Since “Randy” Randall Swan was nominated by the Croton GOP to run with Dr. Gregory Schmidt for trustee in the upcoming village election on Tuesday, March 16, 2010, residents should know about the time when Mr. Swan assaulted a minor.

In fact, six years ago, Mr. Swan was handcuffed, and taken into Croton police custody after assaulting one of three 8th grade boys, each a village resident, who he found on his rental property without his permission, located at 1 Crest Street (map location), in the Harmon section of the Village of Croton-on-Hudson.

— Anonymous

The Public Forum held last Wednesday at the Harmon Firehouse regarding the feasibility of building a structure at the parking lot was attended by over 60 people reflecting the diverse make-up of the Village and commuters. Ideas and opinions were exchanged in a respectful manner and in some cases consensus was achieved among participants. This was just the beginning of a process helping Croton to determine the possibility of maximizing the income from its second largest revenue source, the train station parking lot. The goal is to alleviate the tax burden on the primary source of revenue - you, the homeowner.

We insisted on a study of the feasibility of a parking structure in return for our support for the recent repaving because we believe that just maintaining the lot was not good enough. We need to find out if our parking lot can be optimized to provide more revenue in the future to help relieve the burden of sky-high property taxes on our residents. Although the $3 million project to raise and repave the flood-prone areas of the lot is complete now, and hopefully will last for at least 15 years, this investment was totally at the taxpayers’ expense and does not add more spaces or more revenue to our coffers. It was a maintenance project.

We believe as Trustees it is our duty to explore every possible option to help the Village either generate income or offset expenditures, without impacting the quality of life for our families. This can only be done by taking an in depth look at how the Village generates income.

By instituting the first-ever mid-year budget progress report we can track spending and income to date in this fiscal year; the first step to responsible fiscal management. Having reduced your Village taxes by nearly 2% for 2009-2010, this report will be key in achieving our goal to cut taxes again this year. Reducing expenses in the Villages takes a great deal of study, homework and budget “know-how” but we are determined to reach our goal.

We successfully requested and have received $750,000 from the Federal Government with help from Congressman John Hall, which reduced the overall parking lot expenses as well as $1.2 Million grant for improvements on Croton Point Avenue.

Approximately 7 weeks ago, the current board approved rezoning to provide potential for increased revenues and have begun the process of marketing these improvements to potential businesses.

Unfortunately, last week we read in this section of the Gazette some incredible accusations regarding the feasibility study but reality paints a far different picture.

On a unanimous vote by former Mayor Gregory Schmidt, former Trustees Sue Konig & Tom Brennan as well as current Trustees Ann Gallelli & Rick Olver the Village Board approved plans to mitigate flooding in the train station parking lot as well as begin a study on the feasibility of a parking structure. Now that we have entered the political season, a former Trustee has either forgotten her vote on the subject or, at the very least, the specifics of the motion on which she voted to approve.

The approval was to study a parking structure, not to build housing at the parking lot. Any attempts to tie the current parking structure feasibility study to an old Transit Oriented District (TOD) report are made up. The consultants will examine demand for more parking, the ability of the ground to support such a structure and costs of building it, improvements to the lot as a whole and possible ways of financing a structure without requiring a contribution from Village taxpayers. Any comments to the contrary are simply not true.

Please don’t take our word for it. Go the link provided and see for what the Trustees unanimously voted on February 2, 2009: http://www.crotononhudson-ny.gov/PublicDocuments/CrotonHudsonNYTrustMin/2009/02-02-09.pdf

We believe it’s demeaning to the Village and its residents to denigrate those who participated in the dialogue last Wednesday; particularly without offering any alternative plans to address the tax burden on the homeowner. What the Village needs are more residents who are willing to participate and for leadership to bring creative ideas to solve the real problems we face here so that we can enjoy the beauty and small-town charm that Croton has to offer today and for years to come.

Ann Gallelli, Trustee
Rick Olver, Trustee

Fee: $20/Chili Entry, $5/Side Dish Entry

Please join Croton Bridges for the 1st Annual Great Bowls of Fire Chili Cook-Off. All proceeds go directly to their trip to build two houses in Nindiri Nicaragua with the non-profit Bridges to Community.

Tickets are on sale now for:

• $15/Person
• $20/Couple
• $35/Family

Come enjoy a night filled with friends, food, live music, silent auction, and some of this areas best chili.

For Ticket Purchases & Information please contact: The Huigens Family at 862-2312 or email crotonbridges@gmail.com

If you would like to enter the Cook-Off please contact: Denise Weale at 862-4050 or email denise@gowestchester.net

To see pictures and video from their trip last year or to donate online visit their page: http://firstgiving.com/crotonbridges

Event flyer:

Seating is limited - reserve your tickets now!!!

• The ticket price of $50 includes Dinner, Wine, Beer, Desserts, Coffee, and Tea, and a fabulous show.
• Wonderful raffle gifts - look for advance ticket sales - you need not be present to win.
• Reservations for cabaret-style seating for groups or individuals must be made and paid in advance.

Call now to reserve your seats. Scroll down or click here for more information.

Need babysitting? CHHS students from the non-profit organization, Croton Bridges, are available to babysit at reduced rates for this special event. Call Denise Weale at 862-4050 for details and to reserve your babysitter now! Visit their website for more information: http://www.firstgiving.com/crotonbridges

PS. We need volunteers to set up and serve the night of the event. We also need people to help sell raffle tickets throughout town. And of course, gift donations are always welcome.

Time: February 27, 2010 from 7pm to 11pm
Location: Holy Name of Mary Church
Website or Map: http://comedy.crotononhudson.org/2010/
Phone: Anna Reisner 271-9011 or Joann McLellan 271-4476
Event Type: Fundraiser
Organized By: CHHS PTSA & Croton Teen Theater

For years, whenever the tide rose, our train station parking lot would flood. For years, nothing was done to fix this. When taxpayers with destroyed cars complained, their concerns were dismissed by the old gang at the municipal building with a shrug.

During the two years I served as Village trustee with Mayor Greg Schmidt, we went to work to fix this problem. We hired engineers to develop a 30-year fix, put out bids for contractors, scheduled the construction, secured the funds to raise and repave the lot, and got the job done. No more flooding.

Now Ann Gallelli and the current Village Board want to build on that success - literally. They want to build housing and shopping on the parking lot. The dreamers and schemers who can’t stand to see our little Village remain little are thinking BIG. Twenty million dollars big. They want to spend $20 million to turn the train station parking lot into a mini-city.

And you think it’s tough getting in and out of that lot during rush hour now?

Who will pay for this latest over-development scheme? How would a mini-city on our train station parking lot affect our property values? Why is the current board so driven to transform our little village in-between two rivers into a not-so-shiny city on a hill?

This board treats the taxpayers’ money as a no-limit credit card. In the last issue of the Gazette, Ms. Gallelli demonstrated a fundamental lack of understanding of our village’s finances. In reference to the drastic reductions in the Village’s tax rate increases achieved by the Schmidt administration, she wrote: “reserves…were used as ‘false’ income and reported to you as ‘a low tax increase.’” Her assertions that our village surplus was “raided” and that our decision to return some of the taxpayers own money to the taxpayers (a novel concept in our village!) rather than hoarding it in government coffers was somehow “false income” are unfounded and defamatory against former officials and the current staff of the village.

