Scarsdale 10583

All appeared to have gone well with the Citizen Nominating Committee election on Tuesday November 15th. Participation was good, absentee ballots were mailed – not hand delivered -- and there were no poll watchers on site. Everyone involved breathed a sigh of relief that voting abuses and partisan politics were a thing of the past – and the consensus was that faith had been restored in the Non-Partisan system.

However, a letter from Bill Doescher in the Scarsdale Inquirer revealed that all was not as it should be. According to Doescher whose wife Linda Blair ran for the CNC, two residents had used the email lists of their respective neighborhood associations to endorse selected candidates. In these emails they endorsed candidates without consulting the current leadership of their neighborhood associations. Ironically a sitting member of the Procedure Committee sent out one of the emails, despite the fact that as a Procedure Committee member he had a duty to recruit candidates and insure a fair election.

Possibly as a result of these emails the endorsed candidates, Anita Mann of the Overhill Neighborhood Association and Salvatore Rao of the Old Scarsdale Neighborhood Association, beat the two Fox Meadow Neighborhood Association candidates, Linda Blair and Ted Tyberg. It is not clear what the Overhill and Old Scarsdale residents believed was at stake – or if their candidates have specific agendas.

Historically, the neighborhood associations have played an important role in the election by cooperating with the Procedure Committee to recruit candidates to run for the CNC and ensure that there are ample names on the ballot. I know from firsthand experience that the Greenacres Neighborhood Association has acted in a non-partisan fashion to support the system and to encourage widespread resident involvement in the process.

One could argue that there is no rule against campaigning via email, and no specific rule against neighborhood association candidate endorsements. But clearly endorsing candidates from one neighborhood over another and utilizing neighborhood association email lists to politic could serve to undermine the process. Down the line, it may prove to be even more difficult to get people to run for the CNC if they know that their own neighborhood association could swing the race.

This most recent transgression warrants discussion when the Procedure Committee and the League of Women Voters review the 2011 election.

Your comments?

Comments (6)

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written by Question, December 05, 2011

To User of Lists:

Why shouid a neighborhood association refrain from supporting a specific candidate from that neighborhood, especially where the neighborhood association recruited that candidate to run in the first place? It seems that embedded in your argument is an assumption that the election process is somehow corrupt, and favors will be asked for and given. The reality is that practically anyone can be active in their neighborhood association (the problem is always too few volunteers not too many) and the "politicking", such as it is, occurs in plain sight. A benefit to having neighborhood associations support specific candidates is that it increases the likelihood that the neighborhood will be represented in the process. (The CNC has 30 members and only two are elected from each elementary school district each year so there is little chance that any one neighborhood association will be able to unduly influence the process). Also, having neighborhood associations involved in recruiting and supporting candidates ensures that there is a supply of candidates willing to run for the office.

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written by Use of lists, December 02, 2011

The problem is when someone uses a list created for a specific purpose (e.g, PTA, Scarsdale Forum, or Neighborhood Association) and obtained in that person's capacity as a member of that organization, and then uses the list for a different purpose: campaigning. "Get out the vote" is one thing. The community or organization that created the list, and the community at large, has an interest in good turnout. But endorsing a specific candidate is a far different thing. To Bruce Wells' comment, the issue is not only the capacity of the email author. If someone sends a blast email using a neighborhood association list, and that person is a part of (and obtained the list through his/her service in) that neighborhood association, that is plain wrong.

The statement in the comments that the association sends an email to "support the residents who run" is exactly the problem. The association should support the process, the election, the system, the vote. But never a specific candidate or candidates.

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written by Bruce Wells, November 28, 2011

There are two errors in this article that I think need to be corrected. Linda Blair and Ted Tyberg live in the Old Scarsdale neighborhood and not Fox Meadow, so there were three candidates from OSNA and one from Overhill NA, and none from FMNA.

Also I would mention that Scarsdale functions with a limited number of volunteers and many people wear multiple hats, so unless an email came from someone explicitly stating they were representing the Procedure Committee, then you can not assume it was sent as a representative of the Procedure Committee. I personally serve on many committees, including the Procedure Committee, but this post is my personal views and not as a representative of any committee I may serve on.

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written by There is no , November 28, 2011

To Phony Non-Partisan System:

You are way off-base. Our local government consists entirely of volunteers; no one is a professional politician. The barriers to entry are fairly minimal; they consist mostly of being willing to sacrifice your time for the sake of helping run the Village. Perhaps you should get involved and try to make a positive contribution instead of indulging in paranoia about the process.

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written by There is no , November 28, 2011

I am a resident of Overhill and what happened this year is no different than what has happened during the CNC election in each year that I can remember. The Overhill Association and the Old Scardale Neighorhood Association (which share a close proximity to the Village center) each typically seek to enlist residents of their respective neighborhoods to run for CNC, and they support those residents who agree to run (not an easy sell by the way) by getting out the vote. No promises are made, no agendas are prescribed or shared, and the residents of Overhill and Old Scarsdale are, of course, free to vote for whomever they wish among the four Fox Meadow candidates. I don't know Mr. Doescher, but I think he is barking up the wrong tree.

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written by Another Example of a Phony Non-Partisan System, November 28, 2011

As has been stated by many commentators often on this site, the Non-Partisan system in Scarsdale is an undemocratic sham controlled by self-serving insiders. Bill Doescher once again points to an example of how the "election" has been manipulated to serve vested interests. A similar email was sent by the President of the Overhill Association endorsing its slate of candidates. And then, when these chosen candidates get into the Star Chamber of the CNC and select the next Mayor and Trustees, whose bidding do they follow? Guess.

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