When taxes collected for paying down debt ballooned to more than half of every dollar levied back in 1936, Westchester bankers, builders and civic leaders joined to create a new form of government headed by a county executive.
Over the half century that followed, business and civic leaders persuaded Westchester officials to develop a community college and county bus system, transform Grasslands Hospital into today”™s Westchester Medical Center, shut down the Croton Landfill, and modernize a county airport once relegated to a World War II-era Quonset hut.
It would be hard to duplicate even one of these accomplishments today. Business and civic leaders no longer carry the clout with officials that they once did ”” which is one key reason why Westchester businesses have struggled in recent years to stay in business within the county, says Milton Hoffman, retired senior editor for The Journal News.
“I think that business has not done as good a job as it did in the past” in pressing officials for actions needed to improve Westchester”™s business climate, Hoffman told the Business Journal in a recent interview.
“And part of it is, at one time, the agenda in Westchester County was not run by the politicians,” Hoffman added. “The agenda was run by businesses, by groups like the League of Woman Voters. They were very instrumental in the growth of Westchester County, preparing Westchester County for the future. They were instrumental, along with citizens, in pushing for the government to do more.”
Over time, he said, civic groups lost key members as women entered the labor force, while increasing nationalization and globalization by businesses steered their top executives away from leadership roles in the county.
S.J. (Sy) Schulman, president of the Westchester County Association from 1973 to 1992, pegs the change in Westchester”™s business climate to the decline of the county”™s base of Fortune 500 companies ”“ now limited to Armonk-based IBM Corp., and two Purchase-based giants, MasterCard Worldwide Inc. and PepsiCo Inc. Over the past 25 years, two Fortune 500 companies (MasterCard and ITT Corp.) have moved into the county, while another nine, and parts of two others, have either left or will leave Westchester (See sidebar list, page 2).
A missing cache
“To some extent that”™s good, because you have a broader, much more varied business base. Yet there”™s a cache that is missing from the county as a result,” said Schulman, the mayor of White Plains from 1994-97.
That loss of cache, he said, is also reflected by the absorption of county-based and regional banks by national giants.
“To me, there are a lot of strange names of banks that I don”™t remember from the past, and I don”™t have the same sense from them of corporate civic involvement,” Schulman said. “I would say there was much more of an establishment atmosphere in the old days, which I don”™t sense now, partly because you don”™t see too many of the major corporations in the county taking leadership roles as they used to.”
Schulman and Hoffman recalled many business leaders of a generation ago: William Butcher, chairman of County Trust; Butcher”™s successor, John Kley; James Hand, chairman of the National Bank of Westchester; and Sal Prezioso, the civic leader credited with conceiving Westchester”™s E911 system as a deputy county executive in 1962, and later with creating the state”™s parks and recreation department and Pace University”™s public administration department.
“These people spoke out, and they were for improving Westchester County. Even IBM would send in leaders. You don”™t have those figures any more as leaders. You might have somebody from down on Wall Street calling the shots, and couldn”™t care less what happens in Westchester. We lost a lot,” Hoffman lamented.
Prezioso attracted numerous business leaders when he headed Westchester 2000, the county association”™s effort in the 1980s and ”™90s to shore up Westchester”™s business climate. In its first report in 1985 and its second in 1993, Westchester 2000 called for the E911 system conceived by Prezioso as well as, more importantly, consolidation of the county”™s 43 cities, towns and villages into 17 “village-towns” and six cities ”“ an idea hotly resisted back then by turf-protecting local officials.
“Excessive costs, especially health care, transportation, housing and taxes, threaten the viability of the private sector,” Prezioso warned, prophetically, in the 1993 report.
Still resistant to sharing
On that score, not much appears to have changed. True, Ossining town earlier this year outsourced police patrols to Westchester County, at a $2.1 million cost projected to save the town $900,000 from the previous town-paid dispatchers. But in Greenburgh, Fairview Fire District officials have balked at a public call to consider sharing services with the neighboring Greenville and Hartsdale fire districts ”“ the recent conclusion of a majority of a nine-member committee that included Hoffman.
From fire district boards to the boards that govern municipalities, top business leaders retreated from roles of influence on the local government level over the past generation, succeeded by residents more intent on controlling business activity, namely development, through laws ranging from the state Environmental Quality Review Act, or SEQRA to local land-use statutes, said Vince Ferrandino, principal of the Elmsford planning firm Ferrandino and Associates Inc.
“As time went on, and folks got elected to public (office) in towns and villages that tended to see the more negative impacts of development, they took a much harder look at projects. And when that started to happen politically, you had more folks coming up from the civic associations, from that sector running for office, as opposed to the business types who in the ”™50s and ”™60s, basically as part of their civic duty ran for office,” said Ferrandino, a former planning commissioner for Mount Vernon and Greenburgh and a planning staffer for Peekskill.
Today, Ferrandino”™s firm acts as a consultant for several Westchester municipalities: for Port Chester in its review of the Gateway mixed residential-commercial development proposed for the former New York-United Hospital property on Route 1; and for Greenburgh and North Salem in their crafting of new comprehensive plans. The Greenburgh plan ”“ a draft of which is expected to be made public in January ”“ will include recommendations for cutting the red tape that has forced entrepreneurs to wait months or years for simple permits needed to open new businesses in the town (Business Journal, Nov. 15).
