I’m talking to GOP consultant Mike Edelman on the presidential race and other matters of politics.
Tune in at 12 noon to “High Noon” on WVOX, 1460 AM.
Or if you’re out of the listenting area, log on to www.wvox.com. If you want to call in to the program, the number at the station is 914-636-0110.

Donald Trump and Westchester County Executive Andy Spano are being honored at the Friends of Westchester County Parks’ fund-raising dinner tonight at Glen Island Harbour Club in New Rochelle.

What a couple of fun guys! Gee, I wonder if someone will make a “You’re fired!” joke. That’ll crack everybody up.

The idea of making Sing Sing a tourist attraction has been taking some severe hits from critics, who’ve bothered to e-mail me today.
Today’s column goes into that topic and is based largely on an informational meeting held last week in Ossining which was attended by County Executive Andy Spano, among others.

Spano, who whole-heartedly supports the project, got a little impatient with some of the naysayers at the meeting who said that establishing a museum in a working prison with hundreds of flesh and blood inmates is at best insensitive, and at worst a moral outrage.
One thing I didn’t mention in the column was that Spano said that he believed the criticisms were “irrelevent.” Then, he proceeded to assert that Westchester County runs the “one of the finest rehabilitative programs” in the land, spending “millions” to help inmates at the county jail and penitentiary. How bizarre and weirdly defensive…and irrelevent. The subject was the state prison at Sing Sing, not the county lockup.

If you didn’t see it, yesterday’s column was about the propensity Westchester County Executive Andy Spano has for putting out public service announcements and various edicts supposedly designed to protect us from our self-gratifying impulses.

The latest, as mentioned in the piece, was a smoking ban at Playland Amusement Park (See also earlier blog posting). I find this stuff to be mostly patronizing and rather silly. But one thing I didn’t mention in the column is that this governmental fetish for lifestyle dangers is also meant as a distraction, to keep people from thinking to hard about what government REALLY ought to be doing to restore the public’s faith in public serrvice.
For example, taxes. It’s not a myth or a misconception. Taxes are too high in this county and it drives people crazy because they’re spread out in a shell game of governmental layers—local, county, school and state. There are sales taxes, real estate property transfer taxes, user taxes and so on and on.
On top of that, there are the fees and the invisible taxes. Fines for routine traffic violations are out of whack. Two minutes past your time on a parking meter, and bam! That’s an instant 25-buck fine.

Want to win the public over? Don’t tell me it’s bad to smoke. Jeez, I know that. Here’s a winner, and it’s not a big idea: Make it easier and cheaper to build a god damn backyard deck. It’s easier for a rich developer to add a floor to a high-rise in this county than it is to put in home patio. Ridiculous.

Andy & Co…thanks for fighting obesity. But you’re fooling no one. Get to work on the things that really matter…that’s all I’m saying.

Why, I thought it stood for bacon, lettuce and tomato. Well, excuuuuuuse me!
In White Plains, which was once an aluminum-plated city of dollar stores, BLT means Bistro Laurent Tourondel, a ritzy, 102-seat, steak restaurant which will open in the fall at—gee, where else—the Ritz-Carlton, Westchester hotel. The bistro will take up to floors of the looming high-rise and will be called the “Winter Garden,” according to an announcement made by developer Lou Cappelli.

The baby of restaurateur and chef Laurent Tourondel, the BLT is oh so French in finesse and culinary training, but other than that, it’s red-blooded American. Hey waiter, does that come with Freedom Fries?

The first BLT was opened in 2004 in Manhattan, and then a couple more were opened in Washington, D,C. and San Juan Puerto Rico.

Cappelli’s press statement said that another restaurant will be put on 42nd floor of the 44-story Tower I…An announcement about that joint is forthcoming. They should call it “Windows On The Burbs.”

Th Westchester County Health Department is holding its annual “Best Tasting Water” contest tomorrow in front of the county office building in White Plains. I’ve never really understood this. The only water I know that should have any kind of taste is the water that comes with a glass of Jack Daniels.
Other than that, if there’s any kind of bite to the fluid, it’s probably polluted.