If Ms. Gallelli and the current board are really interested in saving the taxpayers of this Village money, how about cutting the $3600 a year the Village pays Ms. Gallelli to write the Village newsletter. This nicely doubles her annual trustee income.

It’s only $3600. But a $3600 newsletter here, a $20 million dollar parking lot mini-city development there…it starts to add up.

— Susan Konig, Croton-on-Hudson

The third-floor of each new or remodeled building is reserved specifically for residential use, presumably to preclude any opportunistic retail discounter from renting there and advertising, “Walk up two flights and save.” Third-floor units could actually be more desirable, being farther from the odors wafting up from an exotic ethnic restaurant on the ground floor and its incessant music of cymbals, chimes and gongs. Similarly, the area behind ground-floor retail units is limited to residential use. But if living over a store is déclassé, what is living behind a store? One advantage: If you run out of sugar, you can always knock on the back door and borrow a cupful from your neighbor, the ever-smiling and obliging chef with the flashing cleaver. Can’t you see the hordes of young couples that will desert the Upper West Side and move to Croton to live in such desirable quarters? Fat chance.

The second floor may house any combination of retail and residential uses. Professional occupancy was originally an important part of the rental income formula of retail stores sharing space with professional offices and apartments. A felicitous amalgam intended to milk increased tax revenue from “revitalization,” it also conjured up images of lawyers’ clients stumbling over prams and strollers parked in the hallways. But not to worry. Such frictions will never come to pass. Professional offices are nowhere mentioned in the new law, which defines mixed use as “a combination of residential dwelling units and other permitted and/or special permit users.” I kid you not. It will be apartments and retailers plus whatever undefined “others” are able to pass muster with the Planning Board and receive special permits required from the Village Board of Trustees.

As if to emphasize Croton’s aggressive unfriendliness to commerce, the new law repeats the Gateway Law’s categories of banned legitimate businesses that are beyond the pale. In today’s hard times when we should be welcoming business of every stripe, Croton is like a panhandler insisting he will only accept a quarter if it’s a scarce collector’s commemorative coin. The recently enacted zoning changes do not represent intelligent planning; they are planning run amuck.

The earlier laughable Rube Goldberg concept of parking spaces shared between the various categories of tenants and customers has been quietly swept under the rug. In its place is a simple formula based on bedroom counts. Retailers will have to fall back on existing commercial district parking regulations—formulas that are notoriously inadequate, particularly for restaurant parking.

Advocates of the zoning change were loud in their criticism of the “dowdy” look of Harmon’s commercial area. A look I happen to like because of its quaintness and lack of pretension. In Harmon, what you see is what you get. Proponents promised that the zoning changes would alter that look, but don’t hold your breath. The committee’s original recommendations at least gave a nod to appearance in the following virtually unintelligible statement that “the third story must be designed to within the roofline and dormers, gables or other aesthetically pleasing design possibilities.”

The zoning changes say absolutely nothing about aesthetics. What they do say is, “buildings in the area shall be subject to such additional design guidelines as may be adopted by resolution of the Board of Trustees from time to time.” So, after all the fuss and bother, the vaunted zoning changes are revealed to be nothing more than a work in progress! Still to come are the inevitable onerous nit-picking regulations that are the bane of venture capital investment.

I can comfortably make a prediction: Local Law No. 4 of 2009 will bring as much new development capital to Harmon as the 2004 Gateway Law brought to Croton in almost six years—which is to say, zero, zip, zilch, nada, nothing. One year, five years, ten years from now, Harmon will look pretty much the way it does today. And we can all thank our lucky stars for that.

Readers can read the text of the zoning changes adopted on December 7, 2009, as Local Law No. 4 will find it at the following link: http://www.crotononhudson-ny.gov/publicdocuments/crotonhudsonnywebdocs/2009-11-locallaw.pdf

— Robert Scott

I am responding to a rather curious letter published in last week’s Gazette concerning the 12/8 information meeting for Harmon property owners by an “Eileen Henry”. I attended this meeting along with fellow residents and other officials. For the record:

a) While “25 people” were indeed present at this meeting, this number largely consisted of members of the Economic Development Committee, the Village Board (Mr. Olver was absent), and a few residents. According to village staff, more than three dozen letters were sent to property and business owners in the Harmon area. However, less than a handful attended.

b) Not one, repeat not one, property owner present stated any support of the re-zoning proposal. Although there was an exchange of ideas, the fact is that property owners were at best skeptical of the alleged benefits. (The one property owner that did seem “open” to the idea quickly decided otherwise when someone pointed out that his taxes “would only go up” upon re-assessment.) Indeed, the Harmon proposal was described as “unrealistic”, “fantasy-driven” and a “dream”. Instead, property owners cited the need for tax breaks, that the parking scenario envisioned under the Harmon proposal “would not work”, that “banks are not lending money”, that “three stories would not be profitable”, etc.

I do not know what meeting Ms. Henry attended that was the subject of her letter to the paper. However, it was not the Harmon information meeting that occurred on December 8th.

In the words of Mr. Palladino that night, owner of the Dodge property, the committee is “trying to sell a dream”. That’s not surprising given Trustee Gallelli’s published commentary on May 26, 2008:

“We want to get the public to buy into this for support of the zoning changes.”

http://nycom.groupsite.com/discussion/topic/show/51472

On, December 8th, both Trustee Gallelli and the committee, who strangely chose not to televise this meeting to the public, rang up yet another “No Sale” instead.

Sincerely,

Maria Cudequest

During the Second World War, the island of New Guinea was invaded first by the Japanese and then by Australian and American troops. Large amounts of supplies and war materiel were brought in by air, impressing the natives. Missionaries and colonial authorities normally present had been evacuated, and so the local villagers had no one to explain the significance of these large-scale war activities.

After the occupying troops departed at the conclusion of the war, religious cults sprang up in the belief that the goods brought in were originally intended for the native peoples and had been diverted by the foreigners. Leaders of these so-called “cargo cults” proclaimed that the manufactured goods of the invaders had been created spiritually by the natives’ own deities and ancestors, and were intended for them, but the foreigners had unfairly gained control of these objects by attracting the materials to themselves.

Examples of cargo cult activity included the clearing of mock airstrips in the jungle, construction of “hangars,” “offices” and “mess halls.” Western goods, such as “radios” made of coconuts and straw and “headphones” carved from wood, were used in mock control towers. Believers performed parade ground drills with wooden or salvaged rifles and painted their bodies with military and national insignia to look like soldiers, treating the activities of Western military personnel as rituals to attract the cargo. Having fabricated these items and performed the rituals, the cult members then waited patiently for the cargoes intended for them to arrive.

Croton will begin practicing its own form of what I call cargo cult economics at 7:30 p.m. next Tuesday. Letters have been sent out by the mayor to commercial property and business owners in Harmon inviting them to a meeting at the Kellerhouse Municipal Building. The Village’s website lists this as a meeting of the Economic Development Committee. Its purpose is to explain the opportunities under the recently passed zoning changes. Like suckers roped into attending a free time-share luncheon, attendees can expect to be pitched with an unrelenting spiel intended to encourage them to take advantage of the new law’s myriad of blessings.