Taking a second look
“I think now that the recession has taken hold, even though there isn”™t the financing to carry through to projects, I think communities are sort of now taking a second look, and not abandoning the environmental movement, but saying: ”˜We really need to balance this. If we can expedite approvals, let”™s attempt to do that without sacrificing the environment. Let”™s have better coordination among boards.”™ That”™s something you can do on an administrative level without sacrificing the process. That takes more dedication by all-volunteer boards,” Ferrandino said.
Also seeing future hope for Westchester”™s business climate is Schulman. He praises Westchester and regional officials for working to strengthen the area”™s biotechnology and health care industries, as well as the county association and its current president, William Mooney Jr., for getting the organization “more deeply involved in, you might say, the politics of money.”
This year the county association advanced a “Call to Action” that demanded “significant” drops in state spending and the tax burden on businesses, individuals and families; a freeze on new taxes and fees; greater competitiveness with other states for businesses and their jobs; and independent redistricting of state Assembly and Senate districts.
“In my time, the state government was in good shape. It had grant programs and was relatively generous in social programs like welfare and Medicaid, and in education. You could count on the state. It was the fiscal resource of last resort,” Schulman recalled. “But that”™s not true any more. Nowadays, it”™s a relatively weak lead, and we”™ll have to see how effectively the Cuomo administration will address these problems.”
Duplication at the local level
Also educating businesses, Hoffman said, were developer Robert F. Weinberg”™s invitation-only Expo group, and Dr. Marsha Gordon and her Business Council of Westchester, which joined the statewide Enough Already NY effort aimed at warming the state”™s chilly business climate.
“The advocacy role they (business groups) have taken is more to cut taxes, and cut taxes, and cut taxes. They feel that would create a better environment for Westchester County, and there”™s some truth in it,” Hoffman commented. “Their focus has really been on the state and county government and not on the local governments. The real big money that is being wasted is the duplication at the local level.”
Hoffman said he sees encouraging signs of future business growth: Westchester”™s largest cities, especially White Plains, have attracted new residents and businesses through redevelopment efforts. And a new Tappan Zee Bridge is still scheduled to break ground in 2015, though state reviews remain unfinished and have dragged on since the 1990s.
“Once the Tappan Zee Bridge is built, and we get the rapid transit through from Rockland to Westchester, there will be another boon to the economy. You”™ll get the manpower that you need to run these businesses,” Hoffman said. “I feel that Westchester will climb out of (today”™s problems). I think it”™s a good business environment, and it”™s going to get better.”
Comings and goings
Over the past 25 years, three Fortune 500 companies have moved into Westchester:
- MasterCard Worldwide Inc. ”” From New York City to 2000 Purchase St., Purchase.
- ITT Corp. ”” From New York City to 4 W. Red Oak Lane in Harrison, then across I-287 to its current address, 1133 Westchester Ave. in White Plains.
- Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide Inc. ”“ Offices in four states consolidated into temporary space at 777 Westchester Ave. in 1998, then into permanent headquarters at 1111 Westchester Ave. three years later. Expanded to 1133 Westchester Ave. in 2005.
During that same period, Westchester”™s roster of Fortune 500s has shrunk as several corporate headquarters, or key operations, have migrated from the county. Among them:
- Altria Group Inc., successor to Philip Morris USA and General Foods Corp. ”” Vacated 800 Westchester Ave., Rye Brook, in 2004; Altria is headquartered in Richmond, Va.
- AMF Inc. ”” Moved its headquarters from 777 Westchester Ave., White Plains, after Minneapolis-based Minstar acquired the company in 1985; today”™s AMF is in Richmond and consists of its bowling equipment operations.
- International Paper Co. ”” Moved its headquarters from 2 Manhattanville Road in Purchase to Stamford, Conn. IP moved to Memphis five years later.
- Nestle ”” Moved its headquarters from White Plains to Purchase in 1986, and six years later relocated again to Glendale, Calif.
- Pepsi Bottling Group ”” The Somers-based Pepsi bottler completed a merger with PepsiCo in February 2010.
- Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide Inc. ”“ To vacate offices at 1111 Westchester Ave. and 1133 Westchester Ave., both in White Plains, in 2012.
- Tambrands Inc. ”” Vacated 777 Westchester Ave. and consolidated offices in Cincinnati with Procter & Gamble following 1997 merger.
- Texaco Inc. ”” Vacated 2000 Westchester Ave., Purchase, following a 2001 merger with Chevron Corp., headquarters in San Ramon, Calif.
- The research headquarters of Joseph E. Seagram & Sons Inc. ”” Vacated 3 Gannett Drive for offices of U.S. subsidiary of Pernod Ricard, based at 777 Westchester Ave. from 2001 to 2006, when it moved to 100 Manhattanville Road in Purchase.
- The “working” or operations headquarters of Nynex Corp., now Verizon ”“ Vacated 1111-1113 Westchester Ave. in White Plains in move to New York City.
- Thousands of IBM jobs, as the computer giant either ended leases at or sold off numerous Westchester office properties.
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