Tax on RESIDENTIAL parking space rented in private garage structure.

What? Since when? Only on renters in those big, new apartment buildings?

Probably. Does White Plains collect tax on any other RESIDENTIAL parking space? How about a private garage on the lot of a house?

9.5% "sales tax".

Fuel for cars and food for people: wake the heck up! THOUSANDS more cars downtown.

No, I don't expect White Plains to go from zero imagination to what's below but ...

from: Ken
to: commoncouncil@whiteplainsny.gov
cc: news12wc@news12.com
date: Jan 3, 2023, 6:35 AM
subject: A new wireless EV charging road is currently under construction in Germany

https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/germany-first-public-ev-charging

You need to wake up or White Plains is going to be a fueling nightmare for both gas and electric vehicles.

Require apartment building garages to have both gas pumps and electric vehicle charging stations. Both.

________________________

Gas or electric: fuel for thousands of new cars in big new apartment buildings? Thursday, December 29, 2022

And where will they get food? Right, these are all mixed use developments. Where will the new supermarkets be?

Saturday morning should be fun. Even those who take the train to work will have to fuel their cars to drive to a supermarket.

All we see is overbuilding but not a single change in fuel for cars or food for people.

________________________

Electric Vehicle Charging Stations in White Plains

The City of White Plains currently offers twenty-eight publicly accessible electric vehicle (EV) charging stations in parking structures and lots throughout the City.

They are located in the following public parking locations:

Lexington-Grove East Garage (100 Main St.) - 3 chargers
Lexington-Grove West Garage (100 Main St.) - 2 chargers
Hamilton-Main Garage (365 Hamilton Ave.) - 3 chargers
Longview-Cromwell Garage (11 Longview Ave.) - 2 chargers
Lyon Place Garage (5 Lyon Place) - 2 chargers
Shapham Place Parking Lot (17 Shapham Place) - 2 chargers
Chester-Maple Garage (9 Chester Ave.) - 3 chargers
Library Garage (100 Martine Ave.) - 3 chargers
TransCenter Garage (11 Ferris Ave.) - 8 chargers

________________________

The 8 chargers at 11 Ferris Ave. are outdoors at the fire station. Really.

Gas or electric: fuel for thousands of new cars in big new apartment buildings?

No reply, of course:

from: Ken
to: commoncouncil@whiteplainsny.gov
cc: news12wc@news12.com,
letters@lohud.com
bcc: ???
date: Dec 28, 2022, 6:40 AM
subject: White Plains, NY: Electric Vehicles (EV): charging station policy and status?

http://white-plains-ny.blogspot.com/2022/07/electric-vehicles-ev-charging-station.html 

So? Drivers will increasingly opt for EV because they won't want to continue the hideous practice of getting fuel at a gas station, which brings us to the real dilemmas in White Plains:

Whether gas or electric, where the heck are the many thousands of new cars parking at those big new apartment buildings going to get fuel? Did you ever once consider that?

Oh, and how will they get into and out their garages, especially on small streets like Mitchell and Barker?

And where will they get food? Right, these are all mixed use developments. Where will the new supermarkets be?

Saturday morning should be fun. Even those who take the train to work will have to fuel their cars to drive to a supermarket.

All we see is overbuilding but not a single change in fuel for cars or food for people.

Kenneth Matinale

White Plains apartment resident

ShopRite expiration date on milk: more than 50 in the future.

Yesterday (Thursday, August 11, 2022) I bought this product

The "expiration" date is October 1, 2022. That's 51 days later. For milk. What the heck? Is any of this regulated? If so, how? I bought it at:

ShopRite
13 City Place
White Plains NY 10601
914-539-4500
https://www.shoprite.com/sm/planning/rsid/231/

The system puts a date/time stamp on this post.

Emergency vehicles change traffic lights but STILL not in White Plains after FOUR years.

The post below was written and sent to Common Council members almost four years ago, so the technology is not new.

Emergency vehicles change traffic lights but not in White Plains. Sunday, October 21, 2018

Emergency vehicles, both ambulances and fire trucks, begin blasting their horns and sirens blocks before reaching (an intersection) ... because they know that drivers do not stop when they have a green light. So, ...

Why don't emergency vehicles change traffic lights in White Plains?

_______________________

This afternoon about 4:30 PM I saw an ambulance on Church Street going north with its siren blasting and its lights flashing trying to cross the multiple lanes of Hamilton Avenue. At least five vehicles continued on Hamilton right in front of the ambulance as it inched forward. They had the green light but not the common sense nor a sense of responsibility to stop and let the ambulance go through.

No, we don't need some lame public awareness campaign. We need the decision makers in White Plains to make the decision to do what's obviously necessary:

Get that damn emergency light system!

This post will be sent to:
commoncouncil@whiteplainsny.gov
wppublicsafety@whiteplainsny.gov

Electric Vehicles (EV): charging station policy and status?

