Shout it Out

Details: Published: 07 March 2013; Created: 07 March 2013; Last Updated: 07 March 2013; Hits: 3330

Ozthegreat (Here's a Mom and kid review of Oz the Great - in theaters now!) The Wizard of Oz proved that you could take the story of a girl looking for her home and make it into a huge movie. Oz The Great and Powerful, its brand-new prequel, proves you can make a huge movie, and it can still have trouble finding a home. Is it a kiddie flick? Only kinda. Grown-up fare? I can't imagine heading there without a kid in tow. If you have a crush on Mila Kunis, you'll only enjoy half the show, till she becomes an ugly green witch. And if you have a crush on James Franco, our Wizard, stop buying movie tickets and save your money for therapy. Don't you remember how smarmy he was at the Oscars?

Which is not to say that this Wizard isn't wonderful at times. Its briskly funny opening introduces us to Oscar ("Oz"), a rascally magician with a traveling circus in Kansas. Between shows, he passes time seducing every gal in sight. When one of then turns out to be a strongman's girlfriend, Oscar leaps into a hot-air balloon to escape a well-deserved beatdown. Just as he floats away, though, a tornado strikes. We're right with him as he endures a (literally) whirlwind journey. When he touches down again, he's clearly not in Kansas anymore.

The land of Oz is more magical than ever in this 3D extravaganza. You'll be picking your jaw back up off the sticky theater floor after seeing crystal flowers and glittering, translucent rainbows. But this beautiful world soon reveals its dark size: A wicked witch is menacing Oz, and the two good-witch sisters who've been guarding the Emerald City have been waiting for a Wizard to rescue them all.

Lured by the promise of a huge reward, Oscar pretends to be their man, setting off on the witch-hunt with two sidekicks. The first is a flying monkey who, unlike his scary cousins in the original Oz movie, is as winsome as a Webkinz. Oscar's other pal is a living china doll. She's meant to be cute, but, as my older daughter whispered, "that's the creepiest thing I've ever seen."

The plot that unfolds is part adventure, part romance (Oscar and Glinda? Who knew?) , and a tale of personal growth as our Wizard realizes his true potential. It's all punctuated by capable if not exceptional performances: Mila Kunis, as a good-witch-gone-bad, holds her own, sweet and vulnerable till, well, she isn't. Michelle Williams, as Glinda, thankfully keeps the sappiness at bay.

The ending is uplifting, and happily no one dies. There's even a moral—that you can't be great without being good first—though neither of my girls, aged 12 and 9, got it. (My hint was when they asked, "But mommy, is there any lesson?"). Both gushed about the film, though. At least till nighttime. Then my 9-year-old insisted on sleeping with me because she was spooked. Gee wiz, Disney, thanks.

Note: This PG movie is rarely violent, but has startling moments and spooky Dark Forest creatures. Unless you don't mind co-sleeping, I'd recommend it for the 10-and-up crowd.

Deborah Skolnik is a senior editor at Parenting magazine and the sleep-deprived mother of two.

Review by daughter Clara Enders

If you like the original Wizard of Oz movie, you've probably heard of the new Disney remake, Oz The Great and Powerful. Oscar Diggs was a circus magician until he got caught up in a tornado while riding a hot air balloon. After the whirlwind ride, he finds himself in the magical and beautiful land of Oz. He lands in a river and after he wades around for a few minutes, "good" witch Theodora sees him and mistakes him for the wizard, someone who is supposed to come and fulfill Oz's prophecy. The next day, she takes him to the Emerald City and along the way he meets a monkey named Finley who promises to be his lifelong servant. When they reach the Emerald City, Oz quickly learns that in order to be king he must defeat the Wicked Witch. Oz and Finely travel down the yellow brick road until they reach China Town, a place where all the little china people live in teapots and teacups. They find a small girl, referred to as China Girl, whose family was killed in a fight with the Wicked Witch. The pair becomes a trio as they travel to the Dark Forest. As the movie progresses, they pick up new friends and come up with creative and brave ways to outsmart the Wicked Witch. Oz also starts to believe that even though he is not THE Wizard, he could still defeat the witch.

I enjoyed all the special effects in this movie. They helped to make it scarier and more imaginative. I thought all the actors were very good, and they played their parts in believable ways. Even all the extras, like the munchkins and tinkers, added more to the film. I think this movie could appeal to everyone, but some little kids could be scared of some intense parts. For instance, the flying monkeys look more like flying beasts, and the fight between Oz and the Wicked Witch is a little bit frightening. I enjoyed this movie and think a lot of other people will too.

Clara Enders is a seventh grader at Scarsdale Middle School.

