Astorino Says County Aspires to do What Edgemont Has Done

County Executive Robert P. Astorino said last night at the annual meeting of the Edgemont Community Council that Westchester County is going through the tough times right now that Edgemont went through five years ago when it took steps to end runaway spending and spiraling taxes.

Speaking before a crowd of more than 80 people at the Greenville Elementary School, which included School Superintendent Nancy Taddiken, Astorino praised Edgemont’s school district leaders for having the foresight years before anyone else to make the hard decisions on what to save and what to cut. He compared Edgemont’s decision to eliminate the elementary school bus service to its Greenridge neighborhood that the district had been providing for decades with his own controversial decision to eliminate an express bus that runs along Central Avenue to Manhattan. “I know you in Edgemont know how difficult it can be to cut buses. Believe me I know,” Astorino said.

Astorino said there was a $166 million shortfall in the county’s budget, that the county would have to raise taxes by 30% to balance the budget, that he was sticking to his campaign pledge of no tax hikes, and that, as a result, the county had no choice but to cut spending. He said Westchester County had the dubious distinction of being the highest taxed county in the United States for two years running and vowed to “take Westchester out of medals contention” in that category.

Astorino repeated his call for a 15% across the board contribution to health insurance by all 5,600 county employees, a number of whom, he said, would have to be layed off. He said that county employees currently pay nothing for heath insurance which for each family plan costs county taxpayers $22,000 annually.

Astorino said he was reaching out to everyone in the county to get ideas on how to economize and cut costs. He said he had recently met with Edgemont resident and New York City hospital executive John Sganga to discuss ways in which the county could reduce spending at Westchester Medical Center. He also said he had met with a number of the county’s school superintendents, including Edgemont’s Taddiken, to discuss ways in which the county would work with the school districts to reduce their own spending.

“We all serve the same taxpayers,” Astorino said, “We just provide different services.” He added that the idea of county leaders meeting with school officials was once like mixing “church and state” but no longer.

Astorino was introduced by ECC president Bob Bernstein who first met Astorino last year at a Republican fundraising event held at the home of Edgemont residents Ken and Helene Orce. Bernstein, who is chair of the Edgemont Democratic Party, said he had never before attended a Republican event and that for him, “It was like eating ham on Yom Kippur – it was something I just didn’t do.”

Astorino said his message of controlling taxing and spending had bipartisan support and pointed out that in the general election last fall, he won both Scarsdale and Edgemont, where Democrats have long enjoyed a substantial edge in voter registration.

In other business last night, the ECC honored longtime Edgemont resident and Citigroup CFO John Gerspach with the Silver Bowl Award for distinguished community service. Gerspach was introduced by Silver Bowl committee member Geoff Loftus, who recited Gerspach’s long list of community activities, describing him as “tireless and indefatigable.”

The ECC membership also re-elected Bob Bernstein as president for a fourth successive one-year term, after passing a bylaw amendment waiving the ECC’s term limits provision that limited service as president to three successive one-year terms. ECC directors are still subject, however, to a six-year term limit provision.

In addition, the ECC adopted a second bylaw amendment to give the ECC greater flexibility in appointing residents to serve on the School Board Nominating Committee, which is sponsored by the ECC. Most SBNC representatives are supposed to be selected individually by Edgemont’s eight civic associations during their respective annual meetings. However, in recent years, certain of the civic associations did not hold annual meetings and, as a result, no one from their associations were eligible to serve. The bylaw change allows the ECC directors to fill such vacancies from residents who live in areas where civic associations are inactive.

Bernstein explained that the ECC appointments would be for one year only and that if any previously inactive civic associations held their annual meetings in time to appoint SBNC representatives in time to serve in the fall of any year when the SBNC becomes active, the ECC would in each case let the civic associations decide who was to serve from their areas.

“We want our SBNC membership to be as inclusive and as diversified as we can make it. Everyone from throughout Edgemont should be represented. And no one should be disenfranchised from serving because his or her civic association happened to be inactive that year,” Bernstein said. SBNC members are required to attend at least three school board meetings before they may participate in SBNC deliberations.

The four school board candidates who received this year’s SBNC endorsement for the four open positions – Gerry Stoughton, Tom McCormack, David Stern and David Chao were all introduced at the meeting. A fifth candidate, who is running without the SBNC endorsement, did not attend the meeting.