Section: Editorial

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The Uncivil War Within Croton

March 17, 2008

There is a battle going on in Croton—and it isn’t only between local Democrats and Republicans. We’re talking about the behind-the-scenes wrangling between “Old Croton” and “New Croton” Republicans. Families that have been here for several generations comprise Old Croton. New Croton are those who have moved here more recently—and include people like Greg Schmidt, Thomas Brennan, Sue Konig (only 9 years) and Joann Minett (only 10 years).

We have it on good authority that Old Croton Republicans are unhappy with the New Croton Republicans who currently hold elected office because of their repeated failures over the past three years to actually do what they said they would do and really “move Croton forward.” Simply put, they want meaningful results and have been left unsatisfied. They are also worried about the reality that Croton is quickly becoming an unaffordable place for them to live—and that they will be forced to move away.

There are several subtle evidences of the rift. Just drive around Croton and you will notice that Streany/Minett signs are not being displayed on the lawns of many Old Croton homes. The way we understand it, Old Croton Republicans are frustrated by Mayor Schmidt’s “do nothing approach” to government, rising property taxes and quality of life issues. They are determined to take back what they deem to be theirs. To do that, Committee co-chairmen Charles Trendell and Otto Robert Wintermeier have put Joe Streany forth as their candidate in hopes that he can shake things up before it is too late.

We don’t know how much this schism will affect the outcome of tomorrow’s election. In another 24 hours, we will know whether their bet on an ethically challenged Old Crotonite like Joe Streany and New Crotonite Joann Minett will pay off.

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A Call to Arms

March 2, 2008

Tom Paine in his The American Crisis (1776) said words that could be directed at Croton’s Democratic Party today: “Lead, follow or get out of the way.” Students of local politics have never satisfactorily explained why the Democrats took such a shellacking in the 2007 local election. Not only did Ann Gallelli, the Democratic candidate for mayor, receive fewer votes than any other candidate in that election, but earnest and hard-working Trustee Leo Wiegman also was evicted from his seat on the dais by gum-chewing author Susan Konig.

Crotonites are fond of wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan, “Croton is a dam town.” They could just as easily be wearing T-shirts proclaiming, “Croton is a Democratic Party town.” Or so one might have thought. Nothing is foreordained in this life, but going into that election the registration numbers were a Democratic campaign manager’s dream. See for yourself: 46.9 percent of Croton’s voting population was registered as Democrats, compared with 26.7 percent who registered as Republicans. A third group constituting 24.0 percent of voters registered with no party affiliation. Bringing up the rear were the 2.5 percent of voters who chose to register with the Independence, Conservative, Right to Life, Libertarian or Working Families parties.

There are almost twice as many registered Democrats as Republicans in Croton. There are also almost twice as many Democrats as nonaffiliated registrants. One doesn’t need to be a statistician to recognize that for Republican candidates to prevail they must create their majority from Republicans, those registered with no party affiliation and disaffected Democrats.

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A New Feature! NCN’s Goof of the Week

February 29, 2008

Errors at the North County News continue to abound. This week’s lollapalooza shows that the North County News not only needs a fact checker to correct inaccurate information in its stories, it also needs a copy editor to pull up the newspaper’s socks grammatically.

Consider this from a story in this week’s issue by Adriane Tillman and headed “Changing of the Guard at Croton Police”:

A recent, quiet, unceremonious changing of the guard saw Croton’s Dennis Coxen retire after 22 years as police chief, and former Lieutenant Anthony Tramaglini assume the reigns.

Ms. Tillman obviously meant that newly installed Chief Tramaglini assumed the reins. There is a not-so-subtle difference between reigns and reins, although they are pronounced alike. We are indebted to The American Heritage Dictionary for the following contrasting definitions:

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Goofs Galore at North County News

February 27, 2008

The North County News is headquartered in Yorktown Heights. It purports to cover the northern part of Westchester County and the southern part of Putnam County. Whenever a newspaper tries to cover such a broad area, it inevitably invites scrutiny. As soon as North County News reporters venture away from home base, Crotonblog finds that they get into trouble—largely with facts.

The North County News also publishes an electronic edition mirroring in part the print edition. Here, under the rubric “Local Towns” they attempt to provide coverage of news items over the broad area in which they hope to increase their circulation. The North County News does not seem to appreciate the subtle differences between town, villages and hamlets in this part of the world. These are the names of the seven communities listed as “local towns”: Yorktown (T), Ossining (V,T), Croton (V), Peekskill (C), Somers (T), Cortlandt (T) and Putnam Valley (T). Of these seven, (and depending how Ossining is categorized) four or five are towns, one or two are villages and one is a city.

