Election Reflection: Caught in the Crossfire
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- Written by Joanne Wallenstein
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Reporting on the Scarsdale election this week placed me in the middle of a struggle between the designated slate and challengers seeking write-in votes. Because I have been accused of taking sides in this contretemps I feel it is necessary to set the record straight. As I was posting comments on the site from both sides, and in effect mediating a dialogue between the factions, I became the target of accusations of bias. At the same time I witnessed the kind of tactics some use to get their way.
Here’s a timeline of events:
On Friday March 11, five days before the election, a friend called to tell me of a grass roots campaign to elect two write-in candidates in the March 15 election. Sharon Lindsay was the candidate for Mayor but my friend was not able to remember the name of the candidate who would challenge Robert Harrison for Trustee.
I called Sharon Lindsay and was able to verify that she was running and she informed me that Robert Selvaggio was a write-in candidate for Trustee. Since Ms. Lindsay is a former Trustee and Deputy Mayor and was speaking about herself, she was obviously a credible source. I also asked her for the names of those who had initiated the write-in effort and she told me that though there were a sizable number of supporters they were not comfortable going public with their names.
I posted a simple announcement of the write-in campaign and included instructions that I found online on how to cast a write-in vote in the booth. The announcement received enormous response – to date the original post has 1,499 page views. Many commented and their posts make for good reading.
However, one comment I received from Andy Bass disturbed me and proved to be an auger of what was to come. Here is what he wrote:
“Like much of her reporting on Scarsdale 10583.com, this article by Joanne Wallenstein fails to provide the key facts and ask the critical questions that are incumbent upon any journalist."
"Ms. Wallenstein writes, "...a well-organized group of residents has selected two people to challenge the Non-Partisan Committee candidates." The next most obvious question is, who comprises this "well-organized group?" … Why is she not informing her readers who these stealth organizers are?”
“Why did the stealth group choose to initiate their effort on only the Friday night before the election, less than 90 hours before the polls open? Why did the stealth organizers only contact Ms. Wallenstein with the news of their campaign and not other media outlets such as The Scarsdale Inquirer, Scarsdale Patch, The Journal News, News12, etc.”
In response to Mr. Bass’s questions I did ask for the names of the backers of these candidates and they did not wish to publish their names at that time. The candidates did not contact me; I contacted them. In speaking to the two candidates I noted no “stealth” tactics.
On Monday the day before the election, I realized that many residents did not know anything about the two write-in candidates or even how to spell their names. I contacted Robert Selvaggio, the candidate for Trustee, to learn more about him. Using the bios I already had of the CNC candidates and information about Lindsay and Selvaggio I posted a voters guide presenting the facts about each of the candidates. Given that the election was being held on Tuesday, and in response to several requests, I sent out an email blast to let people know where and when to vote.
And what popped up in my inbox on Monday evening? An email from Bob Harrison himself, which accused Jeff Blatt and Scarsdale10583 of sponsoring the write-in campaign.
In his words, “Many Scarsdale voters are unaware of the fact that the Scarsdale Citizens' Non-Partisan Party is in a CONTESTED ELECTION for MAYOR and VILLAGE TRUSTEES vs a write-in campaign sponsored by Jeff Blatt with the help of the www.scarsdale10583.com web site. They are pushing write-in votes for Sharon Lindsay for Mayor and Bob Selvaggio for trustee.”
Wow – that was news to me! Jeff Blatt is a former member of the School Board who has written for and commented on the site. I contacted Mr. Blatt about his role in the election and he was as flabbergasted by this email as I was. Mr. Blatt told me he had known nothing about the write-in effort before it was published on Scarsdale10583. He certainly never approached me about sponsoring a campaign. I was surprised to receive this email from Mr. Harrison who was hoping to be elected to the post of Village TRUSTEE the following day. I later learned that this message, filled with false claims, was widely circulated.
Tuesday was election day and early in the day I received an email from someone who had gone to vote and asked for instructions on how to cast a write-in vote. They told me that there were poll watchers on hand who had prevented the election workers from providing instruction. Poll watchers in Scarsdale?
That afternoon I went to vote myself and was heartened to see a line of voters snaking out of Village Hall. I was voter number 287 and it was only 1 pm. I knew that 287 was more than the total number of votes cast in most recent elections and was impressed that so many had come out. A policeman was on duty --something I had never seen before in a Scarsdale election as well as three poll watchers – another first. The poll watchers were closely monitoring the process and shouting objections to the election workers.
To see if the process was working fairly I asked for instructions on writing-in a vote and was given help and I also noticed instructions on write-in votes inside the booth.
After voting, I stepped over to the three poll watchers to say hello and was quickly shooed away by poll watcher Janet Bell who advised me in a stern tone that I had no business there. Was she serious or kidding? It was hard to tell and I backed away in surprise.