Thus, the owner of a property with a retail establishment on the ground floor and an apartment on the floor above can undertake to raze the building and construct a new three-story structure closer to the sidewalk line. The advantage to those in adjoining residential areas behind the existing building is that the new building will be farther away. Left unsaid, undoubtedly, will be the fact that the space created will become an automobile parking lot.

Those who choose to remodel instead of rebuilding will have an equally daunting task. Most of the existing structures are what architects call “stick-built,” a method in which a sturdy skeleton of columns and beams was erected and then sheathed internally and externally. Because of the 35-foot total height limit, to create a third floor for an additional apartment, the heavy joists if the second floor attached to the building’s skeleton must be lowered, a major task, and additional third-floor joists, flooring and ceilings must be added above.

Rebuilt or remodeled, the resulting structures will not be inexpensive, In addition, business owners or apartment renters will have to vacate existing buildings during the process. The yield to the property owner in either case will be high building or remodeling costs, a higher assessment, higher taxes, and a third-floor walk-up apartment of doubtful desirability under the eaves. The added tax revenue for the Village will be negligible. So I say, “Welcome to cargo cult economics.” With outcomes like these, asking property owners to attend such a meeting is like asking a condemned man to bring the rope to his own hanging.

— Robert Scott, Croton-on-Hudson

Preparation for the installation of the parking meters has begun and will be ready for activation at the beginning of January 2010. In order to ensure a smooth transition to the new system, village staff will be on hand to assist customers throughout the process of working with the new meters.

The new meters will accept coins, bills and credit cards, in addition to providing parkers with receipts that show the date and time of purchase.

The goals of the Village in implementing the new parking meter system are to reduce the cost of collecting revenue and provide the public with a greater range of options and increased convenience when paying for parking.

To learn more about the new parking meters and how they work, please visit the Village Web site at http://www.crotononhudson-ny.gov/PublicDocuments/CrotonHudsonNYParking/FAQ

Thanks to Republican campaign ineptitude and widespread anti-incumbent backlash, Croton’s March election brought a rogue village board and a mayor intent on imposing zoning changes over the objections of many residents. Now we know what living under a one-party Stalinist or Maoist regime is like. Bruising litigation will inevitably follow. In the meantime, what else will happen? Nothing. In the almost six years since passage of the Gateway Law, not a single dollar has been spent in Croton by owners or developers of commercial properties. The same can be expected in Harmon under the zoning changes to that law.

Passage of the changes was a masterpiece of bad timing. Although the collapse of the residential real-estate market has been a disaster, “you ain’t seen nothing yet,” as entertainer Al Jolson used to say. A second bubble, this time in commercial real estate, is about to burst and sweep over the economy like a tidal wave, dooming development everywhere. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke hinted at this when he told a House committee last month, “Commercial real estate remains a serious problem.”

A significant indicator, quarterly returns on commercial property compiled by the National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries, has been negative for the past five quarters, the longest continuous downturn since 1992. Beset by vacancies, owners of shopping malls, hotels, office space, apartment buildings and industrial sites—and the bankers who financed them—face crucial decisions over the next two years as the mortgages on these properties come due.

“A crisis of unprecedented proportions is approaching,” according to Dr. Randall Zisler, chief executive officer of Zisler Capital Partners LLC. Commercial property prices have fallen by 30 to 50 percent from their 2007 peaks, Zisler estimated in a recent report. This precipitous plunge has wiped out the equity in most real-estate deals based on debt financing since 2005.

Although the commercial real estate market is only about one-third the size of the $22 trillion residential market, its problems are considerably more serious. Home mortgages run for 15 to 30 years, but much of the $1.6 trillion in outstanding commercial real estate loans are for shorter terms of three to seven years. Many of these loans were written by bankers at the height of the boom. Zisler, whose firm specializes in real-estate investment, expects another $500 billion to $750 billion of mortgage debt to be added to that number as a result of “unscheduled maturities”—unanticipated defaults by owners of commercial properties—will bring the dollar amount at risk to well over two trillion.

“Unfortunately, traditional lenders of consequence are practically out of the market and massive amounts of maturing debt will not easily find refinancing,” Zisler pointed out. “Marking-to-market outstanding debt will render many banks, especially regional and community banks, insolvent, especially since much of the debt is likely worth about 50 percent of par, or less,” a consequence of having to reduce the value of their holdings.

According to FDIC data, commercial real estate made up 56 percent of U.S. banks’ loan portfolios in 2006. It was only 40 percent a decade earlier. For about 5,600 smaller banks with assets under $1 billion (about 90 percent of all U.S. banks) the percentage of loans secured by commercial real estate is even higher—74 percent.

In addition to vacancies and lost rents, those who bought commercial real estate at the height of the boom face the same dilemma as homeowners—plunging values. When their loans come due, they will owe more on the mortgage than the property is worth. Bankers call this “being upside down.” Owners have two choices: Sell and take a huge loss, or refinance and come up with a big bundle of cash to make up for the lost value.

Moreover, when decision time comes, many commercial property owners won’t have a sympathetic banker to talk to. Unhappy investors who bought bonds created by investment banks from bundled mortgages (Wall Street calls these “mortgage-backed securities”), or who bought bonds backed by the interest payments on them, hold about a third of all commercial loans.

Heavy losses on commercial real estate will cast a pall over consumer lending, causing banks to make home mortgages, car loans and credit cards even harder to obtain. It also will induce bankers to offset commercial loan losses by accelerating foreclosures and sales of foreclosed homes, thus putting additional downward pressure on home prices.

Traditional voter lassitude during local elections undoubtedly played a role in the voting that gave us the current lopsided administration. The next election is 120 days away. A village board with members more responsive to the will of the people would mark the beginning of the return to more proportional representation.

— Robert Scott, Croton-on-Hudson

A “deepthroat” within the Harmon Opposition disenchanted with the methods being used to deceive the public confirmed the next phase of their politically motivated plan.

Sensing that they have not been successful in convincing the residents of Croton that the Harmon revitalization plan is a Democratic plot to flood the village with “Democratic constituents” by creating housing for them, they have adopted a Plan B which will be launched immediately following the passage of the Harmon zoning changes.

Plan B is an Article 78 lawsuit, which is a legal procedure that can be used to challenge a change to zoning. The Harmon Opposition knows they have no chance of winning the case because the Harmon zoning changes are based on facts and the process has been open and inclusive. But winning is not their goal, buying time to the March elections is!

You see, the plan is simply to continue the same fear mongering, misinformation campaign in greater volume and intensity into the election season and try to pick up seats on the Village Board.

Pay careful attention to who is writing letters and speaking out against Harmon revitalization on a regular basis and I am sure it will quickly become obvious who these future Croton GOP candidates are likely to be!

The deeply troubling thing about the Harmon Opposition’s Plan B is that the Article 78 lawsuit defense they will file will have to be paid for by YOU THE TAXPAYER!

— Truth Hurts

More here: http://www.ncnlocal.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=2449

It has always been a travesty on the word “planning” for Croton to pursue a special zoning change to rescue an ailing Harmon from itself, while ignoring its other commercial areas also in need of support. Monday night’s public review only underscored this judgment. To propose piecemeal changes in Harmon while not having the faintest idea of the state of Croton’s commercial (i.e., retail) economy borders on the criminal.

