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Published: 09 October 2013

Created: 09 October 2013

Last Updated: 09 October 2013

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With election day just weeks away, campaign signs have sprung up on lawns around town. This year the incumbent County Executive Rob Astorino who is a Republican will be challenged by Democrat and Mayor of New Rochelle Noam Bramson. Bramson is a New Rochelle native who graduated from New Rochelle High, went onto college at Harvard where he earned his undergrad degree in just three years and then got a Masters Degree in Public Policy. He has served as Mayor of New Rochelle since 2006 and has attracted private investment to the central business district to create jobs and growth. Bramson, who is 43 years old, lives in New Rochelle with his wife, who is a physician, and their two boys.

With Democrats outnumbering Republicans in the Count by almost two to one, Bramson has good odds of unseating incumbent Rob Astorino. However, this is a race to watch: We asked Bramson what his election could mean for Scarsdale and here is what he shared. (Similar questions were sent to the Astorino campaign and we await a response).

1) Though 20% of our local taxes are paid to Westchester County, many in Scarsdale are not aware of what the County Government does here in the Village. Can you tell our readers how the County impacts Scarsdale and what changes we would see if you are elected?

Regardless of whether someone is personally served by the social services the County provides on a day-to-day basis, County government impacts everyone in Westchester. County government can and should serve as a regional leader promoting more efficient government – something I'll get into in more detail below – which can directly lower Scarsdale's local taxes and school taxes. Both Saxon Woods Park and the Bronx River Trailway in Scarsdale are also County Parks, while the Bee Line bus system is also run by the County.

The County can also choose which programs to prioritize, which can have major impacts on both the County's direct budget and the budgets of local municipalities. Programs like child care and community health centers both improve the lives of local residents in every single town, village, and city in Westchester and save taxpayers money in the long run by helping people hold jobs and stay healthy. They've been cut in the last four years, and by reinstating and making them priorities again we can have incredible impacts on people's lives and everyone's wallets.

The County can also serve as a leader on issues bigger than any village or town that are still vitally important to us. We should be taking part in regional and national sustainability planning groups that Westchester is conspicuously absent from. We should be working to shore up a woman's right to choose whenever it's under attack by passing laws like the clinic access bill that Rob Astorino vetoed. We should be working to promote safer streets by banning gun shows from County Property – as they were for a decade before Rob took office.

Regardless of whether it's apparent to everyone every day, County Government is impacting Scarsdale residents all the time.

2) Your plan of action says you will "create a new regional framework for sharing services, so that municipalities and schools can work together to save money." Scarsdale Village Government is efficiently run but challenged to cover rising costs with shrinking revenues. What do you hope to do to provide relief?

At a press conference last week, I laid out a detailed plan for how I would provide municipalities like Scarsdale choices to opt into when it comes to shared services. We need shared services to be a full time job for the County Executive, not something that is put on the back burner and dusted off right before an election. This leadership hasn't been present the last four years. That's one big reason why our total property tax burden is up by more than $800,000,000 since Rob Astorino was elected.
That's why I presented a detailed timeline for how I would make expanding shared services a reality. On Day One, I'd provide leadership by establishing shared services as a top priority and assigning a commissioner-level staff member to spearhead the effort.

By April 2014, after my first four months in office, we'd be forging expanded partnerships between county and local leaders. That starts with collaborative discussions with municipal and school officials where we'd work to identify our priorities and opportunities. We would by that point have convened a leadership working group, and would have applied for NY State Local Government Efficiency Grants that we haven't sought under Rob Astorino.

We would follow that up by building out a structure for inter-municipal agreements by July 2014. It's imperative that we give local leaders something to say yes to and figure out what an equitable cost-benefit formula is for these projects.

By September 2014, we'd be working with municipalities and school districts to get them to opt-in to potential programs. That way, we'd save money and provide better service in the 2015 budget and beyond – the first years I'd have authority over. Taxpayers would save money overall, and the County itself would spend no more than it does today.
A strong shared services program would present Scarsdale with clear opportunities to partner with neighboring municipalities, school districts, and the County government on projects like road resurfacing, back office IT, payroll distribution, flood mitigation, fleet maintenance, sustainability planning, and arts and cultural planning. By promoting sharing services within County government, we can also cut costs at the County level.

3) An EPA lawsuit has charged that Water District #1 is not in compliance with the Safe Water Drinking Act. What do you plan to do to address this issue? Who will pay for the new water treatment infrastructure?