Later that night I attended the reception at the Scarsdale Women’s Club where the Citizen’s Non-Partisan Party was hosting an election night reception. There I learned that the Citizen’s Non-Partisan Party had hired an election attorney – another first --to monitor the voting process. But what was even more disturbing to me was a rumor floating around that the website Scarsdale10583 was actually owned by Jeff Blatt and that I was his puppet reporter.
To set the record straight, Jeff Blatt does not own the site, I do.
As everyone now knows, all the hoopla around the election including the coverage on the site only served to involve more people in the process. Even the Chair of the Citizen’s Nominating Committee thanked me for helping to get the word out about the write-in campaign, rally voters and increase awareness of Village government. No one had ever imagined that over 1,000 people would vote.
So why the mistrust of Village officials to run and tally votes in a Village election? Why the attempts to discredit the website and the personal attacks against me?
Where did all of this begin? There must be more to the story. If you have clues please post them here. Everything I find out you will read on Scarsdale10583.
Another Burglary, Two Arrests and Potholes from the Scarsdale Police
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Residents of the Grange continue to be plagued by burglars. This week residents at 14 Park Road returned home on the night of 3/11 to find that a rear glass door had been forced open. The glass was shattered and there was a pry mark on the frame. The owners believed they had turned the alarm on however police had not received an alert. The master bedroom was tossed and the owners completed a list of missing items. It appears that the vandals left the house via the front door.
Arrests: Jennifer Sledzinski age 24 of Yonkers was caught speaking on her cell phone while driving on Boulevard Road at 6:24 pm on 3/11. Police stopped her and checked her license and found that it was suspended due to her failure to answer a summons on three dates. She was placed under arrest for aggravated unlicensed operation of a vehicle. Her car was parked on Webster Road and she was taken to police headquarters for booking.
On January 5th the Westchester ARC (Association for Retarded Children) reported that $4,661.09 was missing from the safe at the WARC residence at 1 Foxhall Road. After an investigation, the Scarsdale Police Department determined that a former manager of the residence, Deborah Alexander, age 57 of Dobbs Ferry was responsible for the theft. Ms. Alexander had resigned from her position shortly after the theft. After Identifying Ms. Alexander as the person who took the cash, the management of WARC elected not to press criminal charges, and sought to have the funds returned. WARC later contacted the investigating detective to advise that Ms. Alexander had failed to abide by the agreement to repay the funds, and could no longer be reached. A warrant was issued by the Scarsdale Justice Court, and Ms. Alexander, who had disconnected her phone and moved, was located by Scarsdale Detectives and arrested on Grand Larceny charges on March 9.
Rice Anyone? A Paddington Road man found a plastic bag containing cooked rice on his doorstep on the afternoon of March 7. The man had only recently moved to Scarsdale and did not believe there was any ill intent behind the deed. Police spoke to his neighbors and there were no witnesses.
Damage: The windows of a blue Mazda pickup parked in the driveway of a Brook Lane home were painted on the night of March 9. The Brook Lane home has been vacant and the truck has been parked there for some time.
Graffiti was marked on playground equipment at Hyatt Field in five places with a blue marker. The damage was noticed on the morning of 3/10.
Water, Water: A backed up sewer line continued to cause trouble on Barry Road on the morning of March 7. A resident reported that water and possibly sewage were rising up through the manhole at the end of the street.
Water was also reported coming from underneath the street at the intersection of Winward Lane and Harvest Drive on the morning of 3/8. The water department was called to the scene.
A Brewster Road woman called police on the morning of March 12 when a steady stream of water was flowing from a rear yard into her yard and onto her deck. The complainant notified her neighbors as well as the water department.
Falls: A Wayside Lane woman fell into a pothole on Spencer Place in front of Candy ‘N Cards on the evening of March 7. She injured her right ankle, which was swollen and bruised, but she did not want to call an ambulance.
A 79 year-old Garth Road woman tripped on a raised piece of bluestone at 6-10 Garth Road at 5 pm on March 8. She cut her upper lip and was taken to White Plains Hospital by SVAC.
Potholes: A Tory Lane woman rode over a pothole on Mamaroneck Road on March 9 and damaged her front tire. The owner of the car wanted to file a report for insurance purposes. Police placed a cone on the pothole and notified the Highway Department.
A High Point Lane woman came to police headquarters on the morning of 3/11 to report that she hit a pothole on Popham Road on the previous night and damaged both her front and back tires.
A Kolbert Drive man struck a pothole on Mamaroneck Road while driving his 2001 BMW on the evening of March 12. He got a flat tire and called AAA to change it. It appeared that the frame or car axle was damaged so the car was towed to Ted Hermann’s Auto Body shop.