Proponents blithely continue to close their eyes to the realities of geography, the isolating Expressway, Croton’s small customer base and especially its five noncontiguous shopping areas that make the development of a central shopping area an impossibility. Encouragement of tourism to aid local businesses is never considered. Yet it would cost almost nothing and require no enabling legislation.

The plan’s basic objective is to get the Harmon shopping area to pull up its socks, so to speak, all the while ignoring Croton’s other troubled shopping areas. Proponents claim that Harmon is unattractive, but could be transformed into a veritable Fifth Avenue of strolling families and shopping activity through the simple medium of a zoning change. Whenever someone starts by saying, “Friends who come to visit immediately remark on how awful the Harmon shopping area looks,” you know the baloney is going to be sliced very thick. Why aren’t proponents equally concerned about the Upper Village that has at its heart a shuttered, highly visible and starkly empty Wondrous Things storefront?

No matter what we do to zoning in Harmon, as a nascent Fifth Avenue it is always going to be “blighted” (their word, not mine) by three gasoline service stations and an automobile body repair and repainting shop in close proximity along one side of South Riverside Avenue. I am not for a moment suggesting that these businesses should go. They are necessary, profitable and very much a part of Harmon, plus they offer local employment opportunities. But how their continuing presence is going to make the “revitalized” Harmon shopping area look like a cross between the Champs Élysées and the Las Vegas strip is never explained.

The standing-room-only crowd at the meeting was unified and vociferously loud in its opposition. Only after the anti-zoning-change speakers had drifted away did a few timorous advocates, largely from areas other than Harmon, show themselves. Offering little in the way of concrete support, the best they could muster was “Why not give it a try?” as though the ill-considered zoning change were nothing more than a faddish TV 30-day dieting plan.

Croton can be thankful it has more lawyers in residence than nail salons and pizzerias. Early on, the opposition unlimbered some big legal guns to advance their cause, and these were hard acts to follow. Legal objections to the Environmental Assessment Form, in fact to the entire process itself, flew thick and fast. Village attorney James Staudt, who is not a resident and who had given a perfunctory blessing to the plan at the start of the meeting, could hardly have felt comfortable under the barrage of citations. Then again, litigation always brings humongous hourly billings, a factor proponents should keep in mind. Memories of the legal cost of ousting Metro-Enviro still rankle.

The rezoning plan has been shown to be fraught with faults and legal hazards. For the mayor and village board to move this plan forward without addressing these would be the height of irresponsibility. At the very least, they should be required to prove that each defect has been considered and corrected. Last March’s election was by no means a landslide. The two incumbents up for re-election would be wise to recognize that reality. Next March is only four months away.

— Robert Scott, Croton-on-Hudson

Don’t let the media hype get you nervous. Be pro-active rather than reactive this flu season.

Come to this timely and informative workshop, hosted by The Garden Road School on November 9, 2009 at 7:00pm to learn how to protect the whole family with herbal immune system supports. Learn about preventative and treatment methods for the flu and how you can put together a flu prevention package for you and your family.

Andrea Candee, MH, MSC, is a master herbalist with a practice in South Salem, NY. She lectures about taking charge of your health naturally and is an instructor of Botanical Medicine at The New York Botanical Garden. Her book, Gentle Healing for Baby and Child (Simon & Schuster), was awarded The National Parenting Center’s Seal of Approval.

The Garden Road School is an independent school for grades Pre-K (ages 2+) through Fourth Grade. Its mission is to educate children for a purposeful future through a vibrant curriculum that merges academic excellence, creativity and core human values. The Garden Road School is located at 99 Baron de Hirsch Road, Crompond.

Attendance is $15 per person. For more information please visit: www.thegardenroad.org, email info@thegardenroad.org, or call call 914-526-4033.

— Kathryn Corena

“We strongly believe that no one should walk through the doors of a funeral home, on what could be the worst day of their lives, without at least some basic information and preparation” said Mike Lepore, Manager of the Carter Funeral Homes in Montrose and Croton-on-Hudson.. “We feel it is our obligation to make this kind of information available to the public, whether they choose to use our services or not.”

“We want people to make wise decisions, not emotional ones,” added Family Service Counselor and Funeral Director Michelle Carter. “People will leave armed with information they need to make smart choices and save money.”

The program is less than an hour long, and includes a question and answer period as well as light refreshments. A complimentary copy of our Personal Planning Guide will also be available. Each month will feature a new topic of interest, although questions on any topic can be asked at any time.

“Many people think end-of-life and estate planning are private matters, and so are reluctant to broach the subject with family or friends,” Attorney Kathleen Riedy said. “The fact is, when a person dies, it affects everyone they know. Questions like, ‘Who do I call? What do I need to do? How much will it cost?’ will all have to be answered in a short amount of time.”

The seminars will be held the 3rd Wednesday of every month and begin at 4 pm at the Edward F. Carter Funeral Home, 41 Grand Street in Croton-on-Hudson. All seminars will be presented by licensed funeral directors along with local attorney and estate expert Kaltheen Riedy. Because of space considerations, advance registration is requested.

Upcoming topics include:

• November: Trusts: why you may or may not need one
• December: The Medicaid Spend Down - what you need to know years before seeking long-term care
• January: New Years Resolutions: Do your planning in 2010
• February: How to make sure your wishes are honored
• March: Special considerations for families with a special needs child
• April: Avoiding the Death Tax

“There are few things in life that aren’t made better and easier by planning for them in advance,” Michelle Carter said. “We hope our free seminars will at the very least start a dialogue within families about preparing for the future.”

For more information or to register, please call 914-271-4882.

Croton today is on the brink of making a major decision. The subject at issue is mixed use. And what is mixed use? In Colonial America it was the way of life in towns and villages. It featured a tightly clustered mix of stores, houses, churches, local government buildings, and civic uses within walking distance of one another.

During the 19th century industrialization brought factories and commercial uses that were sources of objectionable noise and odors, and often were hazardous to public health. To protect residential property values, early zoning focused on separating uses and buffering them from each other to minimize nuisances. The movement to return to mixed use in urban areas was sparked by Jane Jacobs in her seminal 1961 work titled The Death and Life of Great American Cities.

Paradoxically, Croton’s existing zoning permits mixed use in the form of housing on a single floor above retail stores. Proposed legislation would more than double the amount of residential space available in commercially zoned areas as apartments above retail establishments and in ground-floor space behind them. I have been a vocal opponent of this legislation on many grounds:

(1) The total lack of research into the current retail picture in Croton. It may very well be that Croton needs less retail space rather than more.

(2) The failure of proponents to explore the impact of the legislation on the projected school population.

(3) The inadequacy of parking and the lack of outdoor space for children and pets. Because of higher densities in mixed-use developments and the commercial/office component, parking space requirements always exceed those of residential development.

(4) The total lack of adequate controls to protect the village. This mirrors the 2004 Gateway Law that bans fast-food restaurants without defining what constitutes a fast-food restaurant.

(5) The total lack of architectural standards. The only architectural requirement in the Harmon report was that the third floor within the roofline be designed as “dormers, or gables, or other architecturally pleasing design possibilities.” Even this vague and unsatisfactory requirement is missing from the proposed legislation.

