This Month's Winners and Losers: March 2012

Winners
–    Westchester Children’s Museum. The nascent museum won a $10,000 grant from Wells Fargo to help subsidize Museum Without Walls, its outreach program for kids from low- to moderate-income families.
–    Rye and Port Chester taxpayers. The town of Rye reached an amicable settlement with Home Depot, which has been disputing the assessed value of its Port Chester store—to the tune of nearly $200 million. The settlement calls for a much more modest reduction in the store’s assessed value.
–    Archbishop Stepinac High School students. Students at the White Plains school collected 50,000 cans of food as part of the “Souper Bowl of Caring,” a nationwide program to combat hunger and poverty.
–    Concordia College’s nursing program. Its recent crop of graduates scored among the highest first-time pass rates on the national licensing exam (91 percent)—ranking third in New York State (after Columbia and NYU).

Losers
–    Rosie Nicholas. The Yonkers resident—self-proclaimed psychic “Carmella”—was arrested for extorting thousands of dollars from a 19-year-old by telling her that “bad things would happen to her” unless she paid Nicholas money.
–    Bedford, Eastchester, and Mount Pleasant taxpayers. Although the county’s official budget for 2012 does not include any tax increases, residents here are facing an 8-percent hike because the antiquated methods by which taxes are computed in Westchester result in erratic outcomes from one municipality to another.
–    Hudson River crossers. Thanks to a toll hike by the New York State Bridge Authority, commuters crossing the Hudson on the Bear Mountain, Newburgh-Beacon, Mid-Hudson, Kingston-Rhinecliff, and Rip Van Winkle bridges, who once paid $1, now will pay $1.25 with E-ZPass and $1.50 without.
–    Francisco Acevedo. The Mount Vernon resident was sentenced to 75 years to life in state prison after he was convicted for three separate homicides in Yonkers going back to the late-’80s.

Our Westchester Home Builders Awards take place on April 4!

Our Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Forum is March 14!

Unveiled: A Boutique Bridal Brunch is February 25!

Our Best of Westchester Elimination Ballot is open through March 6!

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