Yonkers continues to lead other large cities in New York state in economic criteria such as lower unemployment, although City Hall has backed away from an earlier assertion about its prowess as a producer of locally based jobs.

Mayor Phil Amicone’s office this week released an announcement comparing Yonkers with New York City, Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse. The criteria was the jobless rate, the labor force, and employment.

The city’s 4 percent unemployment rate for December was the same as New York City’s, and lower than those of the other three cities.

The announcement incorrectly said, however, that Yonkers had added 4,600 jobs between January 2004, when Amicone’s term began, and December 2006. The number was the difference between the employment figures for both periods.

While those numbers reflect how many Yonkers residents are working, they do not reflect where the residents are working. The state Labor Department has no data on the number of jobs based with Yonkers.

David Simpson, director of communications for the mayor’s office, re-issued a corrected release yesterday after a Journal News reporter pointed out what the numbers meant.

However, he stood by the office’s decision to measure labor force and employment growth using January 2004 and December 2006 endpoints, despite a common view that the two months do not represent apples-to-apples market comparisons.

January employment levels historically are lower than December’s, when the holiday shopping season boosts payrolls. Simpson said that “three years into a (mayor’s) term is a good time to take a little snapshot.�

The Westchester County Association has tapped four business leaders to lead task forces on the newly formed Property Tax Reform Commission.
The commission, which is led by Alfred DelBello, a former Yonkers councilman and mayor, Westchester county executive and New York State lieutenant governor, is charged with examining Westchester’s increasing property tax burden and making reform recommendations.

The task force chairpeople are:
• Howard Klein, managing partner, Eisman, Zucker, Klein & Ruttenberg, a White Plains accounting firm. He will a task force on public education in kindergarten to 12th grade.
• Tara Meenan Lansen, founder, president and chief executive officer of Compufit Inc., a Pleasantville information technology services company. She will lead the task force on county government and services.
• David C. Wilkes, co-founder and partner of Huff Wilkes LLP, a Tarrytown law firm specializing in commercial property tax appeals. He will lead the task force on property assessment and valuation.
• Arnold Linhardt, owner and president of Strategic Services, a White Plains public affairs consulting firm. He will lead the task force on municipal and other taxing entities.

The association said last October that it would create the commmission because business leaders fear that Westchester’s property taxes, ranked the highest in the nation, are hurting the county’s competitiveness.

DelBello also announced that eight local colleges will help the task forces with research and support, including Iona College and College of Westchester (property assessment/valuation); Mercy College and Westchester Community College (public education); Manhattanville College and Berkeley College (county government services); and College of New Rochelle (municipal and other taxing entities)

Brian J. Nickerson, director of the Edwin G. Michaelian Institute for Public Policy and Management at Pace University, will oversee and coordinate the research.

The commission plans to issue an interim report this spring.

The average tourist in Westchester County earns an annual income of $93,643, spends $430 a day and stays in the county 2.4 nights.

Those are among the findings of a study commissioned last year by the Westchester County Office of Tourism to study tourist demographics. The study found that tourists who visit Westchester are generally affluent and well-educated. Many are senior citizens visiting family or friends in the region. Tourism’s estimated economic impact on the county is more than $1 billion a year.

“Each and every relative that comes to Westchester for a visit, even for a weekend, supports the tourism industry and the larger economy,� said Margo Jones, director of the county tourism office. “Our mission is to entice them to stay longer, visit more sites and recommend us to their friends back home.�

The study, conducted by the Technical Assistance Center at SUNY Plattsburgh using 2005 data, estimated that 1.6 million tourists visited Westchester that year. The study found that 33 percent of the tourists made day trips, 31 percent stayed in hotels and 27 percent stayed with family and friends.

The five most visited attractions were The Westchester mall in White Plains, Playland Amusement Park in Rye, the Rockefeller estate near Sleepy Hollow, the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers and the Lyndhurst estate in Tarrytown.

Ninety-four percent of the tourists said that they planned future visits to the area and 71 percent expected to make return trips within a year.

Other highlights of the county’s tourism report include:

•More than 1.6 million page views last year on the county’s tourism Web site (www.westchestertourism.com), up 22 percent over 2005.
•More than $4.8 million in collections last year from the county’s 3 percent hotel occupancy tax, up 2.9 percent over 2005.

•Hotel occupancy of 80 percent in Westchester and Rockland counties during October, the latest data available, according to Smith Travel Research in Hendersonville, Tenn. That represented an increase of 4.2 percent over a year earlier.

•Westchester represented nearly 60 percent of the tourism sales generated by counties in the Hudson Valley. Dutchess County accounted for 14 percent, Orange County 12 percent, Rockland County 10 percent, Columbia County 3 percent and Putnam County 2 percent.

It may have been a sluggish holiday season for retailers across the United States but a pair of well-known toy retailers in Westchester County reported strong holiday sales today.

Gary Reichert, the manager at Merry-Go-Round on North Avenue in New Rochelle, said customers lined up to buy Elmo dolls, PlayStation 3s, Webkinz pets and other things that make kids smile.

He estimated that sales may have increased as much as 5 percent compared with last year.

“It was great. The last three weeks, we were running like gangbusters here,� he said.

The store continued receiving shipments of its most popular toys during the closing two weeks of the season. That kept shelves stocked for customers, he said.

The week after Christmas is usually busy, too, because children flock to the store to spend money they received as gifts, often from family friends or relatives from out of state who thought it was better to send a check than to ship a toy, he said.

Taka Andrews, who runs Miller’s, a specialty toy store on Mamaroneck Avenue in Mamaroneck, said the store was still closing the books on the holiday season, so he didn’t have an estimate as to how sales fared compared to last year. But he said it’s clear there was an increase.

He attributed the performance to a move toward more specialty toys — items usually not made by large manufacturers and that emphasize learning and development — and heavier advertising. The store is also emphasizing children’s clothing and accessories, he said.

Stores like Merry-Go-Round and Miller’s fight for sales against super-sized retailers like Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which aggressively cut its toy prices this holiday season.

The average price of a weekly basket of food for a family of four dropped by 1.5 percent between November and this month, according to a survey of six regional supermarkets conducted by students at Rockland Community College.

Students in an economics class have undertaken the monthly survey of 40 food items in the supermarkets in Westchester, Rockland and Putnam counties. The market average for the food basket this month was $200.17, down from $203.12 last month.

This month’s survey noted a sharp decline of 17.4 percent in the cost of dairy items. Fresh fruits and vegetables were up 8.1 percent. Professor Martin Lecker, who is overseeing the survey, said that sale prices for milk may have contributed to the drop.

Month-over-month variations in price also are subject to seasonality, he said.

The supermarkets used in the survey were A&P at 660 McLean Ave. in Yonkers, Key Food Marketplace on Route 6 in Mahopac, Pathmark on Route 59 in Nanuet, Stop & Shop at 350 S. Broadway in Tarrytown, ShopRite in Tallman, and Food Town in Cold Spring.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index for November will be released on Friday. The October report, released last month, showed the cost of food and beverages in the New York metro area rose 4 percent from October 2005.