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.

Fraitag Trounced In Hartsdale Debate

The Fire Districts are having their annual elections on Tuesday, December 12. In Hartsdale it will be held at the Hartsdale Fire Station #1 between 3pm and 9pm, The date and times are different than the regular elections held in November. There are two seats open in the Hartsdale Fire District. One is uncontested, running unopposed is Peter Woods and the other, already filled by appointment with Robert Iamonico, is a seat that was vacated and has two-years left in its term. Mr Iamonico and Ms Mona Fraitag are vying for this seat. All commissioner positions have a term of five years.

Mr Iamonico is a retired Eastchester paid firefighter having started as a volunteer firefighter. Ms Fraitag has worked tirelessly on appointed committees within the Town for Mr Feiner. She claims that since this is a volunteer position, all she has to “lose” is her time. She also stated that she is the only resident that attends fire district commissioner meetings month after month. And yet she still was unable to explain to the audience what the role of the fire commissioner is when asked by an audience member.

Both candidates said they wanted to help the fire district save money, possibly through consolidation and budget trimming. Iamonico stated “Everything is on the table.” Ms Fraitag questioned why we need three career chiefs (Fairview FD, Hartsdale FD and Greenville FD), although she admitted that Greenville is not a factor due to their involvement in the Edgemont incorporation pursuit. But the consolidation of Fairview and Hartsdale's fire districts cannot easily be done and would require a host of things to happen, including a referendum. 

So, while the discussion to eliminate one position has been pushed by Mr Feiner and his ilk, she also admitted she did not want to eliminate personnel. Huh? Why bother to consolidate positions and then not eliminate one person? Would that one salary and benefits change the paradigm of fire operations? Of course not - there would not be any advantage when you break down the roughly $200k salary and benefits by the amount of total taxpayers funding that salary.

This seems to be a politically motivated idea we’ve heard every election time from Mr Feiner. His goal is to get a majority of his hand-picked people into the fire districts as commissioners so they can push for a referendum to ultimately allow Mr Feiner to somehow take over the fire districts’ budgets and control of the fire departments. This would be similar to him controlling the police department. 

Ms Fraitag also fell back to the stale argument of changing the department’s dispatching from an internal one to utilizing 60-Control, the County dispatching service. She stated savings could be had by switching to 60 Control and/or utilizing civilian dispatchers. At no point did she offer any facts or figures to back up her argument of possible savings, differences in costs or how it would affect the district and its residents. When asked how much could be saved, she said she didn't know because she is on the outside looking in and needs to be on the inside to get this information. We found this interesting since again, she claims to be at every fire commissioner meeting. If she didn’t have an answer she either fell back to the same "on the outside looking in" argument or sat there silent. The audience did not seem receptive to changing the dispatch system no matter how many times she suggested it. Ms Fraitag repeatedly asked, "Don't you want to at least look at other ideas?" Many shouted, No!”

Ironically, 60-Control was developed under the leadership of then Elmsford Fire Department’s former Chief Raymond Rush, deceased father of Hartsdale fire Chief Edward Rush. The senior Rush was also the first administrator of the Richard A Flynn Fire Training Center in Valhalla, where 60-Control resides. He was instrumental in moving it from the County Police Department's basement to its current location. The reasoning was that police and fire departments have different needs and requirements and as such should be separate. Currently, the 60 Control dispatchers are EMS dispatchers while the County Police are not.

The evening was peppered by questions from the audience. At one point, Mr Chip Nanko, a Hartsdale Fire union representative stood and addressed Ms Fraitag, asking why she repeatedly refused to meet with the union members and leadership? After a long pause, she finally responded that they had treated her in an abrasive manor. The crowd shifted uncomfortably in their seats. If you want to be a commissioner, even for only two years, you have to have a thick skin and strong constitution. That includes doing things you don’t like or want to do.

Certainly, Mr Iamonico has the necessary firematic background to perform in the position of a commissioner. Ms Fraitag, touting old and hollow arguments, has two goals, to eliminate a chief officer position and change the dispatching system. But she wouldn’t or couldn’t offer any facts or figures as to why these two moves would be advantageous. In fact, when Mr Feiner tried this in Fairview, these two ideas were quickly dispelled by ABG and others. 

Finally, while Mr Feiner and Ms Fraitag seek to eliminate one Chief officer position and have stopped including the Greenville Fire Department, they would better serve their constituency by focusing on Town finances, lawsuits, guilty verdicts and budgetary concerns. The fire districts’ budgets and operations seem to be running just fine. If Ms Fraitag wishes to be a commissioner in Hartsdale, she should focus on the Hartsdale Fire District and not worry about the Fairview Fire District. If she is so concerned to learn from the inside, perhaps she should become a volunteer firefighter in the Hartsdale Fire Department and really learn what it’s all about. It’s for these reasons we endorse Mr Iamonico for fire commissioner. It will help make for A Better Greenburgh.

Greenburgh Fire District Elections Held Today

Each year the Greenburgh Fire Districts hold an election for at least one expiring position, or seat, on the District’s Board of Directors. The five Board of Director positions are typically for a term of five years. Occasionally, more than one position will be open when a member prematurely leaves because of health, work-related or other reasons. 

This year finds one position open on the Fairview Fire District Board of Commissioners. The open position in Fairview's Board has been held by Michael Cotter and he is the only one running for the 5-year position he has held for the last five years. The term will be from January 1, 2016 through December 31, 2020.

Fairview residents can vote at either Fire Station: Headquarters, located at 19 Rosemont Boulevard; or Station 2 located at 290 Worthington Road. The hours to vote are from 3PM until 9PM, a time period mandated by New York state law. You must have been registered to vote with the Westchester County Board of Elections before November 16^th. 

Fire District elections in the Greenville and Hartsdale Fire Districts are also being held today as well. There is an open seat on the Hartsdale Fire District Commission and two candidates are running:  Anthony Frasca, who is running for reelection, and Guy Novo. The times for the Hartsdale Fire District elections are between 3PM through 9PM, and will be held at Hartsdale Fire Station #2 at 300 West  Hartsdale Avenue. Again, you must have been registered to vote with the Westchester County Board of Elections before November 16^th.

Candidate information for the Greenville Fire District election was unavailable at the time of this posting. Election hours for the Greenville Fire District's election are from 2PM until 9PM at 711 Central Park Avenue.