But what the hell. Here are this year’s candidates—Greenburgh, Mount Vernon, Ossining, United Water New Rochelle, Westchester Joint Water Works and the City of Yonkers. How come the village of Buchanan, home of Indian Point, is never in the contest?

Anyway, Croton won the best water title last year. Yonkers is also a past winner.

Let’s handicap this derby. I’m placing 5-2 odds on Mount Vernon, the favorite. That city needs a positive press release.

This morning I was walking my dog along the east bank of the Bronx River near the Lawrence Hospital garage in Bronxville. Looking across to the opposite bank, I spied a group of turtles sunning themselves on some rocks. From a distance, they looked like a pile of grayish army helmets.

My dog, a lab-mix, has had some unfortunate run-ins with nature ( She’s been skunked twice) and I didn’t want her to get nipped by a cranky amphibian. But I’d never seen so many turtles collected in one spot before and I wanted to get a closer look.

So we carefully went over to the west bank of the river to inspect the turtles. OK, no big deal…but here’s the thing. When we got to the other side, most of the turtles slipped into the murky river and disappeared. One remained—and I swear on the Bible, the thing was huge. It was the biggest damn turtle I’d ever seen in the wild, let alone in the burbs. For a second, I thought I was looking at a sea tortoise.

The beast must have been at least two feet long and could’ve weighed 40-50 pounds. Ugly, too. It had a face only a mother turtle could love.

Of course, my dog lunged for it. Fortunately, it slid into the murky water and was instantly out of sight. Strange but true.

There’s something about amusement parks that conjures a picture of a fat guy with a stogie barking at the rubes to “step right up” and try their luck at something like knocking over milk bottles with a baseball, or take a trip through the tunnel of love.

That, alas, has never been the image of squeaky-clean Playland Amusement Park in Rye—and that includes the part about the stogie. Starting this year, smoking will be banned at the park which is more than 80 years old.
The county decided that smoking wasn’t wholesome, and sets a bad example for kids. OK, but if they’re so worried about everyone’s health, they ought to take a look at the content inside those toxic foot-long hotdogs they sell at Playland.

And while they’re at it, those artificially-sweetened musical acts that are booked every season? Word has it, that prolonged exposure to the shiny-happy-people entertainment causes cancer in rats. Not that Playland has rats, mind you.

The news today is that Westchester County has just added 30 hybrid vehicles to its fleet, accounting for 33 percent of a total of 320 trucks and cars.
That does not include police and emergency vehicles. Hybrids save on gas and release less carbon monoxide and oxides of nitrogen into the air. The Toyota Prius and Camry hybrids have an estimated mpg of 55 and 37 respectively.

This is good. And County Executive Andy Spano is so giddy, he’s turning an environmental shade of green. But here’s a question: Mr. County Exec, that car you’re driven around in—is it a gas-saving, environmentally friendly hybrid? Hmm?
Just wondering.

First, the good news today: The Westchester County Courthouse in White Plains has finally been completely rebuilt from the inside out. It took seven years and millions of taxpayer dollars to do it, but, Holy Jeanine Pirro Batman, it’s done!

Now the bad news: It’s still an ugly building. This concrete tower of doom has always looked like something pulled from the pages of an East German version of Architectural Digest. As a symbol of justice, it is hardly worthy of the county seat. Courthouses should be proud edifices, centerpieces of strength and pride. This courthouse still reeks of despair, at least from the outside.

What a disastrous history. Poorly designed back in the ‘60s, the courthouse was even sinking, literally into the primordial ooze. It was consumed by mildew. The elevators didn’t work. The exterior was covered with pigeon crap. Chunks of it were breaking off and falling near the front entrance. A guy was almost killed.

County Executive Andy Spano said today that finishing the rehab project “is a major cuase for celebration,” but even he admits that fixing this mess was a boondogle from the get-go. Delays, budget overruns and other usual forms of incompetence caused the county to take the project over from the New York State Dormitory Authority in 2004. The state tried to stick the county with a $51 million bill for the work it had had done for the first two phases, but the county balked, forced a mediation and actually saved some money in the deal.
Nevertheless, the final phase of the project cost $30 million. Spano and company are happy because this amounts to $4 million less than was budgeted.
Do you feel good about that? I tell you what—the guy who built the courthouse in the first place should be jailed.