Election Scare Tactics Won’t Serve the Town of New Castle Well
By Andrew Dorfman
When my family moved to Chappaqua, our decision was driven both by the house we had found and the quality of the high school.
However, while Horace Greeley mostly received very high grades on websites like Niche, we were troubled by its one glaring low mark: diversity. Whereas African Americans make up 14.2 percent of the country’s population, at Horace Greeley they total .8 percent of the student body. At the time, I naïvely assumed that New Castle was simply reflective of an unjust nationwide economic system that disadvantages people of color, making housing in the suburbs unaffordable for many.
However, if the recent controversy about the Form Based Code in New Castle has taught me anything, it’s that this kind of inequality doesn’t just happen, it’s the result of a conscious and longstanding effort throughout Westchester to exclude those who can’t afford $1 million-plus homes. It’s called exclusionary zoning, and it’s foundational to the racial injustice that’s been tearing at the seams of our nation.
Here in New Castle, the battle dates back to the landmark 1975 state Supreme Court decision, Berenson v. New Castle, in which the exclusionary nature of our zoning made national news.
There were reasonable discussions to be had about whether a form-based code was the correct choice for revitalization of North Greeley. Would establishing a pre-determined set of universally allowable construction parameters be a better path toward revitalization than the current system, which requires one-to-one negotiations for every developer and every project?
Would mixed-use, which allows retail on the ground floor and residential housing above, create more foot traffic for existing businesses than the current system, which segregates all development by land use? All valid questions, worthy of exploration and debate.
Instead, what transpired was something completely different. Mailers, designed by nationally-known Republican adversarial political consulting firms like BrabenderCox, the firm that previously worked for Mike Pence, arrived daily in the mailboxes of residents warning that New Castle was in danger of “becoming another Westchester city filled with apartment buildings,” “urbanization” and our schools being “ruined” by the new students who would be brought in by the zoning change.
These racist dog whistles, designed by Washington insiders, displayed on slickly produced mailers and funded by a well-financed campaign that, according to its own disclosures, derived 40 percent of its funding from two families in the business of billion-dollar real-estate development, frightened the average resident, who knew little about the actual code change proposed for the six neglected blocks on North Greeley.
The recipients of these mailers weren’t racist, of course, but seeing daily apocalyptic warnings about their town, taxes and schools convinced enough of them to play it safe. Unfortunately, given the anemic level of participation in local elections, it didn’t take much for this disinformation campaign to tip the scales. Although the election felt like an epic battle to the candidates and their closest allies, it was fought and won with the participation of only 36 percent of New Castle residents.
An ugly line was crossed in bringing national political consulting firms, accustomed to using hardball tactics that value outcome over honesty, into a small-town election. Unfortunately, the success of this cynical strategy carries a very real danger that we could see more of the same in the future. No matter who we each supported in this election, we shouldn’t welcome professional disinformation experts’ interference in the ability of our residents to make informed choices on the merits.
One of the most unfortunate ironies of the negative campaign relates to the narrative that a zoning change would’ve hurt Chappaqua’s schools. Experienced college advisers tell me that the negative opinions I had read about Horace Greeley’s diversity on websites that review the nation’s high schools, such as Niche and U.S. News & World Report, are also shared by admission departments at top U.S. colleges, who make diversity a top priority. Their perception of Greeley’s student body as racially homogenous and privileged does our students no favors in the college application process, and yet, some of the loudest voices defending the existing exclusionary zoning use the quality of our schools as a bludgeon to beat back progress.
It’s ironic in the worst possible way.
Chappaqua resident Andrew Dorfman volunteered on the recent New Castle Democrats’ campaign.
Examiner Media – Keeping you informed with professionally-reported local news, features, and sports coverage.
