Letter to the Editor: The proposed referendum to change the structure of town board elections
Monday, September 19, 2011
by Rob Greenstein
Last month, Manny Areces, a resident of New Castle, filed a petition signatures with the Town Clerk to get a referendum item on the ballot, a proposal to expand the number of at-large seats on the Town Board from four to six, and to have those six members run for election from six geographic wards. A change like this should have broad voter participation.
At last week’s Town Board meeting, the Town Clerk, Jill Shapiro, announced that she had sent the petition on to the Westchester County Board of Elections. The referendum will very likely be held as part of the general election on Nov. 8.
When this petition was written about in NCNOW.org in July—See “Non-partisan group proposes expansion of town board from 4 at-large members to 6,” NCNOW.org, July 1, 2011—I wrote a comment that “I’d like to hear more about it. Anything that can get more residents involved & promote a more transparent town government is something worth exploring.”
While I’d still like to get more residents involved and promote a more transparent town government I look forward to hearing from the League of Women Voters on the subject because I have several concerns.
The idea of expanding the number of board members from four to six is intriguing to the extent of spreading the workload and getting more accomplished. But I’m concerned that having representatives from each of six separate wards could result in fracturing our community and creating unnecessary divisiveness in our town government. The board members would have their initial allegiance to their ward, instead of the Town of New Castle, and that concerns me.
I’m also concerned that we may be precluding a member of our community—who would be an asset to the board—from serving just because he or she happens to live in the same ward as another candidate. And what happens if no one wants to run from one particular ward in a given election cycle, and there are multiple qualified candidates from a different ward? The law of unintended consequences…
Plus, having all six at-large members change at the same time could prove to be too disruptive for town government. Right now at-large members’ terms are four-year terms—and elections are staggered, with two of the four seats up for election every two years. The Supervisor’s term is two years in length.
There are other unanswered questions. Where are the wards? How would the current members be affected? How much would this change cost to implement, and cost taxpayers going forward? It would certainly mean two more town board members’ salaries, around $12,000 each.
While I understand that some residents of the West End and Millwood might want this change because they feel their interests are under-represented in town government, there might be other, less drastic, ways to accomplish this.
This coming election is the first contested election in years. This is a good thing. It should help residents chose candidates they feel best represent their interests. I think the Millwood Task Force is great but they need other members of the Millwood community to get involved. They need fellow Millwood residents to take more interest in Millwood matters. They should attend Town Board meetings and report publicly at every single comment period. They should hold a meet-the-candidates night.
Anyone who feels his or her interests are not being addressed can form his or her own political party and run for the Town Board. Due to on-line publications like NewCastleNOW, The Patch and The Daily Chappaqua, I believe that party affiliations are not as important as they used to be. Any candidate can present ideas that spark substantive discussion of issues affecting our town—and they don’t need the support of the political parties to do so. I see no major impediments for someone who feels under-represented to get involved and run for office.
As I mentioned in my comment two months ago, “I’d be curious to hear the opinions of the current Board members”. In an article in LoHud in July, 2011, Supervisor Barbara Gerrard, who is not running for re-election, said the ward system encourages a parochial focus. “Nobody who has a population of 17,500 has anything like that,” she said. “But I think the bigger problem is everyone on the Town Board right now feels like they represent the entire town.” Also, because of the concentration of the population in Chappaqua, the representation would still be focused there, she said, “so it seems to be counterproductive.”
In an article in LoHud in August, 2011, Councilwoman Elise Kessler Mottel, who is running for re-election, said changing to a ward system would do a disservice to the town by encouraging council members to vote by narrow, neighborhood interest. “You’ll be kind of creating the mess we have in Congress right now,” she said, whereas board members now look out for the whole town.”
I realize that the League of Women Voters of New Castle has been studying the issue and I’m curious to hear their position, if they take one. I’d also like to hear the opinions of the other candidates, Susan Carpenter, Bob Kirkwood, Rich Diefenbach and Jason Chapin.
While I have expressed my concerns, it is not my goal to defeat this proposal. But we do need to get the discussion going. With only six weeks left until the November 8 elections, my biggest concern is that many people are going to abstain from voting for or against the proposition because they haven’t been educated about it. The only people that will vote for it, are those in favor, and our whole structure of government could be changed by a few tens or hundreds of votes.