It is completely unacceptable that, thanks to Rob Astorino's failure to lead, we've now been out of compliance with the Safe Drinking Water Act for nearly 550 days. I also take strong exception to his efforts to pass the buck for his own failures down to impacted municipalities, including Scarsdale, by trying to force them to clean up his mess.

This situation was completely avoidable. We've known of the County's obligation to act since 2006, and under Rob's predecessor we'd started to plan for how to meet our legal requirements. That planning slammed to a halt when Rob took office, and as a result we're now facing fines of more than $22,000,000 – with more added every day.

There clearly appear to be potentially acceptable alternatives to the most expensive treatment options that have been discussed. We should be negotiating with Federal officials today to implement those solutions as quickly as possible. Instead, Rob's administration is once again engaged in fruitless and pointless litigation that will cost us untold dollars of taxpayer money without getting us any closer to a solution.

This is part of a pattern of extremism and neglect. Rather than working together, Rob let's his ideological opposition to the Federal Government lead us into battles we can't win and shouldn't be having in the first place. Under a Bramson administration, you can be sure we'll follow the Safe Drinking Water Act.

4) County Government has been hampered by partisan fights over issues such as affordable housing and the county budget. What do you plan to do to end the discord?

We can start by committing to a constructive, working relationship. Before Rob Astorino took office, Westchester had never seen the kind of pitched, partisan warfare that's become commonplace over the past four years. I think you can trace the origins of those battles to the fact that Rob is pursuing a strategy on issue after issue that's straight out of the Tea Party playbook that House Republicans just used to shut down the Federal Government.

5) Westchester recently lost out on $7.4 million in community development grants because the county failed to comply with the terms of the affordable housing settlement. Do you think these funds are lost? Is there anything the County can do to recoup them?

Unfortunately, due to Rob Astorino's intransigence and incompetence the funds have been lost for good. There was absolutely no reason that this had to be the case, though, and I'll make sure it isn't the case going forward with the tens of millions more that are at risk. The issues that exist between Westchester County and the Federal Government cried out for constructive, thoughtful leadership. These were problems that could be bridged if we stopped yelling and communicating via press release, and instead sat down around a table and started talking. Instead of taking a constructive approach, though, Rob Astorino has waged an outright war. That is absolutely the wrong approach, and it was completely unnecessary.

I have my own problems with the Affordable Housing settlement, but Rob Astorino is engaged in a massive campaign of public deception about what's really required by the settlement. Rob Astorino says our affordable housing obligation has gon up by 10,000 units; not true. Rob Astorino says the cost has increased to $1 billion; not true. Rob Astorino says HUD is demanding we put a high rise apartment building on every block; fanciful, and not true at all. Let's stop the scare tactics, and deal with the real challenges we're facing in the real world. That way, we won't lose millions of dollars more for no reason.

6) During your tenure as Mayor of New Rochelle what accomplishments are you most proud of? How will you use what you learned in New Rochelle to make improvements in Westchester?

New Rochelle has faced tough problems head on. When I became a City Councilmember nearly two decades ago, New Rochelle was facing some very serious problems. While we haven't completely solved every issue in our city, we're on the right track and making enormous progress. We've attracted hundreds of millions of dollars in private investment to our downtown, saving taxpayers a net of $8.5 million a year, while bringing good jobs back into our city center.
We've worked immensely hard to keep taxes low while providing vital services, and because of those efforts New Rochelle has the lowest municipal tax rate of any big city in Westchester and the leanest municipal workforce in our modern history. Taxpayers in New Rochelle are getting a better deal than taxpayers in any other similar city in Westchester.

At the same time, we've been tackling vital priorities. We passed GreeNR, an award-winning sustainability plan, and have brought crime down more than 40% from where it was when I took office. The citizens of New Rochelle are generally happy and satisfied, which is why I was honored to receive a record-setting 79% of the vote in my last re-election campaign.

7) How do you propose to limit gun sales in Westchester and enforce gun control?

Step one is reinstating the ban on gun shows at the County Center. One of Rob Astorino's first acts in office was to end a decade long ban on gun shows in Westchester. Gun shows are notorious for lax or non-existent background checks; Attorney Genera Eric Schneiderman recently conducted an undercover investigation and found that many unscrupulous sellers weren't conducting legally required background checks. By bringing gun shows back to Westchester, Rob has made it easier for criminals and the dangerously mentally ill to acquire firearms, and that's just wrong. I'll reinstate the ban on gun shows at the County Center, and work with the County Legislature to implement a permanent ban.