Greenwich, Connecticut real estate, politics, and more.
Greenwich, Connecticut real estate, politics, and more
2000 years too late, Facebook bars Crucifixion as "excessively violent"
Mark Zuckerberg is having an annus horribilus.
Now, as if Facebook didn’t have enough troubles, a Roman Catholic university in Ohio is charging that the social media behemoth rejected its Easter ad last weekend because the crucifixion it depicted was “shocking, sensational and excessively violent.”
Right over the Stamford border. It certainly won't help Feinsod's, in Old Greenwich, but it will be nice to avoid the drive to Port Chester or Norwalk to pick up supplies.
Funny story: long ago, visiting a friend in the Hamptons (back when there were still chicken farms and potato fields), I met his girlfriend, a lawyer from Georgia. Over dinner, she complained bitterly about a client who'd retained her to bring the company public and, after the work was done, told her they had no cash, but would pay her in stock options instead. Boy, was she angry!
The company, of course, was Home Depot. Years later, I asked my friend whatever happened to Christine, and he told me she'd worked a couple more years and then retired, a very, very wealthy young woman.
You never know. My friend certainly didn't, because he'd let her slip away before lightning struck.
to protect and to service
Of course not, but it's built into law as the result of police unions pressure, just as it is in New Hampshire, where the latest attempt to change that law is doomed to failure.
CONCORD — State lawmakers have once again presented a bill they say would save utility ratepayers millions by curtailing the use of uniformed police officers for traffic control at low-risk work sites.
And like its predecessors, this bill is likely to be defeated after heavy opposition from law enforcement.
More than 60 police officers, mostly from the Manchester Police Patrolman’s Association, formed a line that snaked from the committee room into the lobby of the Legislative Office Building at a recent hearing on HB 193, “relative to traffic control measures.”
The traffic detail work is paid at a high hourly rate and in many cases helps boost retirement income.
Flaggers working for private traffic control companies at a much lower cost would be sufficient in most cases, according to state Department of Transportation guidelines, which are applied on state highways, the largest and busiest roads in New Hampshire.
Past efforts to require municipalities to use the same criteria as the state DOT in assigning traffic control duty have failed. Bradley introduced a bill to that effect in 2015 and in 2012, while a similar measure was introduced and died in the House in 2010.
In Manchester, where the labor contract gives police right of first refusal on all details, Eversource was charged $395,930 for police details in 2014, according to the police department business manager.
In Nashua, where traffic control requests go through the engineering department in Public Works, Eversource was billed $40,113 for police details in 2014 — a difference of more than $350,000 between the state’s two largest cities in one year alone.
NE Traffic Control does work for all the major utilities in the state, charging rates in the $20-per-hour range depending on volume, compared to rates like $50 to $60 an hour charged for police overtime, some of which goes to the municipality for administration and pension contributions.
The potential savings are significant. PSNH spent $2.2 million on traffic control at work sites in 2014, according to company spokesman Martin Murray.
The high costs charged to utilities for police details are passed along to electricity customers, while at the same time reducing the frequency of tree trimming, which contributes to outages, according to Harrington.
“This bill will not only save New Hampshire utility ratepayers millions of dollars a year, but by allowing limited budgets for tree trimming to be spent on more tree trimming and less on traffic control, it will save tens of millions of dollars lost to power outages,” said Harrington.
Most of us appreciate the service of our force, but why that gratitude should extend to providing them off-duty extra income at an exorbitant hourly rate has always baffled me.
Still with us
Back in January, 2017, I wrote this about 340 Old Church Road
Bolder Action is Called For
The owners of 340 Old Church Road have had it on the market since last August, priced at $3.795 million, without success. Today they dropped its price to $3.675. In my many years representing home buyers, I don't remember any who balked at offering $100 grand less than asking price, and in fact, they almost always operate on the belief that an asking price is, as the British say, "an invitation to bid".
So if (acceptable) bids aren't coming in, it's a good bet that the price is so far above what the market sees as its true value that a more significant cut is called for.
Not that they listened, but after a series of small price cuts, it's down to $2.975 as of today.
14 Druid Lane
14 Druid Lane was listed for $2.195 on February 20 this year, and had a contract by March 6th – 22 days. Today it's reported as pending. I believe I've (often) stressed the importance of getting your home on the market as early in the new year as possible if you're hoping to capture the spring market; buyers start stirring around Martin Luther King Day in mid-January, and your house should be available for them to see.
No zebra, but (lots of) fluffy sheepskin
IN FACT, THE STAGER/AGENT MUST HAVE BEEN SO PROUD OF COMING UP WITH THE CONCEPT OF PELTS ON PLASTIC CHAIRS THAT SHE ADDED A SECOND PICTURE
AND EVEN A THIRD
I DON'T THINK I'VE HAD A CLIENT IN THE PAST TEN YEARS WHO WAS IMPRESSED BY A HOME THEATRE, LEOPARD SKIN OR NOT — THEY SHOW THE SAME INDIFFERENCE TO COMFY CHAIRS IN THE BASEMENT AS THEY DO TO WINE CELLARS AND WHIRLPOOL BATHS
2 Sparrow lane
2 Sparrow lane has closed at $3.5 million. 2000 construction, 4,967 sq.ft., one acre. Started off in June, 2017 at $3.995 million, so close enough.