Identity Theft: On March 7 a resident of Chateaux Circle called police when she discovered that someone was using her personal information on a website, claiming that she was selling an R.V. for $27,000. An unknown person used her debit card to place a $70 ad on onlinervusa.com claiming that the Scarsdale woman was selling the R.V. The woman even received a phone call from an interested purchaser. Consequently she cancelled her bankcard and was refunded the $70 by the website.
A Stonehouse Road woman came to police when she received a letter from her auto insurance company advising her that a 2010 Chrysler Town and Country had been added to her insurance policy and that her car had been dropped from the plan. The woman had not purchased the car and traced the purchase to the Chrysler Dealer on Central Avenue. The dealer provided her with the name and phone number of the man who had purchased the car. However, the car was not registered to her name at the DMV. Her insurance company corrected the error and believes it was a clerical mistake.
Police received a complaint from Herkimer Road woman on March 9 about phone calls from a collection agency. The collection agency was trying to recover a debt from the woman’s adult son who no longer lives with her. She gave the agency her son’s contact information and asked them to stop calling her.
Lost and Found: A Sycamore Road woman found a small gray dog on the afternoon of 3/9 and reported that she was taking the dog to her vet to see if it had an implanted ID chip. A few minutes later, the dog’s owner called to say the dog was missing and police put her in touch with the woman who had found the dog.
Greenburgh Police contacted Scarsdale Police at 6:30 am on March 11 to ask them to notify a Colvin Road woman of her husband’s whereabouts. The man had been taken to White Plains Hospital and police wanted to let his wife know where he was.
A homeless woman came to the back door of a home on Walworth Avenue at 1 am on March 11 asking for help. The residents called police who found the woman on the corner of Walworth and Greenacres Avenue. She identified herself as Kenya Tiny Flax and told police she had gotten into a cab at the White Plains station and asked to be taken to the Tuckahoe Motel. The driver dropped off another passenger and proceeded down Walworth and then told Flax that he did not know how to get to the Tuckahoe Motel and pulled the car over. The driver reached over into the backseat and Flax fled the cab and ran to the backdoor of the Walworth Avenue home where she banged on the door. Flax was unable to offer a description of the cab driver or the passenger. Police took her to dispatch and a cab from Blue Bird Cab drove her to the Tuckahoe Motel.
Dispute: Sheldrake Road residents called police on the night of March 10 about a verbal confrontation with their neighbor. Police spoke to both parties and were unable to determine who started the fight but were able to get both parties to agree to steer clear of each other.
County Plans to Close WestHELP
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According to Greenburgh Town Supervisor Paul Feiner, Westchester County plans to close down WestHELP, a facility in Greenburgh that supplies transitional housing and support to homeless families with pre-school age children. WestHELP opened in 1991 and has space for 108 families and provides essential services such as medical help, substance abuse support, employment services, daycare and more. In the last 20 years it has helped 2,400 families find permanent housing. The County plans to shut it down in September, 2011.
Before WestHELP was built, the county housed the homeless in local hotels, sometimes spending over $200 per night to put people up in hotels like the Rye Town Hilton. Since the New York State constitution requires the county to find shelter to house the homeless, closing WestHELP will simply cause the county to spend more money to find shelter. The shelter's daily rate is $92.27 per unit per day and the town of Greenburgh has received $1.2 million a year for rent under an agreement between the county and town. With the number of requests for food stamps on the rise and an increase in the number of foreclosures and evictions, Feiner contends that there is clearly a need for the facility.
In order to protest the closing, Feiner is calling on the Town Board to pass a resolution asking the county not to close down WestHELP. A meeting will be held on Monday night March 7th at Greenburgh Town Hall to rally for support of the facility.
Greenburgh Police Report
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Older Driver: An 87-year old New Rochelle man released the emergency brake on his 1999 Lexus, and it rolled through a guard rail and into a retaining wall at 313 South Central Avenue on the afternoon of March 1. The driver, Abraham Locitzer was not hurt but $6,000 in damage was done to his car.
Thefts: Two men entered the T-Mobile Store on North Central Avenue around 5 pm on March 1 and made off with four pre-paid cell phones and four blue tooth head sets. The store manager reported that one man exited the store with the goods while the other distracted the manager. When the manager realized what had happened, he confronted the suspect who was still in the store and the man fled and got into the driver’s seat of a black Nissan Versa that was parked in the Verizon lot. The manager noticed that there was a pit bull in the back seat of the car.
At 6:30 pm on March 1 at Trader Joe’s a confused cashier gave a customer $41.03 change from a $50 bill. The crafty customer convinced the cashier that she had made an error and asked for his $50 back so that could start the transaction again. After she returned the bill, the customer fled the store with the bill and the change in his pocket. On March 2nd, a man stole some baked goods from the loading dock of Trader Joe’s. The goods were to be sent to a local food pantry. The man fled in a black Honda CRV.