Email sent but not answered:

from: Kenneth
to: planning@whiteplainsny.gov
cc: commoncouncil@whiteplainsny.gov
date: Jul 12, 2022, 10:39 AM
subject: EV charging stations required in new apartment garages?

US Crosses the Electric-Car Tipping Point for Mass Adoption

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-07-09/us-electric-car-sales-reach-key-milestone

You're adding thousands of new private garage spaces. If increasing numbers of Electric Vehicles are introduced, where can they get charged?

And what about older apartment garages? Are they required to provide EV chargers?

When I checked about three years ago, the chargers in public garages were few and pathetic.

Get in front of this tipping point.

_________________________________

One White Plains or a Tale of Two Cities?

ONE WHITE PLAINS

an updated vision for our city

https://one-white-plains-comprehensive-plan-1-wp-planning.hub.arcgis.com/

Who knew?

from: Kenneth Matinale
to: commoncouncil@whiteplainsny.gov
cc: news12wc@news12.com,
digital@lohud.com,
letters@lohud.com
date: May 18, 2022, 9:10 PM
subject: White Plains, NY: Car-free development in Arizona! Pedestrian hostile White Plains perpetuates car culture.

To: Common Council members

https://white-plains-ny.blogspot.com/2020/11/car-free-development-in-arizona.html

tale of two cities:

- downtown residents living in apartments in buildings most of which in 2020 are the functional equivalent of tenements, needing upgrades in electrical and plumbing;

- ruling elite living in houses and dominating the Common Council with membership probably 90 percent of member time on that body for the last half century.

_____________________________

Today I learned about:

https://one-white-plains-comprehensive-plan-1-wp-planning.hub.arcgis.com/

And the Phase II meeting in June. It seemed like the same effort from 5-6 years ago, except that the previous one had been about the "transit district". I didn't notice that anything positive came of that. What did I miss? What will be different now? It's the same lineup.

Do any of you or city officials ever attend a condo or co-op meeting? You attend those neighborhood association meetings often.

Oh, and those Hudsonlink buses are as empty as often now as they have been since their introduction years ago. Have you noticed? 

Kenneth Matinale, apartment resident in downtown White Plains

Public street made semi private while Barker Avenue is subjected to HUGE buses, trucks and eventually hundreds more cars.

Email sent to Common Council and Traffic Department, which insists that it is innovative, and inferring that White Plains is not pedestrian hostile ... in the extreme:

https://www.cityofwhiteplains.com/338/Traffic

from: Kenneth Matinale
to: Tom Soyk <tsoyk@whiteplainsny.gov>,
commoncouncil@whiteplainsny.gov
date: Dec 24, 2021, 10:22 AM
subject: Gedney Park Drive.

It parallels Mamaroneck Avenue to the east between Heatherbloom and Ridgeway. But it's split in the middle: one way going north and one way south. Cars can only enter from the middle. Obviously, this is to limit and discourage through traffic, especially last night to get an up close view of the Christmas lights on the houses.

This is in stark contrast with Barker Avenue, which has zero houses but several apartment buildings, including two for seniors. For years HUGE regional buses have been driving down Barker Avenue to the area near the train station despite messages from me asking that this be changed. At the very least these useless buses with few if any passengers should be routed down completely NON residential Hamilton Avenue.

Traffic on Barker will become unmanageable in 2023 when that new huge and inappropriately ugly parking garage on Barker becomes operational for the new twin residential rental buildings at the corners of North Broadway and Barker and Hamilton.

The Common Council should walk over there sometime.

Kenneth Matinale

_________________________

New parking garage will tower over Barker Avenue co-op building. Tuesday, December 14, 2021

That blank facade of the garage facing the street has a sort of Darth Vader look, don't you think? It's much more Darth Vaderish at night in the dark.

That's planning? Who approved that? It's only a couple of blocks from city hall. Did any of them ever walk over and check it out? ...

Oh, and the traffic ... it may become so great that the mega buses (with few, if any, passengers) that thunder down residential Barker Avenue towards the bus gathering area, will decide on their own to do something that White Plains city government has declined to have the buses do: switch to non residential Hamilton Avenue.

Message sent to Common Council members and the Planning department.

_____________________________

buses and trucks allowed along streets with apartment buildings Tuesday, March 1, 2016

NO TRUCKS sign on Fisher Avenue, so how about a NO BUSES sign on Barker Avenue? Wednesday, June 21, 2017

NO Trucks sign across street from main post office. So, why not a NO BUSES sign on Barker Avenue? Friday, July 21, 2017

Emergency vehicles change traffic lights but not in White Plains. Sunday, October 21, 2018

Bus mania is to get train station money as hub for east-west Lower Hudson Transit Link? Tuesday, April 16, 2019

New York "state's designation of White Plains as the hub for the east-west Lower Hudson Transit Link"...

