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INSIDE
November 11, 2013 | VOL. 49, No. 45
After election victory, Astorino to focus on business
RETIRING • 3
By maRK LuNGaRiELLO mlungariello@westfairinc.com
SWEET SALES • 10
news channels hum quietly on TVs in the back corners of the room. Professor Charles Garcia, who teaches a course on organizational leadership and grades 40 percent of the coursework on public speaking, encouraged students to come up one by one and interact with their classmates while using the touch-board television screens. With plans to teach macroeconomics and co-teach finance with School of Business Dean Ed Weis next semester, Garcia said the textbook Trading floor, page 6
Executive, page 6
New life for south Yonkers? | 2 Robert Baron of Groundwork Hudson points out neighborhood properties that could benefit from a proposed South Yonkers Greenway trail.
Wall Street North
OUT OF THE OFFICE • 36
Mercy College’s trading floor lets students take stock of their future By cRySTaL KaNG ckang@westfairinc.com
A TiCKeR oN A fLAShiNG MARQuee and nine large flat-screen televisions light up the walls of the newly opened 525-square-foot trading room at Mercy College in Dobbs Ferry. The classroom, which remains dimly lit for better view of the screens, is filled with business students hovering over computer screens and poring over market data as they discuss what companies’ shares they would buy and sell. The Bloomberg and CNBC
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epublican Rob Astorino shrugged off a nearly 2-to-1 voter registration disadvantage and won a second term as Westchester County executive, beating Democratic challenger Noam Bramson in the Nov. 5 election. Now all he has to do is be the savior of the Westchester business community. No pressure. When Astorino was first elected in 2009, 10,000 private-sector jobs had fled the county, according to the administration. It was part of an ongoing exodus of corporations hightailing it out of Westchester, leaving behind the Golden Apple’s high cost of doing business and its weighty and seemingly ever-increasing property taxes. William Mooney Jr., president of the business advocacy group the Westchester County Association, said the negative perception of Westchester was changing. “It is clearly being changed and the reason I say that is the voters just said that,” he said. Although property taxes are still “Looney Tunes,” according to Mooney, there is a perception that something is being done to improve the climate. “Someone has to dismantle yesterday and create tomorrow and we’ve got to do it together,” he said. Mooney said he’d like to see the county put together a master plan that brings together