Sound Shore

Knollwood Country Club’s Mike Miller of Brewster hits out of the trap at the 10th hole during the quarterfinal round of the Metropolitan Golf Association’s 108th Met Amateur Championship at Quaker Ridge Golf Club in Scarsdale July 30, 2010. Miller lost to Cameron Wilson of the Shorehaven Golf Club, 1 up in Match Play.

North Main Street:  Someone stole $25 from the cash register then grabbed the keys and stole an old Ford Explorer parked out back of the Home Center on North Main Street while the hardware store was locked for the night. The burglary and theft of the vehicle was reported Thursday morning. There was no apparent forced entry.

Seymour Road: A man losing at a volleyball game in his backyard suddenly picked up a rock, chased the other players then smashed the windows of one’s Ford Windstar before running to hide — bleeding — in his 248 Seymour Road house, police said. Luis Fernando Pasato, 31, refused further medical attention after his wrist was bandaged. He was charged with felony third-degree criminal mischief.

North Main Street: A Port Chester man found was passed out or asleep in his running car in gear to drive, with his foot on the brake, in the middle of the road right in front of police headquarters at 2:20 a.m. this morning. He faces a driving while intoxicated charge. Police said Jose Balla Quishpi, 31, of 264 King St., was unlicensed and had several empty and full bottles of beer in the car and an open container near him. Quishpi was charged with driving while intoxicated, a misdemeanor, and unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle, a violation.

Boston Post Road: Police just missed man who reportedly presented fake out-of-state identification to withdraw $3,800 at TD Bank Tuesday afternoon. The man’s signature on the withdrawal slip did not match the identification and a bank employee called police. The man got spooked and fled the 1521 East Boston Post Road bank, leaving behind the bogus paperwork.

Boston Post Road: A 34-year-old Harrison woman’s left knee was injured when her car was sideswiped by a vehicle that left the scene at 6:06 p.m. Tuesday. She was taken to Sound Shore Medical Center.

Mamaroneck Avenue: A Mamaroneck village police officer on bike patrol received minor injuries when he and a car turning into a parking space in front of 308 Mamaroneck Avenue collided. Oficer Anthony LeDonne was on his way to a call at 10 p.m. and was in the vehicle’s blind spot when the accident happened Tuesday. He complained of rib pain and was treated and released from Sound Shore Medical Center. The 31-year-old Mamaroneck driver was not cited.

Boston Post Road: A 27-year-old man was accused of stalking his former 42-year-old girlfriend and putting his fist through her window Wednesday morning. Police said Darris Thomas, of no known address, was told to leave the area of the woman’s home at 2:10 a.m.  He allegedly returned at 5:43 a.m. and punched a window, breaking it. Thomas was charged with fourth-degree stalking, fourth-degree criminal mischief and third-degree criminal trespass, all misdemeanors.

Boston Post Road: Someone broke a window on a 2003 Chevrolet pick-up truck and stole the radio while the vehicle was parked overnight at a Rye Neck service station at 1275 Boston Post Road. The theft was reported Wednesday.

Attorney James E. Johnson, the court-appointed monitor in Westchester’s fair housing/False Claims Act case, will appear in an Editorial Spotlight interview 11 a.m. Wednesday on LoHud.com.

Over the next seven years, Westchester must build 750 units of affordable housing, most of them in overwhelmingly white communities that have long shunned or discouraged such housing. The obligation arises from a consent degree brokered last year by the Spano administration and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and approved by the U.S. District Court. HUD entered the case after the nonprofit Anti-Discrimination Center of New York, a fair housing group, successfully argued in a lawsuit that Westchester had failed to discharge its fair housing obligations, despite accepting millions of dollars in federal funds and pledging that it had.

Under the agreement, the county must affirmatively market the units in Westchester and nearby communities with large non-white populations, though the housing will be available to all income-eligible populations. Johnson recently told the federal court that the county’s most recent plan for implementing terms of the consent decree “falls short of a true plan to comply with either the stipulation’s specific terms or its overarching goal of building a more integrated Westchester.”