This proposition should pass or fail with everyone understanding the issue, and voting on the referendum. Otherwise, the whole structure of our town government will be determined by a very small minority of voters.
Rob Greenstein
The last time we had a contested election, three candidates ran under the banner of the New Castle Community Party. Those candidates were Manny Areces, Michael Wolfensohn and West End resident John Almash. They were defeated by the candidates from the party that has had a lock on town government for the almost two decades that I have lived here. A new party is not going to bring any geographic diversity to the board.
Councilwoman Mottel’s comment is telling. The existing board does not want a ward based system because with a member whose constituency is specifically the West End and Millwood the board would find it more difficult to routinely ignore the concerns of those residents. If one of the six ward-based board members represents the West End and another represents the northern reaches of town in the Bedford school district, there is still a four member majority representing wards in Chappaqua proper. This will lead to gridlock? Perhaps the Chappaqua Democrats are concerned that they will be as ineffectual with a supermajority in New Castle as their party was with a similar advantage in Washington.
Going to a ward system pitting 6 neighborhoods against each other is a bad idea. Just look at the comments to last weeks’ article about the hiring of a place-making advisor for Millwood. Whoever is elected to the board needs to focus on the needs of the town as a whole, and we all need to recognize that any improvements made in the town, regardless of neighborhood, benefit all of the town. A rising tide lifts all boats.
If the current board wanted to demonstrate that they were truly looking out for ALL residents of New Castle (yes that includes the 20% of us who live outside the CCSD), they could move forward with a full market value reassessment and provide both long overdue tax relief to the West End and fairer taxation for the rest of town. They could spend a little more time working on improvements in the Millwood hamlet instead of obsessing over the departure of a grocery store in Chappaqua that they really can’t do anything about and that most residents seem to not particularly like (if they actually shopped there, would the store be leaving?). When the Town does do something significant in the West End, they build soccer fields that are used by Chappaqua residents (children in the West End play soccer in Ossining) leading to increased traffic and complaints from residents who don’t understand why they have to bring their kids halfway across the county for a local soccer game.
Let’s see what the town’s consultant comes up with after spending $6,000 of our tax dollars looking at the Millwood hamlet. I wonder how it will compare to the “Imagining Millwood” concepts that resident Thomas Curley posted here two years ago (http://www.newcastlenow.org/index.php/article/imagining_millwood) for free.
The real issue is having separate Town and school district boundaries for New Castle. This natural results in conflicts of interests like the issue with soccer fields in the Ossining SD. The residents there don’t pay Ossining Town taxes but use their fields next to other peoples houses but of course they don’t take those issues into consideration. Its a silly system that won’t be changed so get over it.
We are in the process of building a website about the Representation Referendum that will provide the background, pros and cons, FAQs and more, including informative links about how the system works. It should be live by the end of the week. I will post a link here once we have the site active. Thanks for your interest!
We have wards? Who knew? I think Mr. Areces, is onto something but his plan is too timid. New Castle is worthy of more diversity than six board members would provide. Why not a board member for all those who send their children to private schools, for those who are over 65, for those with homes over 3,000 square feet, for those who actually want a Walgreens, and finally, for those who spend more than eight hours a week at Lange’s Little Store. I am sure I have just scratched the surface of possible interest groups. With some hard thinking I am sure we can become the next Tammany Hall.
The reason New Castle did not proceed with a reassessment was that it would put all of us in New Castle at a disadvantage and cause our tax rates to be higher, not lower, when the county reassesses. Prematurely reassessing does not solve the problems of those who own realty in the Ossining School District.
Does any one know what streets in Millwood the Curley plans show?
Editor’s Note: It might help you to orient yourself if you look at the top (and last photo in the line up at bottom of page) and see that the Green area marked “Village Green” is the lot where the little red station house sits (in the photo, the station house has been moved to the far south of the lot). The building alongside the “Village Green,” at the top of the picture, is Millwood Lumber.