(6) Technically naïve, the proposed legislation also provides for ground floor residential space behind retail space. Yet any first-year architectural student knows that retail and residential ceiling heights vary greatly and mixing them on one floor will impose additional design and construction costs. The large, high-ceilinged ground floor space without supporting columns needed for commercial uses may not be architecturally compatible with the smaller scale of walled residential space above it or behind it.

(7) Construction costs for mixed-use development currently exceed those for single-use buildings of similar size. Unanticipated architectural challenges include fire separations, sound attenuation, ventilation and egress.

(8) Mixed use developments are seen as too risky by many developers and lending institutions because economic success requires that the several different uses all remain in full occupancy. Short-term discounted cash flow has become the standard method of measuring the success of income-producing properties, making single-use properties more attractive for investment.

(9) There has been a total lack of cost analysis and feasibility studies, yet the legislation is touted as an economic panacea for Croton.

With so many issues still unaddressed, I urge all residents of Croton to turn out at the village board meeting on November 2 and demand an answer to the simple question, “Why the hurry and the mindless disregard of citizens’ legitimate concerns?”

— Robert Scott, Croton-on-Hudson

As noted, Mayor Elliott’s comments were made in 2005. How sad that the Schmidt gang opted for a parochial approach in the four years following, refusing both to market what our village has to offer and to work with neighboring communities to form what could be one of the top attractions in the U.S.

Former Mayor Schmidt not only stated publicly that he didn’t want Croton turning into “another Ossining” but managed to schedule the opening of Croton Landing for a day when the Westchester County Executive was not available to attend, insuring an appearance in the press that his administration alone was responsible for its creation.

Fortunately, Croton’s present elected officials are working to connect with municipalities up and down the Hudson to insure a cohesive presentation of all of our towns have to offer. A variety of sporting opportunities, nature encounters and eyefuls of beauty—it all comes back to a river…and Croton has 2!

As far as our village is concerned, shouldn’t we be able to offer visitors from the states and abroad a place to spend their money on something other than a mani/pedi or a pepperoni slice?

— Lisa Cohen

NOTE: The following is the text of my letter to The Gazette dated Sept. 3, 2009:

Given that tourism is New York State’s second largest industry, I expected the broad plan I described in last week’s letter to receive wide acceptance. As usual, a small coterie of anonymous proponents of the Harmon Plan pooh-poohed it, arguing wildly that it would not work. No respectable newspaper will publish unsigned, irresponsible comments. Initially, the plan only requires integrating Croton more closely with existing organizations to promote the new trend called “heritage tourism.”

I’d like to call a single expert witness in defense of tourism as a solution worth trying. Robert W. Elliott, seven-term mayor of Croton-on-Hudson from 1991 to 2005, and founder and past chairman of Historic River Towns of Westchester, a consortium of thirteen river communities from Yonkers to Peekskill. Under an inter-municipal agreement, this umbrella organization focuses on waterfront development, tourism and main street economics in a bottom-up approach to regional planning.

Bob Elliott authored the New York Conference of Mayors Sustainable Communities Initiative. He is the former Chair of the Hudson Valley Tourism Development Council and served as the Vice Chair of the New York Main Street Alliance. He has been the Director of Economic Development, as well as head of the Industrial Development Agency for Westchester County. Bob was also President of the Westchester Convention and Visitors Bureau. I’m sure readers will acknowledge his credentials.

On April 4, 2005, while still the mayor of Croton, Bob spoke on the subject of tourism at Buffalo’s Martin House Restoration. A five-building complex designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in his Prairie Style and built from 1903-05, this powerful architectural magnet attracts visitors from all over the country. No transcript exists of Bob’s presentation, but a Buffalo News reporter was there, and his news story captured some of the highlights.

Mayor Elliott described how communities in a picturesque 50-mile stretch along the Hudson River are working together, without being restricted by geographical or organizational divisions, with the objective of offsetting job losses and economic stagnation that have afflicted much of upstate New York. According to him, a major thrust of this “bottom-up approach to regional planning” has been the development of heritage tourism as an economic lifeline.

This makes eminent good sense, Bob pointed out. Tourism is the state’s second largest industry, and local governments (except in Croton) and groups are working together to promote the region’s history to older, middle-class travelers who constitute the primary market for heritage tourism. The special breed of “heritage tourists” stays longer, visits twice as many places and spends twice as much. “They’ve even come to see the Hudson itself as a tourist draw,” he added.

As part of his slideshow, he projected a color slide of the Half Moon on the screen, the brightly colored replica of explorer Henry Hudson’s little ship, under full sail. Above the photo, the caption read: “It’s the river, stupid.” He closed with, “It’s one aspect of regionalism that has been proven to work.”

The defense rests.

— Robert Scott, Croton-on-Hudson

NOTE: The following is the text of my letter to The Gazette of August 27, 2009:

Readers may be interested in the following transcript of a question-and-answer session I recently had with myself:

Q: Okay, Mr. Wise Guy, you’ve been critical of unneeded zoning changes, what’s your solution for Croton’s economic ills?
A: The answer has been right under our noses from the beginning: Old-fashioned tourism. Give people a reason to “Visit Historic Croton-on-Hudson.” and they’ll come in droves.

Q: What’s the first step?
A: We have the nucleus in Van Cortlandt Manor to cover the Dutch colonial period. The Village should acquire and restore the nearby original Harmon sales office. Make it a visitors’ center and a Croton Museum of History with permanent exhibits about Croton’s long history of boat building, railroading, brick making, and construction of the Old Croton Aqueduct and the Croton Dam.

Q: What comes next?
A: Special exhibits can be added, such as one honoring Croton’s African-American heritage. Revolutionary War cannoneer John Peterson, whose unerring aim began the downfall of British spy, Major John André, and playwright Lorraine Hansberry (“A Raisin in the Sun”) are both buried in Bethel Cemetery.

Q: What other attractions could there be?
A: Perhaps Metro North could be induced to establish a railroad (and trolley) museum here. (The Metro Enviro site would be ideal.) Croton should explore the possibility that the colorful replica of Henry Hudson’s ship, the Half Moon, could make Croton its homeport and wintering port.

Q: Isn’t Croton’s rich history already widely recognized?
A: Not at all. Historic sites are unmarked. Would you believe there’s only one marker in the village memorializing its historic past? Most Crotonites cannot name that lone marker. (It’s at the base of the hill on which Bethel Chapel stands.) There are more than a dozen houses in Croton associated with the Bohemian colony of artists and writers that flourished here during and after the First World War. Yet not a single marker identifies any of these houses, which would make a fine subject for a walking tour.

Q: How would you overcome Croton’s handicap of widely separated shopping areas?
A: That’s easy. In keeping with the image of a tourist-friendly village, Croton’s shopping areas could be gradually nudged toward specialization. For example, Grand Street could emulate Cold Spring’s Main Street and feature shops offering antiques and knickknacks. And attract customers to its restaurants.

Q: What about places where tourists can stay?
A: The big hurdle is lack of hotel space. For year-round tourism, a hotel/conference center with a river view could easily be built on a commercial site like the tire warehouse. The railroad’s fast express train service opens up the possibility that Metro North could promote tours to Croton from New York City as package deals.

