The New York-Connecticut Sustainable Communities Consortium will host the seventh in a series of town hall meetings on February 15th in Mount Vernon, New York to seek public input for a three-year effort to improve jobs, housing, transportation and the environment. The meeting will focus on the needs and priorities of connecting the lower Hudson Valley cities of Yonkers, Mount Vernon and New Rochelle.
The Town Hall will feature Hon. Ernest D. Davis, Mayor of Mount Vernon, Hon. Noam Bramson,
Mayor of New Rochelle, and the Hon. Michael Spano, Mayor of Yonkers (invited) who will speak to issues of land use and transportation in southern Westchester County, along with local and regional planning experts.

The meeting is open to the public.

The meeting also will look at how the consortium is working to expand job and housing opportunities; ways that these southern Westchester County cities – together with a wide range of public, private and local community partners – are participating in this effort; how to obtain preferred status for federal grant applications; and opportunities to get involved in planning for the region.

I was asked to give a presentation on the above topic to the Reform Club tonight about 830 PM at the American Legion Post 8. I believe that this subject matter is little understood in New Rochelle and that GreeNR was passed by CIty Council without educating the public on the far-reaching implications of the City's decision to "partner" with ICLEI. I believe that properly understood, this partnership is the most significant change in New Rochelle since the City was incorporated in 1899.

I will make a slide presentation of about 20 minutes with handouts and then hold a Q&A for about 10 minutes after. I will then stick around for anyone who has additional questions.

Having put a good deal of time into the research for this presentation I am hoping to give it more than once. Towards that end, it is my hope that representatives from various neighborhood associations and civic groups might attend and evaluate the presentation with an eye towards inviting me to make the presentation to other organizations in New Rochelle.

Material for the presentation will be drawn, in part, from the following series in ICLEI:

All About ICLEI: Part I

All About ICLEI: Part II

All About ICLEI: Part III

All About ICLEI: Part IV

All About ICLEI: Part V

All About ICLEI: Part VI

All About ICLEI: Part VII

Christopher B. Leinberger has an excellent Op-Ed in the New York Times today.

Op-Ed Contributor: The Death of the Fringe Suburb

While there are politicians in New Rochelle who continue to use the GreeNR plan to push for apartments in the area of the train station, his article shows this is a misguided emphasis. We must invest in transportation improvements first, housing later.

The cities and inner-ring suburbs that will be the foundation of the recovery require significant investment at a time of government retrenchment. Bus and light-rail systems, bike lanes and pedestrian improvements — what traffic engineers dismissively call “alternative transportation” — are vital.

(New York, NY) – U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Regional Administrator Adolfo Carrion today formally presided over the kickoff event for the New York-Connecticut Sustainable Communities initiative, an unprecedented bi-state collaboration that is the recipient of a $3.5 million HUD Sustainable Communities Initiative Grant. He was joined by representatives from five New York and four Connecticut cities, the Nassau County and Suffolk County Executives, the New York City Planning Commissioner, and the heads of six regional planning organizations, who collectively comprise the consortium.

New Rochelle Mayor Noam Bramson, faced for the first time with a media that does not uncritically regurgitate his pronouncements, is striking back with his Share the News initiative designed to combat "misinformation" (by which he means fact-based arguments against his policies). His pretext for the Share the News campaign is that Republicans on City Council have asked irresponsible questions about the GreeNR program like "Why does New Rochelle need to be a member of ICLEI?" and "How much does it cost to be a member of ICLEI?". Pretty soon these same rabble-rousers will be asking "How much does New Rochelle spend each on ICLEI software, analysis, research, consulting and ICLEI-mandate consultants like Deborah Newborn?" No wonder the Mayor is contending that such questions amount to promulgating black helicopter conspiracy theories.

To put the Mayor's mind at ease, let's go back to 2008 when the City of New Rochelle put announced an RFP for a "Sustainability Coordinator" consultant, to be paid $40,000 a year for working 20 hours a week.

Councilman Lou Trangucci knows his constituents will question the $1200 dues to ICLEI (International Council Local Environmental Initiatives) for the GreeNR plan. He is concerned because he said this expenditure was never presented to the Council before they voted. Another Councilman, Richard St. Paul, expressed displeasure that the City Council is being asked to approve a GreeNR plan where amendments made by Council are listed separately from the original document.

Every Toyota Prius requires more than 70lbs of rare earth metals to build. All hybrid and electric cars require the same or more rare earth metals. Many years ago America supplied approximately 98% of the rare earth metals, today China supplies 98% of the worlds rare earth metals. The problem with rare earth metals is not that they are rare but that they require enormous amounts of strip mining which destroys forests and poisons the land.
China recently threatened Japan with cutting off their supply of these rare earth metals. If the United States is tricked into the belief that hybrid cars are better for the planet because they use less fuel we will be headed for an environmental disaster much more damaging than the burning of fossile fuels.