WPCNR COMMON COUNCIL CHRONICLE-EXAMINER. By John F. Bailey. June 5, 2007 UPDATED 1:45 AM WITH CAPPELLI STATEMENT ADDED: The Common Council unanimously indicated they were not in favor of granting Louis Cappelli Exclusive rights to develop the Train Station area for a hotel and three office buildings. After three hours and fifteen minutes, and the council indicating they would vote down the Exclusivity Agreement the Super Developer had spent an hour explaining the advantages to the city of such an agreement, Mr. Cappelli asked the council not to take a formal vote. He said he wanted "to withdraw and go silently into the night," and said he realized the project, Station Square, was "not right."  The council, under the leadership of Rita Malmud agreed to withdraw the resolution and not take a formal vote.  Mr. Cappelli stopped just short of saying, he was withdrawing the project altogether.

Louis Cappelli at 12:15 AM this morning, contritely asking the council to not vote, that he wished to withdraw his proposal for an exclusivity agreement after the Council unanimously indicated they would not grant the Exclusvity Agreement with Ms. Malmud even saying "White Plains is not ready for this project."  The Super Developer delivered a 55 minute presentation promising $3 Million in studies and analysis to help the city decide what can be built on the train station site.  He pointed to the money (approximately $200 Million) a similar Exclusivity Agreement he has with the City of Yonkers has brought to that city. The council heard 26 speakers, with residents of Battle Hill decidedly for the project, and about 13 against the Exclusivity Agreement. Mr. Cappelli at this point in the evening asked to "withdraw quietly into the night".

Cappelli said he respected all the comments of the 26 persons who spoke. Councilman Arnold Bernstein, Councilman Glenn Hockley, Council President Malmud, and Councilman Benjamin Boykin all said they had received the most e-mail from citizens on the Station Square project of any issue they had ever encountered, most of it against the concept of granting Mr. Cappelli exclusivity rights.

Mayor Delfino grumpily told the council he wished they had indicated they were not happy with the project when it was first shown to them six weeks ago.

North Street Community Waits Some More.

In other action, the council continued again the North Street Community hearing because certain documents were not completed, and that all information had to be in to inform the neighbors, moving the hearing to the July meeting. It was unusual since North Street Community, it was widely believed expected to have approval this evening.

Dump fine Sketchy.

The city also approved complying to a Order of Consent with the Department of Environmental Conservation regarding the longstanding toxic contamination of the City dump, without explaining the terms of the consent order, but the Mayor did say the city has an outstanding relationship with the DEC. The city according to sketchy backup material has to pay $2,000 of an undisclosed amount the DEC proposes as a fine. That amount was not made public by the city even though asked by WPCNR what the total amount was. According to the backup material,  "the Order on Consent maintains that certain pollutants were discovered at the site during the course of investigations, and that further investigation is required to fully define and delineate the horizontal and vertical extent of contamination, and assesses a civil penalty requiring the City now to pay Two thousand dollars, suspending the remainder pending compliance with the proposed Order on Consent, " with no further explanation.

The Cappelli Statement follows:

Rita Malmud, President of the Common Council, in her statement said Mr. Cappelli had focused her attention on an area of the city she had not thought of before, but said that the comments she received from residents on the issue indicated that the residents of the city wanted their "suburban-city," remain more "suburban," than "city." Malmud said she wanted the council to focus on their own personal visions of the city, saying,

"I would like to see what strategies or policies or plannings the seven members of our White Plains government can discuss for an attractive inviting prosperous suburban environment in our city as inevitable change creeps or ushes towards us. White Plains is not ready now to sign off on any legislation commiting us to what is a longterm, expensive and expansive new direction.We need to think more before we act."

After this from Ms. Malmud,  followed by Councilmen Boykin, Hockley and Bernstein also voicing their opposition, Mr. Cappelli asked to speak. The Mayor granted him the floor and Mr. Cappelli all but withdrew his Station Square proposal, saying,

"First of all, I'd like to address my comments to the people in the audience and the people on camera. If it's one thing I've learned through ten years of development it's to listen. I absolutely have learned how to listen.To wit, being so fortunate to have some success in some of these cities, the last thing I want to be is the cause of devisiveness. The last thing I want to do is to come forth with a proposal that causes people to have a controversy, because it just doesn't make sense any more. We've worked very hard, everybody here, the council and everybody in the City of White Plains. We've worked very very hard to do what we think is good for White Plains, the City Center and the Ritz-Carlton.

I've also learned how also to read the tea leaves, and at the end of the day I would really prefer to go silently into the night and preserve my otherwise perfect record with the City of White Plains.

I appreciate every comment that I've heard from everybody here. I obviously wasn't that good a salesman. I do believe everything I said. I do have tremendous passion for what's happening in the city, in fact, I'm moving my headquarters here. I do respect highly everything I've heard from everybody here. And this suggestion, this proposal we have is obviously not right. It's clearly not right. While there's been many many pro speakers tonight, here that have been for this, and appreciate all that, and I appreciate all the people who are not for it. I respectfully, to Councilman Malmud, would like to withdraw and go silently into the night the resolution that you have on the floor to vote.

At the end of the day, I've heard everybody's comments. I don't need the formality of the vote, to know that this proposal while well thought about and passionate on our part is also equally passionate on your part. My preference would be to withdraw this resolution, not come back and ask for it in a different fashion. Simply let the process take its course."

He seemed to leave the door open to the possibilities of tweaking the project with this reference:

"If something we've done here have caused focus to be on this train station project and has caused you to be able to figure out if there's another way to do this, or if you want to do it at all, then the money that we spent was well spent. It will be my pleasure to have spent it in the furtherance of the City of White Plains."