Details: Published: 26 February 2013; Created: 26 February 2013; Last Updated: 26 February 2013; Hits: 5514

idarraga A rapid response by Scarsdale Police officers on Friday evening 2/22 resulted in the arrest of three fleeing burglary suspects who had just robbed an Eastchester home. According to Scarsdale Lieutenant Thomas Altizio, an off-duty Eastchester Police Officer, Richard Natoli, spotted a suspect leaving the backyard of an Eastchester home. When the man was questioned, he jumped into a car with two other men and drove north on Scarsdale Avenue. The driver of the escape car then made a left turn onto the Popham Road Bridge and was spotted by Scarsdale Police officers on traffic duty on the bridge. They notified headquarters that the getaway car had turned south on Garth Road. Scarsdale Police officers rushed to Garth Road and stopped the car containing the three men at Garth Road near Harney Road at 7:00 pm on Friday night. The men were taken into custody and held until they could be turned over to the Eastchester Police.

Stolen items from the home were found in the car.

The three men were identified as: Anderson B. Moncada, 24, of 39 Thomas St. in Brentwood; , 29, of 46-08 74th St. in Elmhurst; Juan D. Hernandez-Moncada and Fabian Idarraga, 29, of 21-22 30th St. in Astoria. They were charged with robbing two homes in Eastchester – one on Vernon Drive and the other on Hilburn Road, a second-degree burglary. They are now being held on $150,000 in Westchester County Jail.

moncada juanmoncada

Details: Written by Joanne Wallenstein; Published: 12 February 2013; Created: 12 February 2013; Last Updated: 14 February 2013; Hits: 10303

daspalmer6 Though many residents were lobbying to fight Crown Castle's application to install a Distributed Antenna System (DAS) in Scarsdale, it looks now as if the Planning Board will work to preserve as much local control as possible but will not bar the carrier's entry to the Village.

The Planning Board held a work session at Village Hall on 4/11 to review information from an attorney and an engineer and to get feedback from concerned residents.

As a result of the NextG (now Crown Castle) application to set up 15 nodes in Scarsdale, the Planning daspalmer2 Board retained the services of telecommunications law expert Joseph Van Eaton of Best, Best and Krieger and Lee Afflerbach of the engineering firm CTC Technology and Energy. Both have advised other municipalities who installed DAS systems.

Both experts concurred that DAS is here to stay in that it fills gaps in voice coverage, precludes the need for more large antennas, and allows for better delivery of broadband. Their advice appeared to be to draft laws that balance the rights of residents while heading off a legal challenge from Crown Castle.

In a similar fight in Greenburgh, the Greenburgh Town Board rejected Next G's proposal to install 20 antennas in residential areas only to be sued in federal court by the telecommunications company. Last July, in an effort to "preserve suburban character, aesthetics and property values," the Town Board turned down the NextG application. They concluded that NextG has failed to prove that its cell phone antennas was "needed to provide coverage to an area of unincorporated Greenburgh that currently has inadequate coverage." They also questioned the size requirements for the equipment and said it did "not meet the standard of minimal intrusiveness." They argued, "Did Next G prove that its facility "is the minimum height necessary to provide the coverage? We think not!"

daspalmer3 However it didn't end there. In August, 2012 the telecommunications company Crown Castle (under the name NextG Networks) filed a suit against the Town of Greenburgh, accusing town officials of creating roadblocks during the application process, keeping the company from installing their antennas and providing its services. Their lawsuit charges that the Town unreasonably delayed the company's application, which they filed in November of 2009.

Therefore, in his presentation to the Scarsdale Planning Board on 4/11, Van Eaton briefed the group on the law and highlighted issues to consider when revising our zoning code, which now requires that the antennas be a minimum of 350 feet from a residence.

He explained that federal law mandates the following:

Removals of barriers to entry that prohibit telecommunications companies from providing service
Non-discriminatory treatment of one carrier over another
Local control of land use-- however, siting decisions regarding personal wireless service facilities must meet federal standards. i.e. is service necessary to close a significant gap in service?
A local government may not deny any eligible facilities request for a modification of an existing wireless tower or base station that does not substantially change the physical dimensions of such tower or base station
Localities cannot make zoning decisions based on concerns about the health hazards of radio frequency (RF) as long as the FCC allows it
Localities must act on an application within a reasonable period of time

Eaton suggested that the Planning Board consider whether the system is necessary, whether it would fill daspalmer gaps in service and if it could be located in other places then on utility poles in the Village right of way. He also suggested the Board determine if Crown Castle could place their antennas on existing towers.

