WPCNR NEWS AND COMMENT. By John F. Bailey. August 6, 2006: Reports from the Mayor’s Office last week indicated that the Air Pistol Ordinance on tonight’s Common Council agenda will be tabled – depriving the city of licensing fees from sale of air pistols

 But wait! Just in the nick of time, thanks to the wonderful investigative reporting of the Journal News staff, Allan Hevesi, the state Comptroller,  crack auditor and watch dog of the exchequer, has discovered an unbelievable error in the Unified Court System manual in stating who gets to keep the fines collected from illegal cellphone use violations.

It seems that the Journal News double checked with the Comptroller’s on how fines are collected, someone up in the Comptroller’s office said, Sheesh! They’re doing it wrong,  that cities, including White Plains are able to keep their cellphone fine collections (estimated at over $1 Million for White Plains alone). White Plains according to its Executive Officer has been sending all the bucks to the state.

Is this any way to run a collection system? A little proofreading in the court system, please! More incredulous is that the city financial and legal departments did not make themselves absolutely clear on the handsfree cellphone law and catch this error.

 So White Plains is getting $1.1 Million back from the state, according to The Journal News report. It’s very similar to Westchester County amd Con Edision giving the impression Westchester storm victims of July storms would get $360 food spoilage refunds, and having WPCNR find out from Con Edison that food spoilage resulting from storm damage wasn’t covered.

The handsfree use of a cellphone windfall  is good news and bad news for White Plains residents and those who drive into White Plains from elsewhere.

Now the White Plains Police, as if they do not have enough to do,  have new incentive to start enforcing the handsfree cellphone law within the White Plains city limits. White Plains gave out a ton of cellphone tickets, but all of it previously went to the state.

Now  on any routine traffic day, handsfree cellphone driving  violations are rampant in White Plains. (Perhaps reporters can get exclusions.)

There just aren’t enough police to spot all the cellphone violators!

Now, that thanks to The Journal News, any White Plains handsfree cellphone  jing will go direct into the hungry maw of the White Plains hurting General Fund.

So drivers within the city limits of White Plains should watch themselves.

The first thing White Plains Police could do is assign just one officer to walk a beat up and down Mamaroneck Avenue and Main Streets and let him just watch the “handheld cellphone talkers.

The police now have more than enough incentive to form an elite “Cell Sweep Team” to go along with their SWAT team to concentrate solely on handsfree cellphone while driving offenders. Perhaps some new cell phone signal detection equipment can be purchased through a grant to note cell phone signals within the city limits that are moving….the equivalent of cellphone radar – sort of like applying LO-JAC principles to hansfree cellphone while driving violations. Perhaps a visual can be established on each individual cellphone use…with a floating squad of BP’s (bicycle police) on cruise to swiftly close on the individual.

Or better yet, while the Parking Department Parking Enforcement Officers, (or whatever they are called – never got an official release on that one), are out writing their 40 tickets an hour (the amount needed to reach their projections for 06-07) they can keep a sharp eye peeled for drivers holding a cellphone and conducting conversations while driving – and aid police enforcement.

Or perhaps the Parking Enforcement Officers can walk up to the window of a car and write them up. (I do not believe they are empowered to do that now. We’ll check on it.)

 Perhaps the Common Council will consider an ordinance allowing the Parking Department Officers to write up drivers holding handheld cellphone conversations. Driving violations, at $100 a vio – it’s far more lucrative than parking tickets.

I am breathing a sigh of relief the city deficit is shrinking already.

Thank you Journal News!