Mayor Thomas Roach and others have delusions of grandeur dancing in their heads. As documented here, the Hudson Link buses have had almost ZERO passengers. It's been a local, state, federal government boondoggle. The number of cars has not decreased as the number of buses continues to dangerously increase, all at the loss of quality of life for downtown residents. The mayor and almost all Common Council members for the last half century live in house neighborhoods outside downtown. They are elected at large, not by geographic district. The current bad policy is just the most recent because of that basic disconnect...

Most of the train station work is neglected routine maintenance for more than three decades following bad original design. And apparently much of that is due to the city selling out and letting downtown become a giant bus terminal. Of course, none of this impacts any of the Common Council house neighborhoods.

____________________________

New parking garage will tower over Barker Avenue co-op building.

It's not even the new apartment building being constructed at the corner of North Broadway and Barker. That building and the reconstituted office building at 440 Hamilton Avenue, right next to it, will both use the new parking garage. No, it's the garage that will directly tower over its neighbor, the oldest apartment building on Barker Avenue. Photos taken 12/13/21:

That blank facade of the garage facing the street has a sort of Darth Vader look, don't you think? It's much more Darth Vaderish at night in the dark.

That's planning? Who approved that? It's only a couple of blocks from city hall. Did any of them ever walk over and check it out?

Almost all Common Council members almost always live in houses. It's been that way for at least a half a century. They have little consideration or understanding of how their decisions impact the majority of White Plains residents who live in apartments. Common Council members are elected at large, not in geographic districts, so they will continue to dominate White Plains planning until they finally create so many apartments that their hold on White Plains government becomes untenable. That will be both ironic and too late.

Oh, and the traffic ... it may become so great that the mega buses (with few, if any, passengers) that thunder down residential Barker Avenue towards the bus gathering area, will decide on their own to do something that White Plains city government has declined to have the buses do: switch to non residential Hamilton Avenue.

Message sent to Common Council members and the Planning department.

Westchester County Executive George Latimer's staff: bloated is an understatement. 35 people.

https://www.westchestergov.com/meet-the-ce-staff

They are listed below in the same order as on the website, which doesn't make much sense. The word budget does not appear among any of the titles. Nothing about county computer systems, which suck. Did you try to get the COVID vaccination through the county? And you are not a teacher? Enough on county computer systems.

Multi million dollar tents being dismantled after never being used. County Executive George Latimer should be held accountable. Thursday, July 15, 2021

Some counts from the list of 35 below; there is some overlap:

Confidential: 3: 2 for the County Executive and one for his assistant. To do what? Schedule dental appointments, vacations, ...?

Director: 16

Assistant: 7

Staff: 7

Communications: 5

Deputy: 5

Health: 4

Intergovernmental: 3

Business: 3

Operations: 3

Secretary: 3

Policy: 3

Constituent: 2

1. Senior Staff Assistant Fadiya Abbasi

2. Receptionist Nancy Aladino

3. Director of Policy and Programs, Small Business and Chambers of Commerce Shari Ascher

4. Special Assistant to CE Diane Atkins

5. Director of Intergovernmental Relations Steve Bass

6. Senior Producer Videography and Studio Manager John Borst

7. Communications Director Catherine Cioffi

8. Director of Faith Based Initiatives and Urban Affairs Crystal Collins

9. Assistant to the County Executive Copernicus Crane

10. Chief of Staff Andrew Ferris

11. Director of Policy and Programs, Childcare and Education Roseanne Finizio

12. Deputy Communications Director Carolyn Fortino

13. Assistant to the County Executive Government Relations Paula Friedman

14. Constituent Services Andrew Genna

15. Economic Development Bridget Gibbons

16. Assistant Director of Intergovernmental Relations Ellen Hendrickx

17. Deputy County Executive Kenneth Jenkins

18. Constituent Services Janet Lokay

19. Director of Minority and Women-Owned Business Development Martha Lopez

20. Assistant Director of Operations Blanca Lopez

21. Director of Energy Conservation and Sustainability Peter McCartt

22. Intergovernmental Affairs Kyle McIntyre

23. Director of Policy and Programs Health and Infrastructure Aviva Meyer

24. Director of Operations Joan McDonald

25. Director of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Deborah Novick

26. Communications and Marketing Manager Chelsea Pagano

27. Business Attraction and Retention Specialist Corazon Pineda

28. Staff Assistant SP SPKG Rosa Ramon

29. Communications Specialist Lisa Reyes

30. Deputy Director of Operations Emily Saltzman

31. Confidential Scheduling Secretary Bessie Schachter

32. Deputy Communications Director Joe Sgammato

33. Director of Countywide Administrative Services Christopher Steers

34. Confidential Secretary to the County Executive Tracy Thompson

35. Confidential Secretary to the Deputy County Executive Diana Toledo

The End.