Green New Rochelle, ICLEI, Agenda 21 etc. are nothing more than local organizing angles torn from the pages of Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals." This is the textbook of New Age societal re-organization for the hordes and multitudes of the disaffected and self-classified 99 percenters poised and ready to inflict a second Great Recession on our nation with a second Obama term of office.

They are ideological crowbars; extraordinary tools for forcing open the ordinary mechanisms of local governance and political reform in our municipality and injecting into them some very serious, long-term revisions and reversals of accustomed democratic practices in our system of representative government.

As a general matter, no one is his or her right mind can be against serious recycling; reductions in packaging and energy utilization, re-use of carbon-based materials like PVC and PET, composting of appropriate materials etc. The point is only that we do not need a "multi-inch" bundle of mundane platitudes and intrusive prescriptions and proscriptions to achieve it.

The recent discussion of the propriety of the mayor's reliance on the United Nations, ICLEI and similar "foreign bodies" politic for Green NR and other city laws involves some of the most interesting and perceptive considerations of local government, citizen activism and such as I have ever read in the local press.

The fact is, that in spite of the long-standing existence of a daily newspaper, numerous weeklies and bimonthlies, blog-accommodations of several web portals and radio and TV, I have seen no more perceptive or in-depth analysis of our lives in New Rochelle than INSERT COPY HERE
the post about our mayor by Bob Cox and the commentary that followed it. This is the true value of TOTS - the most sophisticated intellectual forum in town and probably the rest of the county and state.

And Democrats and liberals who ignore it or dismiss it out-of-hand do so to their own detriment (and you know that many of them read it but do not admit of it!).

My appreciation of the Echo Bay site should in no way be construed as an endorsement of any particular construction of any kind. The point being made was that alternative uses of the space might be considered and should be considered at the right time and under the right circumstances. The present time is not the right time (not yet, at least) because no economic case has been made for it.

If a capable developer offering to turn the area into a commercial or residential "masterpiece" came along, it would still be worth a listen. Unfortunately nothing presented to the city thus far meets this test. All we have is the slowly-diminishing (over a period of years and a multitude of exclusive rights to bargain with the city) by the functionally and ethically suspect Forest City organization.

The entire Echo Bay controversy; from the simple, mundane and purely ministerial upkeep of the New Rochelle Department of Public Works facility, to the future of the Naval Armory, the fate of the Beechwood Avenue site and issues of environmental remediation obligations across the city, is permeated with dubious assumptions. The "URGENT" stamp that our city council has affixed to this matrix is misplaced. It is unfounded and illegitimate. It is manufactured.

That better use of our open spaces, public and private, can be made cannot be doubted. No one could argue that the permanent placement of a public works garage and yard on the Sound Shore is the "highest and best" use of the land. Ask your real estate broker.

I knew that title would get your attention. No, I am not proposing that a nuclear power plant be sited on the north end of town. Only wanted to start a long overdue public discussion on how to make the best use of New Rochelle's wonderful bounty of natural resources, open spaces and unmatched shore access (and some 62 beautiful, fairly wild acres pleasingly situated in the city's northeastern corner while we are at it).

Responding to my neighbors' complaints after the recent hurricane, rains and flooding, last week I announced a new component of my campaign for the New Rochelle CIty Council, District SIx; the "District Six Direct Aid Initiative" to protect homes and public health by offering sandbags to residents of New Rochelle's north-end, which was hardest hit during the violent weather.

Everyone I have met was impressed with the response by our fire and police departments to the severe flooding on our northern perimeter, along the Hutchinson River and parkway. Unfortunately, storm effects were exacerbated by a dilapidated drainage and sewer system whose design is many years out-of-date and hundreds of DPW (Department of Public Works) man/hours away from correction.

Side streets needing re-grading and pothole repair, and major thoroughfares requiring re-engineering to meet surrounding elevations are the most common deficiencies.  The city council majority and mayor seem thoroughly overwhelmed by these challenges to our public infrastructure.

While all of tonight's commentators were critical of the council majority's redistricting plan, the overall turnout was a discouraging sight for citizens concerned about New Rochelle's future political legitimacy. The inattention of the city's minority communities was positively "deafening!"

Concerned New Rochelle Citizens' Redistricting Committee chair Mark McLean, Assemblyman Ron Tocci and Mayor Len Paduano presented a blistering critique of the Democrat-authored map. The most pointed objections concerned: the contrived layout of several districts, particularly number 6 whose "reach" southward through the core of the City of New Rochelle recalled to some in attendance the famous "Salamander"-shaped Massachusetts legislative borough of Elbridge Gerry which gave the corrupt practice its name - Gerrymandering; the hurried and careless schedule of public outreach/input which seems inadequate to the task of inviting and facilitating citizen involvement, and most important; the careful exclusion of African-Americans and Spanish-speaking Americans from districts 5 and 6 and the consequent concentration of same in districts 3 and 4, respectively.

Issues of employee conduct and lawfulness, once taken for granted in the sleepy environs of New Rochelle, NY now threaten to crowd the customarily mundane springtime agendas of its school board.

What with issues of employee discipline and accountability and on-the-job accountability and performance for administrators, teachers and even its security detail, it is hard to see how the New Rochelle school board will be able to find time to continue to address the 2011-2012 budget.

Will the embattled Superintendent Richard Organisziak and his compliant New Rochelle School Board be able to keep their "eyes on the prize" as they seek yet another in an uninterrupted string of 12 or so budget increases since these questions were first placed before the electorate in the 1990s.

Have finally gotten through the incumbent office-holder's "Tissue of Tergiversation" masquerading as one more state-of-the-city address for New Rochelle.

To this observer, it seems like just more of the same airy chatter from the bloviator-in-chief. Who can argue with the need for development, comprehensive plans, bipartisanship, conservation, more snowplows/better parks/more storm drains/more parking/more bike lanes ... have I left anything out? But how do you pay for all this "stuff" and where to start, and when to end? The "Boy Wonder" has had some six years of a compliant city council majority of bobble-headed confederates, six state-of-the-city addresses and, six budgets: with nothing of lasting consequence to show for it.