Q: What should we do about the Gateway Law?
A: Cosmetic changes will do nothing to bring new business. We must stop excluding legitimate businesses. It’s positively un-American to convict a whole class of businesses without a trial. Let’s make Croton a village that genuinely welcomes businesses. We must halt any attempt to urbanize Croton. Don’t expand the Gateway Law. Get rid of it.

Q: What are the chances of such a plan coming to fruition?
A: Good, if Croton will stop bickering and recognize that exploitation of its history can be its salvation.

— Robert Scott, Croton-on-Hudson

The following is the text of my letter to The Gazette of August 20, 2009:

In planning Croton’s future, three indisputable facts cannot be changed:

(1) The Expressway has effectively made Croton a backwater by cutting it off from the flow of north-south automobile traffic, estimated at 40,000 vehicles a day. Each transit by a motorist bypassing our village at 55 mph means one less potential customer for Croton businesses.

(2) Croton lacks a single, centralized shopping area. Over the years, Croton planners allowed five widely separated and non-contiguous shopping areas to evolve, each heavily dependent on the automobile. Pedestrian traffic between the respective shopping areas is nonexistent because of their wide separation.

(3) Croton planners also allowed its downtown to be blighted with three giant supermarkets and their large, unsightly automobile parking areas. These encourage automobile usage and further discourage pedestrian traffic.

This may not be a picture of “the Croton we want.” Nevertheless, it’s the Croton we’ve got, and we must make the best of an unhappy situation. Planners must accept that the above special conditions make Croton different from other villages. I don’t care how many communities with centralized shopping areas our expensive hired consultants may have advised; they cannot overcome Croton’s atypical handicaps. Otherwise, any monies spent will be wasted.

Planners must stop treating Croton as a community with conventional planning problems. They should accept Croton’s unusual situation before plunging ahead with off-the-shelf, standard-issue solutions. Merely giving Harmon a hasty cosmetic makeover that violates common sense is not planning.

I have railed against the flawed 2004 Gateway Law incorporated into the Zoning Code and against the proposed Harmon-inspired changes to it. Its proponents have stubbornly clung to flagrantly erroneous beliefs: (1) that planning efforts should be concentrated on a single shopping area at the expense of the other areas; (2) that there are three magical, mystical “gateways” to Croton; (3) that all motorists who enter Croton are here to shop, so Croton must be made pretty for such shoppers from other communities.

Every community has its delicatessens, pizza parlors, supermarkets, hardware store, branch bank, and post office supplying basic needs of its residents. Croton’s underlying problem is that it lacks a “magnet” store or stores that would attract customers from elsewhere. Briarcliff Manor, for example, has a Radio Shack. When I need an electronic gadget, I travel to Chilmark. After a brief existence here, Croton’s sole magnet store, Blockbuster, is now in the process of closing.

The only businesses that manage to thrive here are those that supply basic needs—“the butcher, baker and candlestick maker.” Ironically, Croton’s Gateway Law specifically bans automobile dealerships and national chain fast food restaurants. Yet each of these categories represents a magnet business with the potential of attracting the very customers from other communities that Croton sorely needs.

The truth is Croton planners lack basic knowledge of the community so necessary for intelligent planning. Croton has no inventory of the stores, empty or occupied, in each of Croton’s five shopping areas. We have no idea of their sizes, amenities, and rental terms or even what they offer in the way of goods and services. Hard to believe, but no planner can identify how many delicatessens, restaurants, pizza parlors, or nail salons exist in Croton, nor can they tell me where they are located.

Equally nonexistent is a reliable, controlled census and projections of its school population and expected growth. Croton has no idea of the number of apartments that exist in the village, yet planners are contemplating adding more apartments in crowded human rabbit warrens. School taxes form the major portion of each taxpayer’s tax burden.

That planners in Croton should be actively engaged in planning for this village’s future despite their lack of fundamental knowledge about the nature and state of its current business and residential communities is staggering, to say the least. What Croton needs is more information, not more legislation.

Croton and other communities in Westchester have just been dealt a double whammy. One is the workforce legislation calling for mandatory affordable housing now awaiting the governor’s signature. The other is the agreement recently reached between the county executive and the federal government mandating affordable housing for minorities. The fact that Croton receives no credit for the impressive results achieved by the Croton Housing Network is only one of the many disquieting aspects of the wrenching changes.

Apparently unforeseen by the Village, the two events in quick succession came as a complete surprise. Until the questions they raise are answered, it would be suicidal for Croton’s present administration to push ahead mulishly in its headlong rush to expand the flawed Gateway Law by adding apartments whose need is highly questionable. Its first order of business should be to fill the enormous gap in information about the nature of the ventures that manage to thrive in the village and the future burdens on its school system.

— Robert Scott, Croton-on-Hudson

The Croton Harmon Gridiron Club would like to take this opportunity to apologize to the community at large for scheduling our Grand Stand fundraiser for Saturday, September 19, the same day as the Jewish holiday Rosh Hashanah.

Our intention was to hold an event whereby the Croton community could gather together in support of the Croton Football Team; we made a mistake by scheduling the celebration on the Jewish holiday and we regret our decision and apologize for our insensitivity.

We promise to be more prudent when scheduling our events in the future.

The Gridiron Club will host a pancake breakfast the morning of Homecoming, September 26, at the Croton Harmon High School from 8:30 - 11:30. Please join us then.

Thank you, our apologies again and …. GO TIGERS!

— The Croton Harmon Gridiron Club

The following is the text of my letter to the editor of The Gazette, dated August 13, 2009:

Continuing a detailed study of the flawed Gateway Law to which zoning changes will be added, here are a few of the Law’s flaws that professional planners have already bestowed on us: (References to the Gateway Law hereafter will be to “the Law.”)

Flaw No. 1 is in the fallacious concept that if we “upgrade the image and strengthen the visual identity of the Village,” visitors will automatically come to Croton regardless of the nature of the merchandise or services its shops offer.

Flaw No. 2: In the Harmon area, the Law calls for new buildings to be “designed to enhance the district’s small-scale character.” But the character of the buildings in the vast urban renewal project and associated parking areas envisioned under the proposed zoning changes give the lie to the phrase “small scale.”

Flaw No. 3: The Law next mandates a very questionable scheme. Here’s what it proposes for Harmon: “To reinforce the area’s role as a gateway, the Planning Board shall encourage the design and placement of a distinctive gateway feature such as a clock or sculpture near the corner of Croton Point Avenue and South Riverside Avenue.” Erecting a clock or a sculpture approved by the Planning Board with an incoming business footing the bill? I’m not making any of this up. It’s right there in the Law at 230-20.6-4

Because the avowed function of gateways is to give visitors “a sense of arrival,” why not a small Statue of Liberty with a variation on the Emma Lazarus sentiment carved into the base? “Give me your energized, your wealthy, your eager customers yearning to spend freely.” In other gateway areas, how about an impressive fountain, heroic statue or perhaps a miniature Arc de Triomphe? The sky’s the limit in beautifying Croton for new arrivals.

Flaw No. 4: In the Municipal Place area, the Law stresses the need for increased pedestrian facilities such as sidewalks, despite the fact that the layout and facilities of the area encourage and favor automobile usage. Pedestrian traffic is non-existent here, and it is still worth your life to try to cross Maple Street to get from one part of this gateway area to another on foot.

