Now it's the fault of the taxpayers?
Earlier this month, Westchester County Executive Andrew Spano was blaming the school districts.
"We've basically ignored them," Legislator Tom Abinanti, D-Greenburgh, said of Rethinking Westchester. "Now they're getting a lot of play and a lot of press and misleading the public."
Westchester is the highest taxed county in the United States, with the county portion of taxes up over 50 percent over the past ten years, and that number represents only the County Government's contribution to the carnage.
True enough, high school taxes haven't helped either -- but these sleepy suburbs are enduring a far higher than normal property tax bill specifically due to the county budget. It's always been my personal observation as someone who closely follows budget debates locally and statewide that the school and town portion of tax bills would not feel as onerous if the county portion was modest.
So shadow county executive Larry Schwartz played attack dog, charging that Rethinking Westchester leaders are "intellectually dishonest" and "disgruntled malcontents."
"Basically, they don't know what they're talking about," Schwartz said. "I think we're the heroes and the model - I don't think we get the credit (we deserve). ... Quite frankly, they'd never be able to do the job we do."
As if we're the bad guys (yes, I'm now a member and a PROUD part of Rethinking's executive committee). I'm also designing and planning the organization's blog, sort of an editor for an eclectic and well-intended reformers.
Schwartz misses the point. We're taxpayers. We're worried about our personal budgets and costs, like everyone else. This issue of county costs is resonating because we care about an issue everyone is watching on a daily basis. It's called making ends meet. It's the economy, not politics. Taxation is on people's minds.
"The conciliatory gesture came as too little, too late for some of Mr. Spano’s vocal critics, especially members of Rethinking Westchester Government, a new group that wants to eliminate New York’s county governments, as have Connecticut and Massachusetts. Connecticut got rid of all its county governments in 1960 and Massachusetts abolished most of its in the late 1990s."
Humble hat tip to county resident Mike Edelman, who at least put the voice of the taxpayers into this new article with some passion (I'm admittedly not a fan of Mr. Edelman and wish Republicans would stop abdicating their leadership role to him). To be frank, the absence of Republicans on this issue has been shameful and at least Edelman got the GOP's stand into the news story.
County bureaucrats also went after Greenburgh Town Supervisor Paul Feiner. I guess it won't be long before they're going after me. Bring 'em on.
Rethinking Westchester carried themselves well:
Rethinking Westchester has not spent a lot of time strategizing for next year's elections, said Bobbie Anne Flower Cox, a Yonkers attorney who heads the organization's legal wing. But if lawmakers have taken to defending their jobs publicly, it illustrates the group's impact, she said.
"From a political standpoint, I think it would be somewhat of a success for the group because, again, it would show that not just the taxpayers are questioning this, the legislators themselves, the government employees themselves, are questioning, 'Could these people be right? Could we possibly not be needed? Are our services duplicative?' " she said.
Feiner has made the case for reform:
"I think in some ways we've become almost like one of the loyal opposition," he said. "We're asking questions and we're getting people to think. I mean, the county government has always been an invisible layer of government, and now it's not as invisible. Now people want more accountability, so (county officials) are not going to be able to get away with things that they used to get away with."
Rethinking Westchester County Government will launching a blog in the coming days -- so the interest in downsizing/right-sizing and revising and/or abolitioning county government is sure to grow.
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