Watch the interview at www.lohud.com/editorialspotlight; to submit a question during the interview, engage the CoverItLive feature on the right side of your screen.

A piece of a passing Amtrak train was launched through the bedroom window of a Mamaroneck Village home 45 feet from the tracks on Wednesday morning, police said.

A 312 Bishop Ave. man was awakened by the sound of breaking glass in his bedroom around 8:40 a.m. Wednesday and found pieces of metal in the room.

Police reported that, with the help of an MTA investigation, they learned the pieces were components of a wheel assembly that had malfunctioned on a passing Amtrak train on the tracks, which run parallel to Bishop Avenue in Mamaroneck Village.

Police found steel parts and what appeared to be brake shoes strewn along the 300 block of the street. A car’s driver’s side window was also smashed and a piece of metal similar to the one the man found in his house had landed within the car.

No one was injured in the incident.

Metro North Spokesman Dan Brucker said Friday that the track was not damaged and that no Metro North equipment was involved in the incident.
An Amtrak representative could not be immediately reached for comment.

Photo: A window at 213 Bishop Ave in Mamaroneck Village shows the damage police say was caused when a piece of a passing Amtrak train was launched through it Wednesday morning.

A ribbon-cutting ceremony will take place Monday morning for Fox Island Homes – 35 fair and affordable condominium townhouses – at the development’s 2.9-acre site at Fox Island Road and Alto Avenue in Port Chester. County Executive Rob Astorino is expected to attend.

According to the county: Each of the three-bedroom, 2.5-bath town homes are approximately 2,160 square feet. The units can be purchased for about $198,000 by eligible households with annual incomes at or below 80 percent of the county’s Annual Median Income (AMI), currently approximately $84,000 for a household of four. The units must remain affordable for a 40-year period.

The project cost about $12 million. The county contributed $415,000 in New Homes Land Acquisition funds for the purchase of the property from the village, $2.2 million in federal HOME Investment Partnership Program funds and $1,032,000 in Housing Implementation funds for the construction of infrastructure improvements. Some of the funds were used to construct additional parking spaces for the use of visitors to the adjacent Edgewood Park. The New York State Affordable Housing Corp. provided $1.4 million in down payment assistance and the Infrastructure Development Demonstration Program provided $175,000.

This is an update from an earlier post. Please note the hours for the  hearings.

Local public officials will hold a rally to protest United Water’s proposed 54 percent rate increase on  Aug. 2, prior to the State of New York Public Service Commissions Public Hearing, at 3 p.m. at New Rochelle City Hall.

All town residents are urged to participate and have their voices heard to support this protest against such high rate increases.

Two hearings on the rate change are being held on Monday, both at New Rochelle City Hall. The first runs from 4 to 5:30 p.m., and the second from 6 to 7:30 p.m.

Sen. Jeff Klein is slated to testify at the later hearing. He is scheduled to appear at 6 p.m. He has long been against the rate hike. He is expected to address the impact on the proposed hikes on the communities.

Laura Cleare of Yonkers, and her sons Dante 10, left, and Xavier, 7, were among the over 100 people who attended a public hearing tonight on Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino’s decision to cut funding for child care at the Westchester County Center in White Plains. Photo by Seth Harrison

Look for the story at Lohud.com and in tomorrow’s edition of The Journal News. View additional photos from the public hearing on child care cuts.

The Fulton Avenue Drawbridge between Secor Lane and Edison Avenue at the Pelham Manor and Mount Vernon border was expected to reopen Wednesday around 7 p.m. The bridge was closed due to emergency repairs, according to the Westchester County Department of Public Works.

From left, Jeffrey Gonzalez, 6, Kelvin Mendez, 6, and Jonathon Soto, 6, all of Port Chester and students of the jazz choir at Ward Summer Learning Camp, practice singing for tonight’s upcoming concert “Swinging on a Star” at Christ’s Church in Rye this afternoon. The camp adds jazz music into its curriculum through the “Kindred Spirits Children’s Jazz Choir” to stimulate reading skills and the children’s interest in reading.

To see more photos from the Ward Summer Learning Camp, please visit our gallery at LoHud.com.