Flaw No. 5 is the designation of the North End area as a commercial gateway. In this area, a veritable Siberia for commercial development with no access from the Expressway, the Law is ultra-specific about prettification: “New development, landscaping and streetscaping shall be designed to preserve the district’s residential and rural feel from the village boundary line to Warren Road.”

The Law calls for sidewalks to be constructed on Warren Road from the village line south to Warren Road and west to the bridge over the Expressway. Preferential consideration is also given to site plans featuring “stone walls consistent with existing built walls along property lines to screen parking.” Street trees and shrubs should be planted on the east side of Route 9 and the west side of 9A (both are State roads and the designated roadsides are now heavily wooded) “to form a buffer between these roads and the North End gateway properties.”

In the course of human events, the power to write legislation controlling zoning in their immediate neighborhoods is not given to ordinary citizens. Section 20-3-E of the Village Code of Ethics calls for disclosure by public officials of any interest in legislation. It so happens that among the driving forces behind the passage in 2004 of the Gateway Law was an appointed Village official living on Briggs Lane off Warren Road, immediately adjacent to the North End gateway area. Because there was no disclosure, disqualification or recusal, it would seem that “somebody’s gotta lot of splainin’ to do.”

— Robert Scott, Croton-on-Hudson

NOTE: The following is the text of my letter to the Gazette dated August 6, 2009:

The Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution and Croton’s 2004 Gateway law all have one quality in common: Very few people have read them. I urge residents to study the Gateway Law, which plays a fundamental role in proposed Harmon committee changes. It’s available on Croton’s website as part of its Zoning Code.

Let’s consider first how the Gateway Law defines and identifies what it calls its commercial gateways. These are clearly characterized as “the major entry points from surrounding municipalities and roads.” But ask Croton’s residents to list entry points under this definition, and they will invariably name four: the three exits to Croton from the north-south Expressway (Route 9). They will also definitely include Route 129 coming from the east.

Peculiarly, the Gateway Law identifies only three gateways. The first two are the Croton Point Avenue and the Municipal Place exits from the Expressway. The third is a most unusual choice: “the north end of the village along Albany Post Road (Route 9A).”

The reasons for excluding two very significant gateways that meet the Gateway Law’s own definition have never been satisfactorily explained. Unmentioned are the Senasqua Road gateway leading to the remnant Lower Village shopping area, and the similarly overlooked Route 129 gateway from Yorktown leading directly to the Grand Street shopping area.

The reason for including the Albany Post Road at the extreme north end of the village as a gateway into the Village is equally unclear. Few southbound motorists use it, preferring the Expressway. By any definition, the Senasqua Road exit is the first true gateway from the Expressway into the commercial areas of Croton. Yet Gateway Law framers ignored it.

Curiously, planners who claim to have the cure for what ails commerce in Croton have never seen fit to post a sign at the branching of Grand Street from Route 129 (Maple Street and directing motorists to “Business district” or “Shopping area.” Under the Gateway Law, the Grand Street shopping area simply does not exist.

New York State traffic statistics show that Route 129 (Maple Street) funnels two million vehicles through Croton annually. As if to underscore that Croton considers Route 129 a gateway, it has erected a very large sign on Route 129 near Jacoby Street at the entrance to the village.

Does this handsome sign bid welcome to motorists entering our fair village by pointing out Croton’s rich historical heritage? It does not. With the supreme lack of imagination so characteristic of Croton’s planning, it says, “Croton-on-Hudson. Incorporated 1898.” Before any makeover of the so-called Gateway Law is attempted, the glaring omission of two major gateways should be corrected.

— Robert Scott, Croton-on-Hudson

NOTE: The following is the text of my letter to The Gazette of July 30, 2009:

Governments often work in ways contrary to the interests of those who elected them and whom they profess to serve. Croton is an example of this. With local retail businesses struggling to survive, Croton’s government recently waived permit requirements for itself and cut a rent-free deal with a for-profit corporation. By installing a so-called “farmer’s market” on public property and providing village traffic control personnel without so much as a public hearing, Croton facilitated competition with local food businesses, making their survival more unlikely. All the while it sheds crocodile tears over the sad state of retail business in Croton.

The controversial Harmon plan is another glaring example. It proposes to make substantial changes in the flawed Gateway Law, a poor foundation on which to construct anything. A small army of critics is attacking these changes that will affect all Croton neighborhoods. I am one of them. The Gateway Law mandates that new development in the Harmon area be designed “to enhance the district’s small-scale character.” Yet an examination of the plan for Harmon proposed by the committee’s consultant reveals a gross departure from those guidelines.

For the three lots described as the Dodge property, the plan shows a building containing 24,800 square feet of total floor area. Such a building would enclose 289,325 cubic feet of space. By any standard, that’s one helluva bulky building. Behind this massive structure will be an equally large parking lot, illuminated at night, containing 47 parking spaces to serve 16 retail or professional units and some 40 residential units. Despite its enormous capacity, 47 spaces are admittedly inadequate for the building’s needs. The consultant’s solution is for parking spaces to be shared by residents and outsiders in what can best be described as an intricate game of musical chairs played with automobiles.

Unfortunately, too, the Harmon committee neglected to point out to the consultant that the corner lot was a site of historical significance—namely, Harmon’s first and oldest building, the original sales office of Clifford B. Harmon. Their totally unacceptable plan calls for its destruction.

I am a firm believer in the natural superiority of women. Studies have shown that women excel in a wide variety of areas: intelligence, physical and emotional health, sensory perception, sociability, and longevity, to name a few. As caregivers women are unsurpassed. I showed the consultant’s layout to my wife, Edith. It took her about three minutes of study to detect the fundamental flaw in the plan. “Where’s the open space? Where will the kids who will live in these apartments play?’ she asked. “Will their mothers caution them, ‘Go outside and play—but watch out for traffic. And don’t play in the parking lot. It’s dangerous with all those cars backing up.’?” The nearest of Croton’s too-few playgrounds is almost a mile away, my wife pointed out.

In the 1930s many small retailers got their start by “living over the store.” This gave them reasonable rent and a way to work long hours in the family delicatessen at street level. The Harmon plan is a bastardization of that concept. Croton’s planners seem bent on creating a veritable rabbit warren of retail stores, professional offices and barely habitable attic apartments. By injecting a large number of transient renters into a suburban commercial neighborhood, they will re-create an overcrowded urban landscape—the very conditions many Croton homeowners fled the city to escape.

Opponents of the Harmon plan have taken to calling the eventual result a “housing project,” an appellation that upsets proponents. I prefer to describe it as a “visual blight certain to be sparsely tenanted and a totally unacceptable slum.”

— Robert Scott, Croton-on-Hudson

NOTE: The following is the text of my letter to The Gazette dated July 23, 2009.

Why are would-be planners with no grasp of reality or commerce so quick to prescribe ways to get Harmon’s business district to pull up its socks when it is all retail areas in Croton that are facing problems? Among other suggestions to remedy Croton’s deep-seated woes, we are being told, “What this village needs is a bookstore in Harmon.” Perhaps the members of the Harmon Committee will chip in the half-million to a million dollars and the business acumen such a venture would require.

