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YOUR ONLY SOURCE FOR REGIONAL BUSINESS NEWS | westfaironline.com

November 18, 2013 | VOL. 49, No. 46 BOB ROZYCKI

INSIDE

Serving those who served

2013

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H E S T E R CO U N T Y

By JOHN GOLDEN jgolden@westfairinc.com

FAMILY-OWNED BUSINESS AWARDS

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retchen Kim, a matrimonial lawyer in Yonkers, donned a hardhat on Veterans Day and joined a crew of 15 volunteers from the Westchester County Bar Association dressed not for court but for an eight-hour day of manual labor. Kim’s husband and two sons donned hardhats too and added their manpower to a roughly 60-member crew of skilled construction workers and professionals from law firms and Goldman Sachs installing new windows and newly painted and measured siding on a home on High Street in Yonkers on which a bank had foreclosed. The two-story, three-bedroom home and two more foreclosed homes beside it were purchased by Habitat for Humanity of Westchester to be repaired and eventually deeded over to military veterans. The volunteers were part of what Jim Killoran, Habitat’s executive director, called “a veterans blitz build-a-thon” this month.

ALL IN THE FAMILY • 21

HV GOOD THINGS HAPPENING • 35

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Ron Tocci, a former state assemblyman, speaks out against Echo Bay at a Nov. 12 protest at New Rochelle City Hall.

New Rochelle delays vote on Echo Bay By marK LuNGariELLO mlungariello@westfairinc.com

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proposed development on New Rochelle’s Echo Bay has been shelved until January following resident protests and a fiery City Council meeting where one councilmember walked out. The council was scheduled on Nov. 12 to discuss several items that would advance the proposal, which includes the transferring of a city yard to developer Forest City Residential Inc., an affiliate of Forest City Enterprises. But four of seven council members voted in favor of a motion to table any votes or discussion of the project until at least January. Mayor Noam Bramson, a Democrat who has supported the project, took issue with the delay and later pushed for a second vote that would allow the sharing of documents and

information even if there was no decision on the project. That measure passed 4-3, with Democrat Shari Rackman shifting course after agreeing to delay decisions and discussion earlier in the evening. Rackman’s vote came after a private discussion in closed quarters with the mayor, which Republican Al Tarantino criticized as a strong-arm maneuver, calling it “waterboarding.” Lou Trangucci, a Republican councilman, walked out prior to the second vote. Its approval drew boos and insults from a decidedly antiEcho Bay crowd of residents. Democrat Ivar Hyden was the sole Democrat to vote no on the second measure. “I don’t like being bullied, I don’t like being pushed, I don’t like being backed into a corner,” he said. Earlier in the evening, about 50 residents Echo Bay, page 8

Habitat, page 6

yonkers ready to scrap ‘grand idea’ for downtown By JOHN GOLDEN jgolden@westfairinc.com

A PERIOD OF GRAND AMBITION and largely unfulfilled achievement in the redevelopment of downtown Yonkers could come to a close this year with city officials scrapping their 4-year-old agreement with a now-defunct master developer and freeing one remaining partner in that private development team to move ahead with an estimated $100 million apartment project on the reviving downtown Yonkers waterfront. Mayor Mike Spano told the Business Yonkers, page 6


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