Local Politics: Showing Up and Knowing

Last week the candidates for office in the Village of Tuckahoe held a Candidate Forum for the first time in over a decade. Candidate Forums and debates are critical to the election process as it allows the voting public to understand key differences in candidate’s platforms, understand their knowledge/experience base and how about how they go about solving problems. It also gives view to how communicative candidates are, an important skill since they have to communicate effectively and frequently to be good at their job. I commend everyone who showed up, the entire Democratic ticket, the Bipartisan candidate and the Republican Mayoral Candidate. If you cannot make this relatively easy commitment, how will you ever be able to commit to the people you represent while in office? So where were the two Republican Trustee candidates? Danny Lang didn’t deem it necessary to reply to the invitation from the League of Women Voters and Claudia DeMaio-Francis was unable to participate due to some medical condition which would prevent her from partaking in a candidate forum, but not from campaigning or serving office.

So that is the showing up piece, or part of it anyway. Another important criteria for sitting in office should be the ability to understand the basics of how local governments run. Joseph “Scooter” Scott did not seem to understand how municipal budgets are funded. During the forum he kept saying that one has to bring more businesses into the village but did not connect how this would impact the budget. He seemed to think it could offset taxes, but no explanation was given. The first issue with his stance is that there are very few open storefronts in Tuckahoe because under the Andino administration there have been an unprecedented number of businesses that have moved into the village. Does he think that somehow businesses give money directly to the village (they do not, though they pay property tax), does he think we would get an advantage of sales tax (that passes through to the village from overall state and county collected sales tax based on a formula that has nothing to do with the number of businesses in the village), what does he think? We don’t know.

He mocked the current Mayor, Omayra Andino, for bringing in 2 million dollars of grant money to improve infrastructure including sewers, traffic signals, and playgrounds. Prior to Mayor Andino taking her office no grants had been applied for in nearly a decade under Republican leadership leading to a lack of upkeep of Tuckahoe infrastructure. Scooter seemed to think this was not a legitimate way to bring money to the budget to offset local tax increases. He further derided her experience as a CEO of a nonprofit, suggesting this was not a useful background for a Mayor when it is the exact background necessary. Our government is for all intents and purposes a nonprofit. Residents decide what services they want, and then pay taxes so the municipality can provide them. Mayor Andino has done an incredible job of finding alternative revenue streams such as grants and increased revenue for film permits by attracting the film industry to Tuckahoe even as revenues from parking were decimated due to the Covid pandemic. This has helped defray putting the entire burden of increasing costs for maintaining our police, DPW and library on taxpayers. This year taxes increased only about $145 per household. Meanwhile over 30% of Tuckahoe Streets have been paved in the last two years, the bond rating has been raised to AA+ (Scooter also indicated he did not understand the importance of bond ratings in the forum), playgrounds have been revived, and community participation is at an all-time high as evidenced by impactful committees and village events with unprecedented attendance.

Besides rehanging Hometown Heros Banners (albeit only those for Veterans - no other heroes are worth recognition apparently) he has no plan and gives no indication that he understands what a Mayor does or how government operates. He has never shown up for Village Budget meetings and rarely shows up for community events, and when he showed up to the Tuckahoe Challenge Road Race to politic and cross the race finish line – he didn’t even bother to register for the race or make a donation to support the race beneficiary. So, in the end a candidate that states he wants to bring the community together has spread only rhetoric and fear. He neither shows up regularly or knows the basics about the office. The Republicans have repeatedly put up the same candidates in Tuckahoe, year after year, yet they have learned nothing in the process. Scooter Scott has run for Trustee, County Clerk, and now Mayor of Tuckahoe and has never familiarized himself with the particulars of any of these positions. Seems to me what he really likes is running for office, maybe his theatrical background has got the best of him.

I hope the fine residents of Tuckahoe will vote to keep Mayor Andino and Trustees Taylor and Gaccione in their seats and working for Tuckahoe and moving us forward as their record clearly demonstrates they are capable of doing.