Majority of Yorktown Board Opposes DPW Referendum
Yorktown Town Supervisor Michael Grace has support from three of his fellow Town Board members in opposing a November referendum that would eliminate the town’s elected highway supervisor position in favor of an appointed public-works director.
Councilmen Terrence Murphy, Nick Bianco, and Dave Paganelli all said Monday that the grassroots Yorktown Citizens for a DPW failed to convince them of the benefits of the change at a special Town Board meeting held solely for that purpose on July 25.
In separate phone interviews, Murphy, Bianco and Paganelli said the committee’s presentation that night fell short, both in terms of their expectations and the facts.
“They didn’t make their case,” said Murphy.
“I spoke to the comptroller [Joan Cavorti Goldberg] afterward,” added Bianco, “and their numbers just didn’t add up.”
“Barring the fact that I don’t think it’ll save money, I think it will impact services in a negative way, not in a positive way,” said Paganelli.
Bianco and Paganelli said they planned to issue statements on the matter at the board’s Tuesday, Aug. 7 work session, which is scheduled for 6 p.m. at Downing Park.
Also reached for comment Monday, Councilman Vishnu Patel reiterated his stance that the public should have the right to vote on the issue. However, when asked whether he thought the voters have enough facts to make an informed decision, Patel replied, “No.”
Last Friday, Grace issued a lengthy, detailed written analysis of his opposition to the proposal, and also devoted an entire segment of his community-affairs TV show, “Grace Notes,” to the topic. “Grace Notes” airs on the Yorktown Government Channel (Cablevision 20, FiOS 33) several times a day.
The July 25 presentation by the pro-DPW group featured two proposed reconfigurations of the town’s operations to show how the switch to a DPW could result in a significant savings. But Grace said Friday that neither of those proposed reconfigurations would save the town money; if anything, he said, they would result in a higher cost to the taxpayers.
On his television show, Grace said he does not take lightly the matter of putting any issue up for public referendum. He said if residents, believing the change would result in a cost savings, were to approve the ballot question proposed by the DPW committee, they could find themselves regretting their decision in hindsight.
DPW committee member and former town supervisor Susan Siegel, who was in the audience for the taping of the TV show at Town Hall, later issued a rebuttal from the committee via email, which read, in part:
“Yorktown Citizens for a DPW is, and has been, asking that voters be given an opportunity to vote on the concept of a DPW, not a finished, set in stone, DPW organizational plan. … As we tried to explain on July 25, we are, and have always been, presenting the DPW as an organizational framework for the future that would enable the Town to deliver services more efficiently and save taxpayer dollars. Regrettably, Supervisor Grace was not able to distinguish a concept plan from a full blown plan ready to be implemented tomorrow.”
Adam has worked in the local news industry for the past two decades in Westchester County and the broader Hudson Valley. Read more from Adam’s author bio here.