Omitted from the North County News’s list of “local towns,” and presumably not covered are the following Westchester communities: Buchanan (V), Briarcliff Manor (V), Montrose (H) and Verplanck (H). Of these the first two are villages and the other two are hamlets. Omission may be as good a reason as any for residents not to read the North County News. So much for the North County News’s rather selective coverage of local communities under the misleading rubric of “local towns.”

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There’s Something Rotten in Denmark—and in Croton Government, Too

February 17, 2008

At the village board meeting on January 29, 2008, current Village Treasurer Abraham Zambrano was named Interim Village Manager following the surprise resignation of longtime Village Manager Richard Herbek. Mr. Zambrano is expected to fill the posts of village treasurer and manager until March 28, 2008. What happens after that date has not been made clear, other than that after that date, Mr. Zambrano becomes Acting Village Manager. What is most peculiar is that no one is asking any questions about this peculiar and self-perpetuating line of succession. Or what happens next.

At the coming village board meeting on Tuesday evening, February 19, at 8:00 p.m., a resolution will be introduced retroactively raising the salary of Village Treasurer Abraham Zambrano by $35,000 from $125,318 to $160,318. This would put Mr. Zambrano’s salary for managing a tiny village very close to Andy Spano’s annual income of $160,760 for managing the entire county of Westchester—a difference of only $442, to be exact. According to our sources, the resolution was authored by Mr. Zambrano.

In short, for managing Croton with an annual budget of 14 million, Mr. Zambrano would be getting nearly as much as Andy Spano gets for managing Westchester County and its annual budget of $1.7 billion (actual amount: $1,702,848,487). Thus, although Westchester’s budget is 121 times the size of Croton’s, their salaries will be almost the same. Something’s very much out of whack here in Croton.

There are several aspects of this deal that are particularly odoriferous. First, Mr. Zambrano has never exhibited any masterly managerial qualities in his role as treasurer. In fact, it will be recalled, he has shown himself only to be little more than an unimaginative, plodding, green eyeshade bookkeeper who pleases the mayor by not making waves. We know him as the admitted author of the scheme that sent inflated phony water bills to village residents. Intended to scare them into installing remote water meters, his scam miscarried and made Croton the laughingstock of the nation. The Zambrano-generated imbroglio caused victimized residents to set up such a howl, it became a national scandal from coast to coast after the Associated Press picked up the story (from ABC 7online.com).

Now we are led to believe that Mr. Zambrano has so much managerial talent he can do two high-level jobs without breaking into a sweat. This is indeed curious since we were given to understand that Richard Herbek was a veritable workhorse who put in 16- to 18-hour days. One cannot be blamed for thinking that there cannot be much to Mr. Zambrano’s job as treasurer if he can now be both village treasurer and village manager without batting an eyelash.

Complicating the growing belief that something is rotten in Denmark other than overripe Havarti cheese is the fact that the village has created no search committee to find a candidate to fill Mr. Herbek’s shoes. Rumors are flying that hint of a palace coup of unbelievable Machiavellian craftiness—all hinging on the outcome of the upcoming election. Stay tuned.

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The World According to Trustee Candidate Joann Minett

February 13, 2008

For a newspaper with pretensions to being the newspaper of record for communities in the northern part of Westchester County, the North County News makes a surprising number of factual errors. A news story in this week’s issue contains many transgressions. In the story titled “Croton Voters to Choose from Four Board Candidates,” we read:

Minett, 42, is a part-time lunchroom supervisor at Carrie Tomkins Elementary School, and a mother of three. She’s also a community activist. Minett frequents village board meetings and has attended all the Comprehensive Plan sessions. She’s served on the Bicycle and Pedestrian Safety Committee for the past two years.

The first and most obvious error, of course, is in the newspaper’s reference to the school. It is the Carrie E. Tompkins Elementary School. As all Croton residents and readers of Crotonblog know, the Carrie Tomkins name should be correctly spelled as Carrie E. Tompkins. We caught this error in another North County News story two weeks ago and corrected it, telling Ms. Tompkins’s story in the process (see: “The North County News Ain’t Payin’ Attenshun”). North County News staff obviously does not read Crotonblog’s stories critical of that newspaper.

Mr. Bruce Apar, Editor + Publisher of the North County News, may be spending too much time at Club Fit in Yorktown Heights trying to shed weight and not enough time at his newspaper. He keeps the public advised of his progress in bulletins that appear from time to time on his personal blog. For those few who might be interested in his corporeal statistics, he crowed that he lost all of nearly four pounds. We have news for Mr. Apar. “Man bites dog” is news; “Man loses four pounds” is not news. If he doesn’t show more progress than he has demonstrated so far, Club Fit may find itself being referred to as “Club Fat” for its lack of success with Mr. Apar.