He ended by leaving the Planning Board with the following recommendations:

Make policy choices with federal law in mind, but also considering how to preserve community property values, and protect the public interest.
Maintain and revise local ordinances in light of federal requirements, and in light of possibility that new regulations will be developed from time to time
Protect local values is possible; conflict can be avoided if DAS providers are willing to work with community

And also posed the following questions:

Does the Village want to share its light poles?
Does the Village allow ancillary equipment above ground (does it matter if the area is residential)?
Is it better to have a lot of small antennas or a few larger antennas?
If the Village allows any single user on its proprietary property, will it be required to lease to others and allow collocation?
If the Village allows DAS on ground that it is unintrusive, how will collocation be addressed? What if multiple providers wish to build?
How do you address community concerns about RF?

See a presentation from Van Eaton here:

Afflerbach then made his presentation to the group, explaining the DAS is a series of antennas placed in a strategic location and connected to a central system. In most cases they are connected to existing poles or structures in the right of way and allow for better cell coverage of challenging terrains. In his view, the large cell towers are going to fill up quickly, and DAS offers the best way to improve service.

He suggested that the Village look at other structures as possible sites for DAS antennas and did a survey of the Village. Rather than place the antennas on existing utility poles, Afflerbach came up wit the following alternative locations:

Village incinerator smoke stack on Secor Road
The top of Freightway Garage
The church cupola at 1 Heathcote Road
The communications tower at the Public Safety Building on the Post Road
The cell tower on the Hutchinson River Parkway
The train stations and the pipeline

Since the technology is changing rapidly he also advised the Board to grant short term licenses to the telecommunications companies so that the Board could reconsider their options every few years in light of new developments. Read the full report here:

About 15 residents were on hand to pose questions and make requests:

Marjorie Rosenblatt wanted to know what could be done to prevent more companies for making applications and crowding our streets with wires and equipment. Deb Pekarek asked if the equipment could be installed underground rather than wired onto poles. Carrie Fishman asked whether the water tower on Garden Road could be used to hold an antenna.

David Polsky told the Board to consider the rights of residents on smaller lots where the placement of an antenna could be as little as 10 feet from their windows. Natasha Rose of Ridgecrest East where Crown Castle has proposed to site one of the antennas said, "How are we discriminating against Crown Castle if we say no to everyone?" Jim Rose of Ridgecrest East said that he could already see the communications tower at the Public Safety Building from his back window and now feared he would see a DAS antenna out of his front window. He asked the Planning Board to consider provisions to mandate a minimum distance between towers to prevent one home from being unfairly impacted.

Jeff Berman asked about potential revenues from the antennas and was told that Crown Castle could rent these locations out to three carriers who would pay $100,000 per year per location. He suggested the Village build these ourselves. He also asked how much Scarsdale would receive from the installation of the DAS antennas and the answer was nothing. Wendy Lee asked the Board to consider property values, saying, "Are you going to buy a house with a DAS system outside?"

Rosenblatt spoke again, saying, "If we took a poll and found out that no one was going to sign up, would that put an end to it?" Jim Carforo said, "What's the downside of placing the antennas in a vault underground?" He also asked the Board to make the first draft of the proposed code public so that residents would have the chance to review it.

Planning Board Chairman Jane Veron ended the session by stating the Board's next steps will be to outline different policy options that would maximize Scarsdale's regulatory authority and to examine what other municipalities are doing.

No timetable was given for the next meeting.

Residents filed out of the meeting with a deep sense of irony about the issue:

None of the residents in the room felt they needed better cell service
No one wanted additional equipment placed on already strained utility poles
Some feared cancer risks from radio frequency emissions near their homes
Others worried about property value losses in DAS locations
The Village would not realize any financial gain from allowing the installation

Yet with a sense of helplessness they acknowledged that a Federal statute prevents the Planning Board and ultimately the Board of Trustees from denying Crown Castle access to the village. Puzzling indeed.

Here is a list of the locations of the 15 nodes originally proposed in Scarsdale:

181 Fox Meadow Road
1 Ogden Road
21 Autenrieth Road
149 Lee Road
252 Grand Boulevard
28 Heathcote Road
17 Heathcote Road
12 Ross Road
54 Claremont Road
12 Ridgecrest East
7 Sycamore Road
11 Wynmor Road
109 Mamaroneck Road
4 Drake Road
81 Brookby Road

Addendum: Just two days later, without any notification to residents, a DAS antenna was installed on Palmer Avenue, directly in front of a house at 60 Palmer. The owner had not been notified, and according to a witness the man was surprised and dismayed.

Calls to the Village revealed that Palmer Avenue is a state road and therefore NYS owns the right of way. Even though local zoning code precludes the installation of an antenna less than 350 feet from a residence, state law permits the installation and supersedes local law. Do residents have the right to notification and does the Village have any recourse?

We called Village Planner Elizabeth Marrinan and Village Attorney Wayne Essanason with our questions and the Village is going to verify who installed the antenna and look into what, if anything, can be done. The Village also believes that more antennas were installed on the Post Road and will investigate those as well. Here are pictures of the installation on Palmer Avenue courtesy of Jon Thaler.

