, union pensions, increased school taxes etc. 

The only guarantee we know for a fact is that a thousand trees on Railside Avenue surrounding the Greenway will be cut and perhaps communication with our communities. 

No great loss, right, everyone agrees, “no one knows where the Greenway is and we have plenty of open space”.  Communication we are adjusted to doing without.

Carl Albanese
White Plains

The CitizeNetReporter Replies: Mr. Albanese you are kind calling the sale of Railside Avenue a budget cut. Another person less forgiving than yourself might call the sale of Railside Avenue properties a pillaging of city resources to keep the budget where it is growing and fat, but then this is a city that calls loans revenue, and labels accrual of debt as amortization, and has a fund balance that never depletes even when it's spent. But, to borrow a phrase made popular by that philospher, Dan Seidel, "Hey...this is White Plains."