At TJ Maxx on the evening of March 4, two Stamford, CT men were caught stealing a cell phone case and a belt. The surveillance camera caught them cutting the tags off the items. They were arrested for larceny and possession of burglar tools.
On March 7 Michael Bonetti of Wilson Street Hartsdale reported that $7,900 had been withdrawn from his Chase account
without his authorization. The withdrawals began after he used an ATM Machine at Apple Farm on Route 119 on February 24. All of the withdrawals were made using his PIN number.
Disputes: On the night of 3/1 a 24 year-old woman who lives at Shaw Place in Hartsdale got into a fight with her brother and he kicked in the door to her room and broke the lock.
A Central Avenue woman received a threatening phone call from a former colleague at work who was terminated from her job. On March 5th she received a call from the disgruntled woman who instructed her to “look over her shoulder when she leaves work because (she) will be waiting for her.”
Damage: The owner of Mom and Pop’s Cigars at 119 South Central Avenue reported that someone had thrown acid on his 2011 Chevy Malibu when it was parked at the store on March 1. The liquid damaged the paint job on the car.
Predator: On Joyce Road in Hartsdale a little girl was approached by a man as she got off the school bus on the afternoon of March 3rd. The man asked her if she wanted a lollipop. She ran into her backyard to get away.
Meet the Mayor To Be
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If all goes as expected, Dr. Miriam Levitt Flisser, a 35-year resident of Scarsdale, will soon be the new Mayor of the Village. She has been selected as the Citizens Non-Partisan Party’s nominee and is running unopposed for the post.
We spoke with Dr. Flisser this week from her home off Popham Road, which Dr. Flisser told us is just 120 seconds by car from Village Hall – without speeding! Flisser is completing two terms as a Scarsdale Village Trustee and is a committed volunteer as well as a practicing physician.
She first visited Scarsdale many years ago when a medical school classmate who was raised here invited her to meet her family. Later, as a junior physician, she worked with several other doctors who encouraged her to move to Scarsdale due to the wonderful reputation of the schools. These doctors shared similar values with the Flissers, who raised three children here while Dr. Flisser’s husband taught in the Scarsdale schools. Her husband continues to teach in Scarsdale today, which keeps her up to date on parents’ concerns and school issues, though her own children have long since graduated.
When asked whether it would be difficult to juggle her professional responsibilities with the job of Mayor Flisser replied, “difficult yes, impossible, no.” She now has a private pediatric practice and also serves as the Medical Director for the Bronxville School District. In the past, she managed these jobs as well as volunteer positions at Lawrence Hospital where she served as the Chief of Pediatrics, President of the Medical Staff and as a member of the Board of Governors. Though these were time-consuming responsibilities, she was able to manage and feels that she knows how to approach the new time challenges she will face as Mayor.
As Village Trustee, Flisser served as the liaison to several Village Boards and is proud of the accomplishments of these Boards during her tenure. She shared several examples of progress that was made during the past few years and feels that her strength lies in facilitating change and improvement.
Flisser served as liaison to the Advisory Council on People with Disabilities and the group had been struggling to design a system to notify first responders of the presence of the disabled in Village homes. This would allow firefighters and police to be aware that people with special needs were present when an emergency occurred. Flisser reports that the system is now in place and people can register on the Village website.
In addition, she also served as liaison to the Advisory Council on Parks and Recreation and during this time they moved many administrative functions to the village website. Residents can now sign up and pay for recreation programs online. Flisser noticed that the parks were not being given the attention they warranted and focused the committee on inspecting Village parks and doing an inventory of repairs and updates that were needed. Due to this process some changes were made and a long-term plan for the parks is on the horizon. During this time, programming at the Weinberg Nature Center was improved and a system to send out attractive program notifications via email was put into place.
As the liaison to the Advisory Council on Technology, Flisser encouraged the staff to updated and improve the Village website. Interactive new features on Scarsdale.com now allow residents to buy parking permits and even pay their taxes online. A village-wide emergency notification system was also put in place and residents now can opt in to receive phone calls and emails. If you would like to sign up to receive notifications click here . All of these changes were made efficiently and without great expense.
During the past four years Flisser contends that she has helped Scarsdale residents to get things done – teaching them how to approach problems and change their situation with the village to make improvements. In the next two years she plans to continue to represent the citizens of Scarsdale and is eager to hear your concerns. She encourages residents to attend Village Board meetings, participate on Boards and Councils and express their views.
She also wants to encourage everyone to vote for the Trustees and Mayor on March 15th. By voting, Scarsdale residents can express their support for the non-partisan system and give their leaders the mandate to govern. The Scarsdale Village election for Mayor and Trustees will be held on March 15, 2011 at Scarsdale Village Hall from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. and noon to 9 p.m.