1 Sparrow Lane
Exactly a year ago last April, No. 1 Sparrow for $3.775 million; 2000 construction, 6,156 sq.ft., one acre (of better land, in my opinion). Number One had previously sold for $3.995 million in 2002 and again for that same price in 2013. I think the 2017 buyers got a better deal than the new owners of No.2, but No.1's agent had dug up the information that the owner was being transferred, and there was a relocation deal in place (that kind of digging around is exactly why buyers should retain a buyer's representative — the seller's listing agent is forbidden to disclose such information without her client's permission). Still, I'd have expected it to command a higher price: somehow, other buyers resisted the power of the Zebra. Go figure.
Just one of those mysteries of real estate
6 Sunset Road
6 Sunset Road, Old Greenwich, sold for $2.275 million (asking price $2.295) in 2007 after just 19 days on the market. 355 days ago it was put back up for sale, and, originally priced at $2.550 and dropped to $2.320, it finally reports a contract. As the house is essentially unchanged after eleven years, it's an apples-to-apples comparison, and a pretty good indication that, for this era and type of house at least, some Old Greenwich properties haven't recovered from the 2008 crash and in fact, haven't kept up with inflation.
Interesting.
Hey Billy boy, why didn't you give me a call?
2016: experts call Mayor William de Blasio's deer vasectomy plan for Staten Island "lunacy".
And: "Really stupid — it's ridiculous from the onset"
March, 2018: Staten Island deer vasectomy program over budget and failing.
Mayor Bill de Blasio’s $3.3 million plan to cut down Staten Island’s deer herd by giving the animals vasectomies is already $334,770 over budget because there are more horny white-tailed males than expected.
The city snipped 1,154 bucks since the program began in September 2016 and officials aren’t entirely sure how many more need to go under the knife.
The first year of the project cost $2.35 million and 720 bucks got vasectomies, the department said. But White Buffalo asked for an extra $334,770 on top of the $634,650 already budgeted for the second year. The third and final year was originally budgeted $314,000, but the city is assessing if even more is needed.
In 2008, the state estimated just 24 deer called Staten Island home. Now White Buffalo thinks the number is 80 times that – with between 1,917 and 2,189 deer roaming the borough.
Outside wildlife experts have long suspected the vasectomy effort would be another de Blasio boondoggle.
They have argued female deer will ... go into heat repeatedly throughout fall and winter ... if Staten Island bucks are sterilized.
And these randy does will still emit a powerful scent to attract males – including potential mates from New Jersey who haven’t been snipped and can swim over.
“Even if a small number of males immigrate on the island or a small number are missed, it’s easy to see how quickly females can start breeding again,” said Paul Curtis, a Cornell University deer expert who consulted City Hall on a task force before the vasectomy plan was chosen.
“Definitely it’s a lot of money,” Curtis said of the project’s growing cost. “You can spend millions, in Staten Island’s case, up front, but if you don’t have a plan for the future the deer will quickly reproduce again.”
Any "plan for the future" for reducing the deer herd presently overwhelming the island has to involve killing Bambi and his friends, but de Blasio, forced to choose between residents furious over the damage the deer herd is causing and a statewide collection of so-called friends of animals, went with the latter. He may claim now to be surprised at the failure of his ridiculous plan, but any soda jerk (if they still existed) could have told him he was embarked on a fool's journey, and a band of experts actually did.
But there was an election coming up.
16 Boulder Brook Road, which sold new in November, 2007 for $5.395 million, came back on the market in July, 2016, at $5.395, and, still unsold, dropped its price today to $4.995 million. Considering the money put into improvements since that 2007 purchase, the owners must be disappointed.
Still, those of us in the business back in 2007 thought that $5.4 sale price was extravagant (or I did, anyway), and it screwed up the comparative values on the street. One of our local builders, a financial idiot who can build a very decent house, when he has a mind to — results vary — was inspired by the sale of 16 and paid $2 million for 9 Boulder Brook, tore it down, and built a new house, which he brought to market in 2008 at $6.475. When it didn't sell, rather than see that as a warning sign, he raised its price to $7.325. He sold it just before his creditors closed in for $4.4 million. Admittedly, 2009 was a different market than pre-crash 2007, but I'd have been happy to warn him of the irrational exuberance displayed by the buyer of 16 Boulder Brook, even at what proved to be the height of the market. He didn't ask, and I suppose I took a certain cheap schadenfreude in his loss, but there you have it: I'm that sort of guy.
And I don't mean to be mean, but I see that the same builder of No. 9 Boulder Brook is in the same position at 291 Stanwich Road, which was today marked down to $4.395 million from its 2014 price of $6.695, but in this case, he still owns it. He paid $2 million for the land, with tear-down, in 2013, on an asking price of $1.625, and has been trying to sell the house he built on that property for the past four years. Again: good builder, bad businessman.
291 Stanwich Road
3 Ledge Road
3 Ledge Road, Old Greenwich, is reported under contract, last asking price $3.220 million.
It didn't take all that long — it was listed lasted September, at $3.495 — but I'd have expected it to have sold last fall. In any event, 3 Ledge is a pretty neat house. It was built in 2015 and still feels fresh and clean. Its oversize lot (.46 of an acre, or 19,577 sq.ft. compared to the minimum lot six of 13,700), allowed construction of a separate, 2 bedroom, 1 1/2 bath accessory building, with still enough room for an approved pool site, and the house itself is a very nice departure from the conventional, boring architecture of your standard Old Greenwich home.
I suppose that's what deterred the majority of buyers last fall, but to my taste, this would have been my first choice in the inventory available then.
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