Be The Voice Of The People: Vote

Voters will hopefully head to the polls today, May 21 to vote either for or against their school district budgets – all within the tax cap that “Governor Tappan Zee” enacted into a permanent tax cap, proposed bonds and of course, School Board races. We have been following the Greenburgh school board race which features six candidates. Two are incumbents and four are new faces. While all of the candidates seem to be very nice people, we were most impressed with Tanya Dragic.

Multi-million-dollar bond proposals will be voted on in four school districts - Briarcliff Manor, Irvington, Pleasantville and Somers. Whether or not there are tax implications from them remains to be seen. Most people are inclined to go along with tax increases if the are logical, within reason financially, adequately explained and communicated to the public clearly. After all, this is their money that’s being sought.

In this day of instant news feeds, 24-hour cable news, neighborhood blogs such as this one, podcasts, radio and residents talking amongst themselves, taxpayers (stakeholders) need to feel assured that their money is being well spent and with meaning. This was not the case with the recent $114 million bond the School Board and Dr Chase tried to foist upon the public in the 11th hour two months ago. They got their heads handed to them with a two-to-one defeat.

The take-away that the Board members and Dr Chase seemed to believe is that they did a poor job communicating their “vision” to the stakeholders. If that’s all they got out of this defeat, they really aren’t paying attention. What they also did was hide information. They repeatedly told the public that the $114 million was including interest. It was not. The interest alone would have been almost the face value of the note, coming in at $83 million. With a bond total of $197 million, and the yearly budget of $71 million ($70,752,506 actual), taxpayers will be on the hook for $267 million! In Mandarin, it’s 2.67亿美元！

When asked why the bond should be supported, we were told that the Bailey and Highview schools were in such disrepair that we needed to jettison them as soon as possible and build two new schools to replace them – at the Warburg campus. When asked why, one School Board trustee had the backbone to tell us, “The Board made a conscious decision to not maintain the schools to save teacher’s jobs. Others on the Board believed having all the schools on one campus would be their School Board legacy – as did Dr Chase. Sadly, their legacy will be the disrepair of our schools.

While this revelation was a stunning admission, the honesty and openness of the Board member was refreshing and what a dialog should be. During the entire event the age-old mantra was, “Do it for the children.” In fact, on a community gossip board, several residents kept posting to vote yes for the bond and saying those against it were lying with the facts they presented. They were not. But for Phil, Matty, Mona and a handful of others aligned with the School Board supporting a radical tax increase, many could or would not go along! Can they be persuaded to vote for it now? We’ll see...

The budget vote is upon us, with a small cheerleading crowd in the gossip sites trying desperately to convince those gullible enough to not learn the facts on their own to vote for the budget. When a question was posed on the site if Matty worked for the district and if he ever ran for the School Board, the conversation was closed down. Apparently, just as in Town Hall and the School Board, the flow of information works only one-way. It's ironic that after 3,000 people mobilized and voted "no" that the Board did not capitalize on the obvious interest of the public.

Briarcliff Manor’s $3 million bond proposal would include a roof replacement at the middle school, a track resurfacing, and infrastructure improvements district-wide. Irvington would see renovation projects, conservation initiatives, expansions and modernization efforts. Pleasantville will make repairs to school buildings, increase security, and asbestos abatement in school floors. Somers seeks to increase security, and if approved, would include a partial roof replacement at Primrose Elementary School.

These districts clearly show it is possible to do ongoing repair and maintenance without financially hammering the district residents. Those that can afford it will scrutinize the budget less than those who cannot. We need a Board that understands that it's our money and then their money and that it doesn't grow on trees. The current Greenburgh School Board and its Superintendent seem oblivious to this. Again, they’re not listening. In the Fairview Fire and the Hartsdale Fire Districts, 48% and 42% respectively are tax exempt. That means about half of the taxpayers are paying double of what they should have to to compensate for the tax exempt properties who still utilize their services. The school district suffers from the same malady with little recourse.

Consider how the current School Board behaved during this last episode when you go to vote. If you want more of the same you already know how you’re going to vote. If you want more transparency, open communication and budgets that are reasonably planned out and presented, think about voting differently. It’s one more way to get A Better Greenburgh School Board.