I signed the petition last month at the train station. The man who was asking for signatures told me that it was a petition to increase the size of the board to 7 from 5. It sounded like a good idea. This is the first I’m hearing of dividing New Castle into wards. If I had know that I never would have signed the petition. I can’t believe such a big change could happen by collecting signatures then passing with only a simple majority of those voting. Thank you New Castle NOW for providing the forum so that our community can be educated about important topics such as this.
West Ender- what is all the clamoring for spending money on improvements to Millwood. I keep reading about “poor” taken advantage of Millwood and that they have no sewers. Lack of Sewers have not prevented business and commerce. In fact we could make the case that Millwood has a more stable and vital commercial/retail base than does Chappaqua.
Spacarelli’s and Rocky’s dont seem to have suffered from no sewers. Taza and the Pizza place also serve food. A&P, Drug Mart, Cleaners, Dodds Liquors ,Chase BANK,and others all seem to be thriving and have been there for years. In fact there is probably less turnover of stores in Millwood than in Chapp - so what’s the beef? Other than a ridiculously priced Gazeebo and a newly paved parking lot (lets not forget the Bridge that has been a disaster) what improvements do you see happening in Chapp that you feel slighted not getting in Millwood?
@Carmine DeSapio
We “can become the next Tammany Hall”? Can you please let me know how many times in the past 20 years there has been a town board member or town supervisor who was not a Democrat? How many of those Democrats gained their spot on the ballot by winning a primary rather than being blessed by the local committee and then running unopposed? When is the last time a member of the town board lived in the West End?
Residents in about one third of the unincorporated Town of Ossining have started the process to be annexed by the Village of Briarcliff Manor because they are tired of having their concerns ignored by a Town Board whose entire membership lives in the Village of Ossining. Perhaps it’s time for the New Castle residents who live in the Ossining and Bedford school districts to look at doing the same thing.
Which do you think would be better for the town? You can have a town board where perhaps two of the six wards represent residents from outside of the CCSD, or you can have 20% of the town (and all of their town taxes) just disappear.
I have no idea where any of the Town Board members live nor do I care. I fail to see how one’s address is relevant as a qualification to sit on the Town Board. I also have great difficulty in seeing how one’s political identification as a Democrat or a Republican has any importance for election to a Town Board where ALL the issues are local.
What if two qualified people wanted to run and they both lived on the same street? We should not be putting impediments in the way of people who want to run for the Town Board, we should be encouraging them. Finally, I think the town of New Castle might be better off if the jurisdictions of the Town and the School District were the same. And from a purely economic perspective it might also be better.
regarding millwood sewers: apparently you haven’t been to spacarelli’s parking lot when the ripe smell hits your nose as one exits their car. this is a frequent occurrence and i no longer go there for this reason.
as i mentioned on the other article, why not change everyone’s town address to new castle and have one school district? maybe chappaqua doesn’t want this?
i forgot to add - millwood task force has spent countless hours attempting to liaison with the town board. has the board listened to them? i can’t remember specific instances where they have been taken seriously. shame on the town board - all they seem to do is to give lip service to the task force.
hopefully someone can provide me with a better understanding of when their input has been constructively used by the town board.
@Carmine De Sapio
Your last comment says it all: “the town of New Castle might be better off if the jurisdictions of the Town and the School District were the same”
The simple fact of the matter is that the borders of the Town or New Castle and the Chappaqua Central School District will NEVER be the same. This is why the town board needs members from outside of the CCSD. The current board members are able to get elected (and reelected) by catering to the desires of residents who want them to act as if the town and CCSD were the same.
Since you don’t care where the Town Board members live, would you be comfortable with a town board where a majority of the members did not live in the CCSD? How about two members whose homes were in the Ossining school district, one from Bedford and only two from Chappaqua? They’re all residents of the town, so it shouldn’t be a problem, right?
@West Ender
This is getting to be a bit absurd. Of course it would be wonderful for a board member to be living outside the CCSD. Find one and encourage him or her to run. Quit griping.
@Find one
There was a resident from the West End who ran for town board the last time there was a contested election. Guess what, he lost. As posted on a different thread, the one current board member who appears to be responsive to all of his constituents is Michael Wolfenshon and the Democrats have decided not to nominate him for reelection.
Why is allowing the 20% of town that sometimes has differing interests from the CCSD residents to have minority representation on the board such a scary idea?