As eager TV pitchmen are fond of saying, “Wait, folks, that’s not all. There’s more.” Indeed there is. The North County News is obviously willing to accept as factual anything a candidate says. Regrettably, its account of Mrs. Minett’s civic endeavors is full of erroneous statements that result from its failure to check a few facts. Mrs. Minett is indeed a community activist if you define activism as appearing at village board meetings and haranguing members tiresomely, to the accompaniment of wild arm movements and facial gestures.

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The North County News Ain't Payin' Attenshun

January 26, 2008

We at Crotonblog consider it to be our duty to make sure The North County News gets its facts right, even though they only occasionally report on events in the village of Croton. The North County News is still committing factual errors that should not be made by a newspaper that likes to think of itself as a newspaper of record. In a story this week about a New York State Department of Environmental Conservation grant of $50,000 to Croton’s elementary school, North County News reporter Adriane Tillman misspelled at five different places the name of the beloved teacher for whom the school is named, calling it the “Carrie Tomkins Elementary School.” The correct spelling of her name, of course, is “Carrie E. Tompkins.”

A small matter, you say? Not when the correctly spelled name is emblazoned on the front of the school in large letters. North County News reporters and the paper’s copy editor owe it to the village to spell names correctly and to get facts right. Ms. Tillman is hereby requested to come to the front of the class and write the “Carrie E. Tompkins Elementary School” one hundred times on the blackboard.

The exterior of the Carrie E. Tompkins Elementary School (click on photo to enlarge).

Carrie E. Tompkins lived at 140 Grand Street and taught at Croton’s second school a few doors away. The first public school was the modest wooden house at 49 Old Post Road North. The Grand Street school building later was converted for use as a firehouse for the Columbian Hook and Ladder Company and the Chemical Engine Company. Modified again in 2000 to handle larger vehicles, it is still used as a firehouse. Ms. Tompkins’ house later became the longtime home of the popular Gallagher’s II restaurant. For anyone wanting to identify Ms. Tompkins’ former home, 140 Grand Street is now the location of Friend’s Bar.

How did Crotonblog happen to become the fact-checker for The North County News? Here’s how it came about: In 2006, after the death of founder John Chase, one Bruce Apar, with no newspaper experience, was appointed to the self-denominated twin roles of “Editor + Publisher” of the award-winning North County News. His first act was to fire the entire staff of dedicated journalists one by one and replace them with a pickup team of neophyte sandlot players. His peremptory action in ruthlessly dumping loyal longtime employees set off howls from readers who canceled subscriptions at an alarming rate.

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Correcting Misconceptions About Croton’s Zoning Code

January 25, 2008

I had hoped not to get into the minutiae of zoning, but in a comment to my screed on the historical roots of Croton’s planning problems, “Just the Facts” exhibited a glaring level of ignorance about Croton’s zoning law and how it came into being. He claimed that I had said “zoning laws created the strip malls that populate Croton today.” I wrote nothing of the kind. From this erroneous statement, he projected that he was “not sure such conclusion is valid” and then added, “the question is whether or not zoning laws existing at the time these strip malls were built prohibited or restricted more traditional forms of development.” This latter statement does not recognize the prescriptive nature of Croton’s zoning code or that it has remained virtually unchanged over a half-century.

I burnt the midnight oil to write the following in the interest of correcting his misconceptions about zoning and to tell the history of Croton’s zoning code for those who are interested in the subject. As with the catchphrase, “Guns don’t kill, people do,” it can be said “Zoning codes do not create strip malls, people do.” I shall demonstrate the truth of the latter statement. “Just the Facts” does not appear to be familiar with Croton’s zoning code then and now, so let me explain them for him and other interested readers. Croton’s current zoning code is based on an off-the-shelf zoning code, adopted more than a half-century ago. About 90 percent of the original zoning code is still embodied in the present code. Many changes were superficial, such as changing formulas for calculating required parking spaces. I encourage him and others interested in zoning to read it on the village’s web site.

Euclidean Zoning Codes
Croton’s zoning code is a Euclidean zoning code. It takes its name not from the Greek “father of geometry,” but from the community in Ohio made noteworthy by a Supreme Court decision in 1926. This landmark case (Village of Euclid, Ohio. vs. Ambler Realty Co.) opened the door for communities across the United States to establish zoning codes. In fact, most of the zoning codes in the U.S. today are Euclidean zoning codes. Euclidean zoning is notable for its lack of prohibitions or restrictions on particular specific kinds of development. For example, Euclidean codes do not say, “Nail salons are permitted.” nor do they say, “Tattoo parlors are forbidden.”

