Fire District Elections Approach

On Tuesday, December 9th, the three fire districts in the Town will be having their yearly elections. Those districts are the Fairview, Hartsdale and Greenville fire districts, which all have paid fire fighters. This election does not apply to the Village Fire Departments. One point of contention about these elections is the timing of having them in December. This time has been set by New York State law. While complaints to change this have fallen on deaf ears locally, this would be an issue that our New York State Senators and Assembly representatives must change if we are, in fact, interested in voting at a different time or if we want to vote in the regular November elections. Since we’re past the election promises of those candidates, they are nowhere to be found.

Interestingly, the hours of operation are set by the Fire District leaders and involve paying for the poll workers, who are not from the County’s Board of Elections and are paid out of the Fire Districts’ respective budgets. While state law only requires the polling locations to be open for three hours, from 6pm until 9pm, all three districts have extended this time by several hours. The hours and locations to vote in the three fire districts are:

Fairview: 
3:00 p.m. until 9:00 p.m. The polling locations are Fairview Fire Headquarters at 19 Rosemont Boulevard; and Fairview Fire Station #2, at 290 Worthington Road.

Hartsdale:
3:00 p.m. until 9:00 p.m. The polling location is only at Hartsdale Fire District, Station 1, at 25 South Central Avenue, Hartsdale, NY.

Greenville:
2 p.m. until 9 p.m. The polling location is the Greenville fire house at 711 Central Ave.

Candidates and Issues By District:

Fairview

There are three candidates running for one open Commissioner position, which is a five-year term: Todd V. Cammisa, Keith Guerra and Claire C. Pizzuti. The Fire Commissioner’s position is unpaid. There are no bond proposals or propositions on the ballot.

Greenville

The is only one candidate running for one Commissioner position, which is a five-year term: Walter Groden. The Fire Commissioner’s position is unpaid.

There are three bond proposals on the ballot that residents should be aware of and vote on:  

1. A proposal to repair and renovate fire headquarters. Since a major renovation was completed in 1991, a series of updates are called for such as a new roof, waterproofing, and parking lot repaving. The portion of the bond that will finance this project will not exceed $285,000.

2. The district is required to repay the Town of Greenburgh certiorari (tax grievance) claims. An unprecedented level of claims due over the 2015-2016 period cannot be covered by the district's operating budget. The bond issue will cover up to $550,000 in certiorari claims.

3. The district's ladder truck is 13 years old and is approaching the end of its useful life. The bond proposal for a replacement vehicle will finance up to $950,000.

Hartsdale
There are three candidates running for Commissioner’s position, two of whom are seeking the five-year terms and one of which is seeking to fill the remainder of a term that was vacated:

The candidates for the 5 year term commencing on January 1, 2015 are: Michael Goldstein and Andrew Lee. The Candidate for the 1 year term to begin on January 1, 2015 is Anthony Frasca. The Fire Commissioner’s position is unpaid. There are no bond proposals or propositions on the ballot.

We recognize that the hours of voting in the fire district elections is constrained and may not be conducive for everyone to participate. The difficulties of this constraint are thrust upon us by New York State, almost like an unfunded mandate. We need to contact our New York State elected officials to change this. We will be posting information about the candidates as and if we receive them. Until then, we urge you to vote: Voice Of The Electorate. Only then will we get A Better Greenburgh.