Luzio Was Never Suspected of Involvement in Mt. Kisco Forged Petition Allegation
Opinion Advocates for ideas and draws conclusions based on the author/producer’s interpretation of facts and data.
By Judith Sage
Regrettably, I am unable to support the candidates currently running on the Democratic line this November in Mount Kisco. I will be voting for the three candidates from the Independent Inclusive Party: Mike Cindrich, a retired law enforcement professional; Theresa Flora, a retired nurse; and Angie Guerra, a teacher.
This is a very difficult and challenging time to try to be a committed Democratic citizen and voter in the Village of Mount Kisco. I would like to share my personal experience as a Mount Kisco Democratic district leader who actively participated in Tom Luzio’s Democratic primary campaign for mayor against Lisa Abzun.
Luzio had been endorsed by the village’s Democratic Committee district leaders, 6-3. (The committee’s chair, William Serratore, had abstained from voting to endorse either candidate.)
At the onset of Luzio’s primary campaign, I participated, along with Tom and many others, in a Zoom presentation by the Westchester County Board of Elections regarding the rules of petitioning. Tom and I both heard during that Zoom that if a candidate were collecting his or her own petition signatures to get on the ballot, it would be important to have a witness present with them, to sign as signature witness, in case challenges to any signatures might arise.
Thereafter, Tom never collected a signature without a witness present. I myself was that witness for many, if not a majority, of those signatures. As has been accurately reported on this subject, Tom personally collected many more than the required number of signatures to be placed on the Democratic primary ballot.
I personally witnessed that Tom was steadfast in his adherence to rules for petition signature collection. On our first day out, Tom and I encountered a paid hire for the Lisa Abzun campaign, carrying a stack of petitions door to door near Tom’s home. We asked this young man who he was carrying petitions for, and he responded that he was carrying them for “a stack of Democrats.”
Tom then became instantly aware, before he had himself collected any signatures, that many registered Democrats could be signing petitions without any knowledge of who the actual Democratic-endorsed candidate for mayor was, given the misleading statement being used. We later learned from many voters whose doors we knocked on that a phrase “collecting for the Democrats” was being used by everyone who collected petition signatures on Abzun’s behalf.
Many of these voters told us that they had been under the impression that they were signing petitions for Democratic candidates running against Republicans in a general election, when they signed those Abzun petitions “for the Democrats.”
Walking with Tom Luzio, I watched close by as Tom knocked on hundreds of doors. In each case Tom did the exact opposite of the above misrepresentation. He advised every voter that he was the candidate endorsed by the Democratic Committee, and then also emphasized that this was a Democratic primary race for mayor. He explained carefully that Democrats could only sign petitions for one Democratic primary candidate.
As a result of many statements Abzun made on social media and in interviews, suggesting erroneously that Tom Luzio personally had participated in collecting forged petition signatures, I, like Tom, was contacted by law enforcement. Like Tom, I cooperated fully with the investigation.
Abzun has known from the beginning of the investigation she initiated that no petition signature collected by Luzio was under any suspicion relative to the possibility of forgery. She has known all along that Tom Luzio has never been under investigation in this matter. Abzun knew that Tom Luzio has had a stellar decades-long career as a prosecutor and public servant. She further has known that Tom Luzio is in private practice now, and that his livelihood could be damaged by her misleading social media posts and statements to the press falsely implying criminality on his part. Yet she coldheartedly proceeded to seek a primary win, whatever it took.
If you embrace the values of democracy, and are appalled by the Dominion and Ruby Freeman and Shea Moss defamatory behavior involved when they were falsely accused of election fraud, then you would never consider voting for Abzun – or for any elected Democrat who has failed to speak up on behalf of a lifetime public servant this election smear. Abzun knew very well that her primary opponent Tom Luzio was never at any time under investigation for a crime of any kind.
Mount Kisco resident Judith Sage is a Democratic district leader in her home village.
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