WPCNR CAMPAIGN 2007. By John F. Bailey. September 17, 2007 UPDATED 6:32 PM EDT: You couldn’t miss it. A full-page advertisement on the back of this morning’s Journal News Main Your World Section, blaring “ATTENTION WHITE PLAINS DEMOCRATIC RESIDENTS.” The advertisement was placed by “The Year 2001 Committee,” described by its Chairman, John Ioris , a White Plains resident, owner of The Complete Golfer and Chairman and President of the Board of Trustees of the White Plains Performing Arts Center, as an effort to inform the public of the truth about the voting records of Democratic Primary Candidates Benjamin Boykin and Dennis Power.
Ioris explained the advertisement to the CitizeNetReporter: "The actions we took on Friday, (placing the ad),was an unprecedented action for this organization. My feeling, John is enough is enough. That was the mindset I had when I bought space for that ad. Enough is enough, let's get back to running the city and let's dispense with the rhetoric and get back to business. This was basically a bunch of people who put their own money where their mouth was and this was what we feel about what's going on here. I think the politics of this city has been totally portrayed in the newspapers with an unbelievable bias."
Mr. Ioris, speaking to The CitizeNetReporter in an interview confirmed his Committee had placed the advertisement and that it cost The Year 2001 Committee $6,000.
WPCNR asked Mr. Ioris why his Committee ran the advertisement, and if it was in support of the Mayor and his policies, and the spurned Democrat incumbent Councilman Arnold Bernstein, in a fight for his political career in tommorrow’s Primary. Ioris said, “The year 2001 Committee is an independent political action committee that has absolutely nothing to do with the Mayor of the city, other than the fact that he has been kind enough to lend his name to many of our fundraisers.”
WPCNR asked him what funds were used for what causes, Ioris replied “political causes and charitable causes, but this (ad) is in no way, shape or form a Mayoral organization.”
I asked him what was his rational in publishing this advertisement today. Ioris said he was concerned about “what’s going on in the political process.”
“Basically having followed what’s going on in the political process in the last several months and being disgusted is the wrong word, close to disgusted with what’s going on on the political side of the city, I figured the citizens at large have a right to read a true and accurate portrayal of the voting record of a couple of people who are running for Council.”
Not a Bernstein Endorsement
WPCNR asked if he was not endorsing Arnold Bernstein:
“We are not,” Ioris said. “We simply basically believe that the direction the city has taken over the last several years on the development side has been the proper direction for the city to take. It seems as though a faction of the city is attempting to derail it for political reasons. Basically this (ad} was simply telling the truth. If the votes we basically paid to tell the people about today -- if the councilmembers don’t like those votes – maybe they need to rethink how they’re voting. It was their votes. They are what they are. The actions of the council over the last several months have been much to the detriment of this city. As a citizen and business owner in this town, I think that’s a very bad thing.”
Makeup of The Year 2001 Committee
WPCNR asked who else was on the Committee or do they have an Advisory Board, Ioris said to WPCNR, “There are several people we meet with to advise us on our opinions who do not want their names published, so as a result we don’t publish them. But quite frankly, I believe the opinions of the people who are involved in this organization are the opinions of the large majority of the citizens of this city. I think small factions that make a lot of noise are given far too much weight.”
I asked how many persons are on the Year 2001 Committee.
Ioris reported “We have several people that contribute. Several people that come to meetings. There is a goodly handful that are active that I hear from on a regular basis.”
Ioris said the full-page all print advertisement cost slightly short of $6,000.
Ioris said it was a possibility the Committee would run more advertisements: “That is something that depending upon how I feel or what we feel or how we feel about what is going to happen in the city going forward, we may decide to do on a regular basis.”
Newspapers Biased.
I asked him if he did this as a public service to inform the people:
Iorus said, “I did it because I felt largely because what people read in the media, the local media in this city is unfairly biased.I believe people need to hear the truth sometimes, and they don’t always get the truth in the newspaper.”
He elaborated on his charge to WPCNR: "I think the politics of this city has been totally portrayed in the newspapers with an unbelievable bias. Things that should come to the forefront don't. The local papers are reporting their own agenda and are not reporting the news. You read these political stories. They read like op-eds, they don't read like news. News is news.I don't need the newspaper to interpret them for me."