Instead, Euclidean zoning is characterized by the division of land uses into specified zoning districts delineated on a plan or map. In the code’s text, dimensional standards place limitations on structures built on lots within each zoning district are provided. These typically take the form of setbacks, height limits, dimensional standards, such as minimum lot sizes, lot coverage limits, etc. that place limitations on the amount of development allowed to take place on lots within each type of district. Typical categories of land-uses in Euclidean zoning are single-family residential, multi-family residential, commercial, and industrial. Prescribed uses within each district usually exclude other types of uses (thus, residential districts typically disallow commercial or industrial uses). Some accessory uses may be allowed in order to accommodate the needs of the primary uses, such as home or professional offices in residential districts.

Euclidean zoning has been popular because it is straightforward and extremely effective. It is unusual in its ease of implementation—it provides one set of explicit, prescriptive rules without getting involved in whether a specific business is allowed or denied. Moreover, it has a long-established legal precedent, and architects, engineers, design professionals and planners are familiar with it.

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Trouble in Paradise: Croton’s Rocky Romance with the Automobile

January 18, 2008

Editor’s note: This is the second part of a two-part series on Croton’s planning problems. For Part One, see “The Historical Roots of Croton’s Planning Problems.”

The concept of a marketplace is scarcely new. Ever since the earliest communities of the Middle East, and later in the Greek agora, lively marketplaces have always been public spaces, part of the fabric of life in villages and small towns. But, despite their inviting openness, modern strip malls really aren’t public spaces. Instead, they are private spaces masquerading as public spaces. People are permitted to come and go, and there are no admission fees—but those who do enter are guests of the developer. The mall owner is also entitled to control all activities that go in the parking area and the mall. This means no free speech, no right of public assembly.

American shopping malls were new phenomena of the Automobile Age. They had little in common with the social life of the community in which they were located. They existed in virtual isolation, surrounded by a bleak acre of black asphalt crowded with parked cars and connected to the world outside by a common thread, the ubiquitous automobile. Although ordinarily located at the edges of towns, in Croton shopping malls were permitted to cluster in the heart of the village, taxing an inadequate street grid whose layout predated the American Revolution. The friendly village marketplace of small shops was suddenly displaced by a scattering of impersonal marketplaces in whose vast asphalt deserts automobiles driven by strangers weaved and circled, endlessly searching for a place to park.

Cooler heads among village officials and grocery-chain executives should have seen that the supermarkets anchoring the shopping center strip malls were a concentration too ambitious to be supported by the surrounding population. Moreover, their presence strained Croton’s grid of narrow village streets—thoroughfares more appropriate to horse-drawn wagons. Not only did Croton’s three supermarkets compete with one another for a limited number of customers, their individual specialty departments spelled the doom of old-fashioned stores. Supermarkets sold groceries in competition with grocery stores; they sold meat in competition with meat markets; they sold vegetables in competition with vegetable stores. They even sold newspapers and magazines and forced the neighborhood combinations of candy store-tobacconist-newspaper vendor to close. The stakes were high, and competition was intense.

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The Historical Roots of Croton's Planning Problems

January 17, 2008

The problem with the many solutions being offered to solve Croton’s declining attractiveness to retail enterprises is that all fail to recognize that the suggestions propose to treat individual neighborhoods piecemeal instead of treating Croton as a whole.

Croton originally had two retail neighborhoods. One was located along Grand Street in the Upper Village, and dated from stagecoach days in the 18th century. The second, clustered around Croton North Station and the “landings” (docks) in the Lower Village, had been spawned by sloop, steamboat and railroad traffic in the 19th century. Each was firmly entrenched within a residential area.

In the early part of the 20th century, another retail strip sprang up along a short portion of South Riverside Avenue to serve Clifford Harmon’s burgeoning new Harmon-on-Hudson community created in 1907. By then-existing standards, linear parking on village streets was adequate. Although Harmon was absorbed by Croton in 1932, it managed to retain a surprising amount of separate identification, even having its own Harmon post office until the 1960’s.

Croton’s Population Growth
First, let’s examine Croton’s growth patterns. The following table portrays the growth of Croton’s population during the 20th century:

1900: 1,533
1920: 2,286 (+753, 49.12%)*
1940: 3,843 (+1,657, 72.48%)**
1960: 6,812 (+2,969, 77.26%)***
1980: 6,889 (+77, 1.13%)
1990: 7,018 (+129, 1.87%)
2000: 7,606 (+588, 8.38%)
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*Attributable to the electrification of the Hudson Division of the NY
Central and the opening of the Croton yards and shops in 1913.
**Attributable in part to the acquisition by Croton-on-Hudson of Harmon and Mt. Airy.
***Attributable to the post-World War II building boom.

The year 1960 represents a watershed date. In the sixty years between 1900 and 1960, the population of Croton grew by 344 percent. In the forty years between 1960 and 2000, its population grew by less than 12 percent. This shows near saturation in population.

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