OPINION by Debbie Kozak, President | Northwest Yonkers Republican Club.
With Westchesterites distracted by vacations and other activities these past few months our County Legislators managed to cook up and quietly push through a ‘tri-partisan’ plan to double their terms of office from two to four years.
Upon County Exec George Latimer’s signature that change to be known as Prop Two, sets up a second outrageous proposal on the Nov. 5 ballot that we citizen-taxpayers have neither asked for nor know very much about.
(The first was the even more obnoxious Prop One, or phony Equal Rights Amendment – to which we’ve already recommended voters deliver a resounding ‘HELL NO’ and therefore need not address here.)
“Should individuals serving in the position of Westchester County Legislator serve four-year terms instead of two-year terms?” is what Prop Two asks – to which the only logical answer must also be a resounding NO, and here are the reasons why:
The 17-member Board of Legislators maintains that changing term lengths will “substantially decrease taxpayer expenditures on election coordination and administration” and “redirect the funds towards critical priorities such as public safety, infrastructure investments and vital social services.”
Sounds great, right? But there’s little to no hard projectable evidence that any ‘savings’ to be had by changing 17 Legislators’ term lengths so they don’t have to run for office will affect such objectives in any measurable way.
As taxpayers we should expect a thoroughgoing cost-saving analysis to support any such high-minded assertions. None has been done, and it’s my belief that if one had, the result wouldn’t be nearly as positive as is claimed.
Furthermore, the County Board of Elections would and will, as always, remain open for business during election periods even if and as the Legislator’s terms were to be changed, as primary and general elections always have and always will take place year after year after year.
And it’s the County Executive, not the Legislators, who administers those funds. Using the description of critical priorities to describe such broad generalizations as “public safety, infrastructure investments and social services” is nothing more than yet another SILLY WORD SALAD to scare readers into thinking that if they vote against this proposal monies for such priorities will decrease.
Yes, as civil rights attorney Bobbie Ann Cox is wont to say, ‘They think we’re stupid.”
And yes, they really do. Never has a County Executive, nor a Legislature, to our knowledge, admitted publicly to any ‘under-funding’ of these or other ‘priorities.’
We know this because, dontcha know, they all campaign on how so wonderfully well they always manage to plan, pass and fund their annual budgets.
One claim is that fewer elections would afford voters ‘the power to concentrate (on issues) rather than election activities.’ Huh?
Another is that fewer election/longer terms will somehow “save on the cutting down of trees as paper for posters, palm cards and yard signs.”
Really, Legislators should get two additional years to save on campaign literature? Seriously, neither seems to be of credible benefit to taxpayers.
SIMPLE TRUTH 1: Two-year terms keep politicians more accountable and in line with what their constituents want. PERIOD.
Some additional FACTS the BOL hasn’t bothered to highlight:
Legislators are not limited to six two-year terms. They’re limited to six consecutive two-year terms. What does that mean? If, for example, a Legislator is elected to five two-year terms (10 years), and then takes a term (or multiple) off, and gets reelected— the six consecutive two-year term clock re-starts. No big deal? Wrong!
Once a Legislator works 10 years, he/she qualifies for a county pension, and each year their pension increases by a certain percentage. Their base salary is $75,000 plus they get additional monies for leadership positions and stipend(s) for being Chairmen of Special and Standing Committees, putting an annual part-time job salary at close to a respectable $90,000.
Legislators with other county and/or municipal jobs accrue larger pensions – all of which is paid out by the taxpayers as fringe benefits. In 2023 the WC budget for employee fringe benefits exploded from the previous year by $12 million (12.5%) to over $192 million.
SIMPLE TRUTH 2: Prop Two does not benefit the citizen-taxpayers, it benefits politicians. Were they truly interested in decreasing expenditures, they could propose doubling the size of their constituency, cutting their number by half, and/or limiting total service to eight years.
FINAL FACT: Elected officials work for taxpayers, not the other way around.
CONCLUSION: When you’ve finished voting for candidates for office on Nov. 5, flip the ballot over and cast a resounding NO vote to both Proposition One AND Proposition Two – because We’re Not Stupid.
OPINION by Debbie Kozak, President, John P. O’Leary NW Yonkers Republican Club and 2023 Republican Candidate Westchester County Legislator District 16 (Yonkers). For more info about the NWYR club: www.Deb4Westchester.com