Details: Published: 20 February 2013; Created: 20 February 2013; Last Updated: 22 February 2013; Hits: 4180

daspalmer For those who are concerned about new DAS antennas in Scarsdale, here's the latest. Following a meeting of the Scarsdale Planning Board on February 11 to discuss changes to the zoning code to accommodate DAS in Scarsdale, residents saw new DAS antennas going up around town.

One was installed on Palmer Avenue and we also heard that several went up on the Post Road. Since these roads are state owned, the telecommunications company did not need Scarsdale's permission to install antennas in the right of way.

We called Village Planner Elizabeth Marrinan on February 18 to inquire about the antennas and she says that the Building Department will spend an inspector to look into who installed the antennas and confirm that they were authorized. This has not been done to date. We also emailed Peter Heimdehl of Crown Castle, the company that applied to install DAS antennas on residential streets in Scarsdale. He did not reply to our request for more information.

However, we did hear from public health advocate Deborah Kopald who is running a
Conference called "Corporate Interference with Science and Health" in NYC on March 13th and 14th. She has convened a group of experts to discuss food, fracking and wireless technologies. According to Kopald, "The wireless piece is the topic nobody knows about or is talking about- but it is a huge public health threat-especially in NYC, which is the least regulated environment in the world."

The panel will include an international expert on cell phone health effects; Lennart Hardell, MD, PhD from Sweden. Hardell's work was the basis for the World Health Organization's (WHO) declaration that radiofrequency radiation a class 2b carcinogen. The other experts speaking on this topic (which includes the transmitter infrastucture such as wi-fi, cell towers and "smart meters") are David O. Carpenter, MD from the Presidential Cancer Panel, Representative Andrea Boland (Maine), Toxicologist Magda Havas, PhD, Deborah Kopald and former US Attorney Whitney North Seymour, Jr.

Kopald says that "New York City is one of the only places in the world with no regulations on cell transmitters where they pop up outside peoples' bedroom windows and on the decks of fancy penthouses and are a major public health problem, along with Wi-Fi ... a concept that I realize is anathema to almost everybody!"

She believes that the risk has not been adequately covered by the media and contends that reputable scientists say that if you look at non-industry sponsored research, radio frequency radiation looks to be a worse health threat than global warming.

Panelists at the meeting include:

Will Allen, PhD
Ronald E. Bishop, PhD, CHO
Representative Andrea Boland, MBA
Arline L. Bronzaft, PhD
David Brown, ScD
David O. Carpenter, MD
Michael Hansen, PhD
Lennart Hardell, MD, PhD
Magda Havas, PhD
Deborah Kopald, MBA
Sheldon Krimsky, PhD
David Mortensen, PhD
Kathleen Nolan, MD
Cheryl Rogowski, MacArthur Fellow
Paul Rubin, MA
Whitney North Seymour, Jr., Esq.
Katherine Tucker, PhD

Here's the information about the conference:

Corporate Interference with Science & Health
March 13-14, 2013
9 am - 5 pm
Scandinavia House
58 Park Avenue (at 38th Street)
New York City

Admission is free, but registration is required.
Register at www.CorporateInterference.org or call (888) 998-0491.

Photo credit Jon Thaler

Details: Published: 11 February 2013; Created: 11 February 2013; Last Updated: 11 February 2013; Hits: 3928

nextg2 Concerned about the installation of DAS antennas on telephone poles near your house? Tonight (2-11) at 8 pm, the Planning Board of the Village of Scarsdale will hold a work session in the third floor meeting room of Village Hall to discuss the referral from the Village Board of a potential amendment to the zoning ordinance relative to the installation of Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS) technology in the public right of way. The Planning Board previously requested an engineering report from Columbia Telecommunications Corp to examine whether or not existing facilities could accomodate the needs of the wireless carrier as opposed to a DAS installation. By law, if the Board finds that there is not a "significant gap" in service, the Village would not be required to amend the code to permit the carrier to install additional equipment.

Telecommunications company NextG has applied to put up 15 antennas in Scarsdale – which they can then rent out to up to three cell-phone companies in order to improve their service in this area. In order for these to be installed, Scarsdale would need to amend its current zoning code that mandates that a cell phone antenna cannot be within 350 feet of a residential structure. Since Next G considers itself a utility, they argue that they should have the right to place their equipment in the Village right of way, similar to Con Edison, Verizon or Optimum. If the Village refuses to change the zoning code to accommodate Next G they could face legal challenges for blocking telecommunications expansion on a discriminatory basis.

Read more about this issue here and attend the meeting at Village Hall tonight to see where the Planning Board stands on modifications to the zoning code.