Reader Responds to Keith on Affordable Housing

Dear Editor:

On September 24, Suzanna Keith, the Republican and Conservative candidate for County Legislator in district 7, in which she criticizes her opponent Judy Myers for being absent from a meeting to discuss the County’s affordable housing settlement.

The truth is Suzanna had little or no interest in, or understanding of, the Affordable Housing Settlement until she decided to bail on her sworn role as Rye councilwoman –inexplicably and barely a year into her first term– and run for higher office. Yet here she is supposedly making points such as “The settlement lacked concrete definitions to cap the County’s financial exposure.”

Although Suzanna is working furiously to memorize the Republican / Conservative script, parroting talking points about county taxes and protecting taxpayers, Mamaroneck and Harrison voters should know how well she advocated for taxpayers as a PTO co-president in 2009 when she backed the teachers’ union candidates for Rye school board.

Anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of property taxes in Westchester knows that school taxes are more than 50% higher than our local taxes or county taxes combined. All the tax increases for which Keith accuses Myers of being responsible during her entire time in public service would be dwarfed by the hit Rye would have taken on our property taxes had the teachers union sat on both sides of that negotiating table for one contract settlement.

That fact didn’t stop Suzanna from backing the UFT slate of candidates– then lying about it. She wasn’t thinking about the harm to the schools or the taxpayers, whom she’d abandoned prematurely in anticipation of her as yet unannounced bid for a city council seat. The votes she hoped to gain from the small minority who backed the losing slate blinded her to the fundamental issue of supporting our elected board as they stood firm against the union’s notorious tactics.

What fiscal conservative wants the teachers’ union controlling their school board? Did Suzanna Keith even understand the fiscal consequences of her behavior -- or was she only thinking short term about votes for herself in the next race? That is no way to defend the interests of Westchester’s taxpayers.

Charmian Neary, Rye