A long-time public foe of Greenburgh’s town supervisor has asked top law enforcement officials to investigate possible instances of official misconduct and bribe-taking by Greenburgh officials in the form of an alleged sweetheart deal offered to a developer for a town-owned property in exchange for the developer’s silence on legal missteps by town officials that could be “politically embarrassing.”
Greenburgh Supervisor Paul Feiner, one of three town officials named in the investigation request, called it “a smear campaign” from a familiar source. He said suggestions that he and other town officials struck a secret deal with Game On 365 L.L.C., the proposed developer of an air dome and sports complex on Dobbs Ferry Road, were “totally baseless.”
The allegations were made this month by Greenburgh resident and New York City attorney Robert B. Bernstein in a 15-page letter to state Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman and Westchester County District Attorney Janet DiFiore. Bernstein said he was writing on behalf of officers in two Greenburgh civic associations opposed to Game On’s planned commercial development in an unincorporated and largely residential area of Greenburgh.
Greenburgh Town Supervisor Paul Feiner
Bernstein asked for an immediate investigation of Greenburgh officials’ conduct in the town’s effort since 2012 to lease or sell the former Frank’s Nursery property at 715 Dobbs Ferry Road. When the town acquired the 7-acre property that year in a foreclosure sale, about $1 million in back taxes were owed on it.
Voters in a November 2012 referendum approved the town’s proposed 15-year lease deal with Game On 365. But facing legal challenges to the town’s lease of property acquired through foreclosure and amid threats of legal action by a rival sports facility developer, Feiner announced that December that the town instead was considering selling the nursery property to Game On.
Bernstein, though, claimed the lease plan was dropped when town officials learned that any rents received from the developer would have to be paid to the previous property owner’s lender.
The town later learned in 2013 that a previously unknown party, Beal Savings Bank, still held the mortgage on the property. The town last November filed a motion for default judgment in state Supreme Court to discharge the mortgage and give the town clear title to the property.
Bernstein in his letter suggested the town’s title-clearing lawsuit was delayed until after the September primary election to avoid publicly embarrassing Feiner about the town’s initial faulty title search. Feiner in the Democratic primary easily defeated Bernstein, who announced his candidacy at the Frank’s Nursery site and made the town’s mishandling of the deal a focus of his campaign.
Bernstein also claimed Feiner pushed last year to sell the nursery property at a price “substantially below market” – $1.7 million – despite a $3.5 million purchase offer from a Game On rival, Elm Street Sports L.L.C. Elm Street in 2012 opened House of Sports, a 120,000-square-foot athletic training facility in a redeveloped office and warehouse building in nearby Ardsley
Bernstein claimed Feiner made the below-market sale offer to Game On partners “with the understanding that it could be immediately resold to a third party that would bid as least $3.5 million, thereby netting Game On a profit of at least $1.8 million, without even a shovel hitting the ground.”
The town indefinitely delayed a public auction of the contested property that had been scheduled last December. With lawsuits flying and the prospect of a competing bidder for the Frank’s Nursery site, Game On 365 last year negotiated a purchase option deal with owners of the nursery’s next-door neighbor, the Westchester Golf Range, as an alternative site for the developer’s Westchester Field House project.
Bernstein in his letter claimed town officials have worked behind closed doors with Game On and in violation of town laws to secure a needed zoning change for the project on Dobbs Ferry Road.
Bernstein also urged an investigation into whether Game On used “potentially embarrassing information” about the lease problem and the town’s inability to properly convey title to the property because of the Beal Savings Bank lien “to coerce town officials to give it millions of dollars in financial benefits.”
Martin Hewitt, Game On 365 project manager in Tarrytown, did not respond to a request for comment. Hewitt reportedly told a daily newspaper there was no secret deal with the town.
Feiner said he expects the title to Frank’s Nursery will be cleared this month. He said Beal Savings investors have said they’re not interested in the property, which would require payment of back taxes and a costly environmental cleanup by a private owner.
“We always felt the worst case was it was going to slow it down, but it was not going to jeopardize our ability to sell the property,” he said.
Feiner said the town will select a commercial broker to market the Frank’s Nursery property and could sell it to the highest bidder this summer. He said the town has about 10 prospective buyers.
He indicated that strong neighborhood opposition to Game On’s petition for a new recreation open space district on Dobbs Ferry Road likely will block any sports facility development on the golf range site.
Feiner called Bernstein “the Joe McCarthy of Greenburgh. He likes to smear people’s reputations.”
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