Procedure Committee Asks For Your Comments on Amendments to the Non-Partisan Resolution

The Scarsdale Procedure Committee (PC), whose members are representative of every elementary school neighborhood, announced today that the PC is inviting Scarsdale voters to help improve the non-partisan election system’s governing document and non-partisan system’s procedures. To accomplish this important task, the public is being invited to review and comment on proposed amendments which are available on the PC’s website as of June 1, 2021.

According to PC Chair Becky Bach and Vice Chair Richard Pinto, “The Scarsdale community’s non-partisan system of electing qualified candidates for village office is governed by the Non-Partisan Resolution – a living document that has been amended 42 times since its adoption, most recently in November 2018. The system is administered by the PC and establishes a method for selecting a slate of qualified candidates for Mayor (every two years), Trustees (every year, due to staggered terms), and Village Justice (every four years). Periodically, the community is asked to comment on proposed changes to the Resolution which are ultimately submitted to the electorate for a vote. Today’s announcement represents one of those pivotal opportunities for Scarsdalians to weigh in and share their views as part of the review process.”

The non-partisan election system is managed by residents of Scarsdale, and it works like this: the PC administers the annual recruitment and election of voting members of the 30-member Citizen's Nominating Committee (CNC). CNC members – six residents from each of Scarsdale’s five elementary school districts – are elected by their neighbors to vet and select candidates for Village office. The CNC nominates a slate of non-partisan candidates for the positions of Mayor, Trustee and Village Justice that may be open in any given year. By contributing input on potential revisions to the Non-Partisan Resolution, Scarsdale voters play an integral role in the process that selects Village government, another unique feature of Scarsdale’s non-partisan system in which partisan politics and electioneering are avoided.

PC chairs Bach and Pinto stated: “All comments received from Scarsdale voters and community organizations during the 90-day public comment period, from June 1 through August 31, 2021, and any prior public recommendations made, will be reviewed by the Procedure Committee. At the end of this public review, the Procedure Committee will propose amendments that, in the Committee’s judgment, should be presented to the electorate for a vote the second week of November, at the same time that a new class of Citizen’s Nominating Committee members are elected by the voters to participate in the non-partisan system.”

We invite the public to review and submit comments about the proposed amendments via email to meppenstein@eppenstein.com. The proposed amendment and markup of the Non-Partisan Resolution are available on the Procedure Committee/CNC website, at http://www.scarsdaleprocedurecommittee.org/.

Contact: Becky Bach, Chair and Richard Pinto, Vice Chair
By Email: beckyhbach@gmail.com; rpinto@gmail.com

The members of the 2021 Procedure Committee are: Becky Bach; David Bunzel; Heedan Chung; Larry Dobosh; Madelaine Eppenstein; Lee Fischman; Sergi Flaster; Sarit Fuchs; Sal Jain; Linda Killian; Jon Leslie; Alan Lewis; Michelle Lichtenstein; Abby Olsen; Richard Pinto; Matt Martin; Barry Meiselman; Adam Rilander; Andrew Sereysky; Greg Soldatenko