Progressive: is that what White Plains needs to be? That's what Milagros Lecuona thinks.

Seven. That's the number of times Common Council member and candidate for mayor in 2017 Milagros Lecuona uses the word progressive in a short email message soliciting funds for her campaign.

It suggests too much of a tactical approach to a campaign in this city of only 50,000 when the most fundamental issue, as always, is that Common Council members are selected at large and not by geographic districts. This odd form of representation exaggerates a natural tendency for people who live in downtown apartments to be less involved in municipal government and the more entrenched residents in houses away from downtown dominate policy and procedure to their quite different interests.

Candidate Lecuona seems to want to replace one mayor who does not live downtown in an apartment with another, perhaps relying on her gender and ability to speak Spanish to suggest more of a difference with Mayor Tom Roach than actually exists.

French school, German school, Railside: who cares? Fix downtown.

March 31 Common Council member Milagros Lecuona sent a message announcing that she is asking for contributions to challenge incumbent Mayor Tom Roach in a September primary. At this point it's not at all clear what would be different by a change from one local member of the Democratic party to another.

ALL CC members live in houses and do not really understand downtown. The real solution is district voting but we in the apartments must force that change and it won't happen until thousands more apartments are created occupied by younger people, which will take forever because the City of White Plains loves to jerk developers around.

So instead, the CC is again consumed with stuff that impacts their base constituents, people living in houses outside downtown. Current example:

http://www.cityofwhiteplains.com/civicalerts.aspx?AID=466

Posted on: March 31, 2017

French American School of New York (FASNY) Public Hearing April 5, 2017
Public hearings in relation to 1) the application submitted by the French American School of New York (FASNY) for a Special Permit for a "private secondary school" at 336 Ridgeway, an environmentally sensitive site as defined by Chapter 3-5 of the White Plains Municipal Code ...

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French school. German school. Railside. What the heck does any of this got to do with 95% of White Plains residents? What?

Ignored by the City of White Plains are the HUGE regional buses that roar down North Broadway, then onto Barker Avenue barreling towards the Transmania bus depot at the train station. Apparently, the residents along those streets are not in an "environmentally sensitive site as defined by Chapter 3-5 of the White Plains Municipal Code". The number of residents living along the bus routes probably far exceeds the number impacted by French school, German school, Railside combined.

Where are the priorities?