2017 Fire Commissioner Results

Current Fairview Fire Commissioner Vikki Simmons was reelected in Fairview with 67 votes. Appointed to fulfill a vacated seat in the Hartsdale Fire District 8 months ago found Hartsdale Fire Commissioner Robert Iamonico reelected by a vote of 407-368 against Mona Fraitag.

Fire District Elections This Tuesday, Dec 12th

Our previous article about the fire district elections focused on a debate held in Hartsdale between Bob Iamonico and Mona Fraitag. It was readily apparent to the audience of about 50 of so people that Mr Iamonico had a better firematic command of the evening than his opponent, Ms Fraitag. After listening to both candidates, Ms Fraitag seemed lost with many of the questions. Clearly, her lack of knowledge about the responsibilities of a Fire Commissioner, even though she claims to attend every Fire Commissioner meeting, was glaring and why we found Mr Iamonico the more favorable candidate.

This Tuesday night, with somewhat varying times, will be the elections for the position of Fire Commissioner for the three fire districts in the Town. In Hartsdale, the election will be held at the Hartsdale Fire Station #1 between 3pm and 9pm; Fairview’s will be between 4pm and 9pm at both fire stations; Greenville’s will also be between 4pm and 9pm. In Fairview and Greenville, there is only one candidate seeking office. The Fairview candidate seeking re-election is Vickki Simmons. The candidate seeking election in Greenville is Warren Hershkowitz.

Interestingly, Mr Feiner went after Ms Simmons after attacking the former Fairview Fire Chief Anthony LoGiudice. Chief LoGiudice apologized to Mr Feiner for comments made some twenty years earlier per Mr Feiner’s request, then he refused to accept the apology and continued his assault against him in the media and with email blasts. By the way, Mr Feiner has yet to apologize to the Fortress Bible Church or the taxpayers after being found guilty of discrimination, destroying evidence and costing the Unincorporated taxpayers $6.5 million dollars in fines.

Then he and his cohorts turned on Ms Simmons. Ms Simmons is known to do the right thing and perform her duties beyond reproach with fire district issues. Mr Feiner, along with his lead surrogate Milt Hoffman (now deceased), accused Ms Simmons of doing a number of illegal things in order to promote her son to Captain in the Fairview FD. Not only was the vote to promote him to Captain unanimous, Ms Simmons abstained from voting for obvious reasons. When the next election took place, Mr Feiner backed his hand-picked candidate, Ms Claire Pizzuti who now sits on the Board. We believe this was nothing but another one of Mr Feiner’s diversion tactics to take public attention away from his failings at the time.

Ms Pizzuti was elected. In the next subsequent election, now retired Fairview firefighter John Malone was elected to the newly open seat. We are unsure if he was also backed by Mr Feiner. But the goal by Mr Feiner is to get three (a majority vote) seats on the three Boards of Commissioners to push for a referendum vote to consolidate the fire districts. Once that were to happen, his surrogates would cede control to the Town, similar to the control over what happens with the police department and in particular their budget!

We’ve heard a rumor that Feiner-friendly resident Don Cannon picked up a petition in order to run for Fire Commissioner in Fairview but never handed it in. Why not? Did he change his mind or is there an ulterior motive? What concerns us is that Feiner and Cannon might attempt a stealth write-in campaign for the commissioner position that Ms Simmons is seeking. We believe Mr Feiner’s long-range goal is to gain control of at least three Fire Commissioners in Fairview and Hartsdale so as to push them to vote for consolidation of the districts as it must be voted upon by the commissioners. We also believe that Mr Feiner will not replace paid firefighters when they retire so as to bring down overall manning levels,  as he did with the Greenburgh PD. Could Mr Feiner be scheming to forcibly drive down the Fire Tax by $1,000, giving him a $1,000 budgetary increase to play with in Town Tax?

In the end, after speaking with all the commissioners in the three departments, studying their budgets and listening to the consolidation, dispatching and personnel arguments from both sides, we believe the fire districts are operating well and with little or no waste in their budgets. We invite residents to go to the meetings and see and hear for themselves. Voting for representation on the fire commissioner boards is a five-year term. Use your best judgement as to whom you choose. It will make for A Better Greenburgh.