Former North Castle Employee Proposes Ward System for Town
A former longtime North Castle employee is planning a petition drive to place a proposition on the November ballot asking voters to decide whether the town should switch to a ward system of government.
Anthony Futia, the town’s ex-water and sewer superintendent and lifelong North White Plains resident, said he expects to gather enough valid signatures from town residents in the coming weeks to have the referendum before the public this fall.
He said the absence of North White Plains and Banksville residents on the board and the current and former town board’s refusal to address key issues such as escalating salaries among the municipality’s employees has prompted him to seek the change. The five current members of the town board live in Armonk.
“There’s two parts of town not being represented,” said Futia, who ran unsuccessfully last September for the Democratic nomination for supervisor. “I think another problem is that the people on the board should be closer to the people. I think it could be better.”
Under the system, the town would be divided into wards or districts with roughly equal population. Each district would each have a representative on the town board. All five town board seats are now at-large positions voted on by all North Castle voters.
Futia said he would need to collect signatures totaling 5 percent of the turnout in North Castle during the last gubernatorial election, which was in 2010. While he didn’t have an exact number of valid signatures he would need, Futia estimated that it would be a couple of hundred signatures but planned to get two to three times that number.
According to the Office of General Counsel for the Department of State, only 11 of New York State’s 932 towns use the ward system.
In 2011, several residents in the Town of New Castle managed to get a similar referendum on the ballot, fueled largely by discontent that there were no residents from Millwood or the west end on the board. The proposition was soundly defeated.
Three current town board members, Barbara DiGiacinto, Stephen D’Angelo and Barry Reiter, said they would like to learn more about the ward system. State law stipulates that the Board of Elections would determine the boundaries of the district should the proposition be approved, according to the Department of State’s Office of General Counsel.
DiGiacinto said she needs to do more research before giving an opinion but said she wasn’t certain if it is needed to improve representation from other areas of town.
“Residents from North White Plains can run for a town board seat now or a Banksville resident can run,” DiGiacinto said. “What better example than Jack Lombardi.”
Lombardi served as the town’s supervisor for 44 years and was a North White Plains resident.
If a proposition would be approved in November, the terms of all sitting council members would end by the end of 2015. The supervisor’s position would remain an at-large position.
Futia said while it is his preference to have a ward system, it would ultimately be up to North Castle voters. He would like them to have a chance to register where they stand.
“It’s up to the residents of the town,” Futia said. “I think it would be good for Banksville and North White Plains because they’re different than the other areas.”
Martin has more than 30 years experience covering local news in Westchester and Putnam counties, including a frequent focus on zoning and planning issues. He has been editor-in-chief of The Examiner since its inception in 2007. Read more from Martin’s editor-author bio here. Read Martin’s archived work here: https://www.theexaminernews.com/author/martin-wilbur2007/