Independent booksellers are a dying breed whose numbers continue to diminish. It is impossible for independent booksellers to match the buying power and low prices of the megachain bookstores, discounters like Walmart or Sam’s Club, and Amazon.com. A comparatively small number of independents have survived by adding extra services. These include gift items, used books, magazines, comfortable tub chairs, piped-in music, wi-fi access, and an adjunct café selling food, latte or wine and beer. A few newcomers have gained a foothold by specializing in narrow fields, such as crime and mystery.

Every successful bookstore needs employees who are readers and who know and love the product they are selling. Today the bookstore is not only a place to buy books. It has become a place to relax and talk about them. Allow me to deflate the bookstore myth once and for all with facts and statistics:

1. A recent survey revealed that 27 percent of American adults admitted they had not read a single book for pleasure in the past year.
2. Although it represented a 3.2% decline, an astronomical 275,232 individual new titles were published in 2008. That’s 5,293 new titles every week. Imagine being a bookseller and trying to keep up with that flood of books.
3. The average new book has a shelf life somewhere between milk and yogurt. Unlike any other article of commerce, books are sold to booksellers with generous return privileges. After a fixed period, booksellers can return unsold books for full credit.
4. About 40 percent of new books—largely unsold bestsellers—are returned to publishers. Eventually, many of these are shredded and shipped to China on empty container ships. Not to worry. They will come back as recycled cardboard packaging for products formerly made by American workers.
5. Instituted during the Great Depression to encourage dealers to stock books, the indefensible practice of printing excessive quantities and then accepting returns is sheer madness, making book publishing one of the biggest wasters of energy and resources. Except for smaller press runs of books printed for libraries and academic use, the future of books seems destined to lie with electronic books and “print-on-demand” versions.

For some, myself included, books are almost like air, water and food—essential to life. But I am neither overly sanguine nor foolish enough to think that Croton, now a backwater community bypassed by the limited-access Expressway and offering a narrow customer base of less than 8,000 souls, is an appropriate location for an independent bookstore. A village in crisis can hardly take seriously such desperate clutching at straws.

— Robert Scott, Croton-on-Hudson

Note: The following is the text of my letter to The Gazette of July 16, 2009:

Can a community be subjected to too much planning? “You betcha,” as soon-to-be ex-Governor of Alaska Sarah Palin would say in her folksy style. The poor woman is a prime example of the too much, too soon syndrome.

The Harmon Plan made simple. Croton residents are collectively being urged to buy a pig in a poke. The current proposal involves making changes in the 2004 Gateway Law, now part of the Zoning Code. But the gateway concept is based on the erroneous principle that Croton should be made attractive—not to Crotonites—but to visitors presumably coming here to shop. This law defines a gateway as “the roads and surrounding properties a motorist or pedestrian encounters when first entering the Village. These areas create a sense of arrival and connection to the Village, and establish an image and initial impression of the community.”

Had researchers with clipboards been positioned at two exits from the Expressway for a single day to question arriving motorists about their destinations, the fallacy of that premise would have been revealed. Aside from those going directly to ShopRite from the Expressway’s Croton Point Avenue exit, few are headed to local shops or businesses. Most drivers entering Croton are either residents or are transients headed to Yorktown and points east.

The Gateway Law is straight out of Alice in Wonderland. Pretending to attract business, it declares various legitimate and socially acceptable enterprises, including automobile dealerships and fast-food restaurants, to be illegal. In its five years on the books, this law has not brought a single new business to Croton. Among the law’s other unreasonable anti-business provisions is its mindless ban on drive-through windows. Studies show that these can actually reduce the need for parking spaces.

One wonders how Croton can ban fast-food establishments with a straight face when it has pizza parlors up the kazoo. Gateway Law framers freely acknowledge that the law was directed against national food chains. Yet we have a Dunkin Donuts and a Subway sandwich shop. The ban on fast food restaurants has been an empty deterrent.

Ever since the Expressway opened in 1967, Croton has been a backwater community cut off from the traffic stream. Although most residents welcomed the change, isolation comes at a price. Because of its isolation and small customer base, Croton is a poor prospect for capital investment in retail space—a reality that will haunt any Harmon redevelopment. The only way to bring about change is to ask NY State to re-route traffic through Croton as before. Fat chance.

Consultants. Croton also has a penchant for hiring consultants to support local planners’ shaky concepts. Such experts always lack any sense of the history and continuity of the village. A case in point is the contractor, Danth, Inc. On the basis of two brief visits, its report lists the ideal types of “niche” businesses Croton should target: “a cell phone store, a pet shop, stores offering knitting, women’s clothing, prepared meals, and full- and limited-service restaurants.” Unfortunately, every one of these businesses has been tried here and either failed or closed. The consultant obviously never bothered to read Croton’s zoning code. Its report, which can be read on the Village’s website, offers suggestions about the best locations in Croton for national chain fast-food restaurants! For these examples of the fallibility of advice from quickie consultants unfamiliar with Croton, the Village paid out $15,000 of our tax dollars.

That “eyesore.” The Dodge dealership has been a thriving fixture in Croton since the 1920s. With its punitive prohibition against automobile dealerships, the Gateway Law drastically diminished the value of the business and the owner’s ability to sell it to zero. Understandably, the owner did what any sensible businessperson would do. He closed the dealership, leaving the buildings empty—but still paying taxes.

Elsewhere in the Hudson Valley, new uses are regularly found for existing empty commercial buildings—but not in Croton. Proponents of the Harmon Plan now call the empty dealership an eyesore and the rest of the Harmon shopping area “blighted.” Having caused a viable business to close, they now clamor for the removal of the eyesore they themselves created. This reminds me of the teenager who murdered his parents and then begged the judge for leniency because he was an orphan.

Reminiscent of the recent real estate bubble, extravagant pie-in-the-sky promises are being voiced about the Harmon Plan. Beautification of the Harmon shopping area will create Harmon’s new “downtown” and attract throngs of strolling shoppers. Proponents seem unaware that Harmon’s future Times Square already has three very permanent and necessary gasoline stations and an automobile repair shop along its main drag.

It’s my Harmon, too. My family and I were not looking for a picture-postcard New England village when we went house hunting here in 1963. We moved to the Harmon area of Croton because it was what it was: an unpretentious workaday post-industrial Hudson River village with a good school system and frequent train service to the city. Because Clifford Harmon was a seller of building lots rather than a builder of houses, Harmon today is no Levittown, but a delightful mix of architectural styles from modest bungalows to more imposing residences. Its shopping areas can best be described as quirky or quaint—but appropriate to the history and character of the village. Most residents like it that way.

The Harmon redevelopment concept proposes to take the tax burden off the backs of Croton’s home owners with a Rube Goldberg scheme: (1) Raise the number of permitted floors in retail buildings to three and astronomically increase the number of walk-up apartments. Add a parking scheme resembling the game of musical chairs. (2) Wait for developers to flock to Croton and (3) buy, (4) demolish and (5) replace perfectly good buildings (including a landmark). Croton will then (6) undertake to find retail tenants, and (7) soak the hell out of them with high taxes, as promised by Trustee Olver in his patronizing letter to The Gazette. If you believe this unrealistic, self-delusional plan has a chance of succeeding, especially in today’s troubled economy, I’ve got a dam I’d like to sell you.

Robert Scott, Croton-on-Hudson