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Published: 18 October 2012

Created: 18 October 2012

Last Updated: 18 October 2012

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The following letter was submitted by Bob Cohen, a former Scarsdale resident and candidate for the NYS Senate in the 37th District: Dear Scarsdalians: Two years ago, a large plurality of you voted to elect me to the New York State Senate. That race continued until mid-December 2010, when I conceded to incumbent state senator Suzi Oppenheimer, who is retiring after her current term. The race was a wonderful experience, and I was grateful for all the support I received throughout it, including from Mayor Mike Bloomberg and The New York Times.

Running for political office was the last thing I ever expected to do. I had been semi-active in Scarsdale civic life for years -- I am still a Scarsdale volunteer firefighter -- but running for elected office was, in my estimation, something only politicians do. I am a lifelong businessman.

Property taxes and Albany dysfunction changed all that for me.

Like you, I began to see close friends moving out of Westchester, one by one, because of totally unreasonable property taxes. At the same time, I saw the children of friends moving to other states to settle down because Westchester had become unaffordable. Seniors -- people I had known for 20 years -- began packing up and leaving because their property taxes had become like second mortgages, doubling and in some cases tripling in a little more than a decade.

I saw the same politicians running for office year after year, virtually unchallenged. They had become more concerned, it seemed, with the special interests and union bosses in Albany than with their own constituents -- to wit, the insane property tax hikes and years of irresponsible pension giveaways.

Something needed to be done.

Working with like-minded fiscal reformers, I became one of Westchester’s chief advocates for a property tax cap, which in 2011 Governor Cuomo signed into law. It was a strong step forward, and it saved Westchester taxpayers more than $102 million in the first year that it’s been in effect.

Coupled with mandate relief, the Cuomo Tax Cap will bring fiscal sanity back to an area rapidly losing its middle class, which was once the backbone of this county. Governor Cuomo then bravely passed pension reform -- the Tier 6 Pension Bill -- to lower pension costs on counties like Westchester and municipalities like Scarsdale. The Cuomo bill will save taxpayers upwards of $80 billion over the next three decades!

I decided to run for state senate this year to help Governor Cuomo and other bipartisan fiscal reformers continue the tax relief agenda. I am now living across the street in New Rochelle -- Scarsdale is sadly in another district -- and running against a 20-year politician who voted against Governor Cuomo’s property tax cap, and he voted absent on the Governor’s crucial pension reform bill.

This elected official -- I’ll be polite and not name him -- has walked in lockstep with the state unions for many years, which is fine, but unaffordable. The state teacher’s union, which is going to court to try to block the Cuomo Tax Cap, is his biggest contributor, reportedly handing him hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign cash according to the Journal News.

Barbara and I moved to Scarsdale because of its schools. We loved Scarsdale’s teachers and are grateful for the superb education our three children received. We were willing to pay higher taxes rates for those schools, but not the type of taxes that have pillaged the budgets of Scarsdale families in recent years -- and which have made so many move away.

These crazy-high property taxes exist not from necessity but from unfunded mandates, mismanagement, and profligacy in Albany. On top of that, Scarsdale students are badly shortchanged by the state school aid formula every year. Indeed, we receive less school aid per student than any district in America. We pay these usurious tax rates to compensate for that funding shortfall.

I am sorry I will miss you at the voting booth this year, but I trust I will see you in town or by the firehouse. Barbara and I miss you all.

In the meantime, if you have friends in my senate district (SD37) that agree with me on these tax and reform issues, please feel free to send them my way! My campaign website is www.bobcohen2012.com .

All my best wishes,

Bob Cohen

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Published: 22 October 2012

Created: 22 October 2012

Last Updated: 22 October 2012

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Campaign finance reform and the effect of PAC’s on the election process was the subject of discussion at the League of Women Voters of Scarsdale’s luncheon on Friday October 19 at Scarsdale Golf Club. Guest speaker Susan Lerner is a former trial lawyer who now serves as the Executive Director of Common Cause of New York. According to Lerner, "Big money has long dominated our elections, and the problem has only gotten worse after the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling in 2010, which paved the way for unlimited amounts of corporate money in our elections. Common Cause New York is working for campaign finance reforms that will help bring government back to the people by reducing the influence of wealthy special interests, expanding public funding of campaigns, and encouraging campaigns to seek funding from a broader base of small contributors."

According to Lerner, total Super PAC contributions for the upcoming election are $477 million and New York leads the way with a

Andrea Stewart-Cousins

Lerner argues that Instead of serving the democratic process, the millions of dollars spent on political advertising are benefiting campaign consultants and broadcasters -- so the media has little incentive to come out against Super PAC spending.

Carolyn Stevens and BK Munghia

They are lobbying for new disclosure laws to create transparency for entities that make the expenditures. They believe the source of PAC funds and the names of the five largest contributors should appear on the ads so that viewers can assess the ads based on the sources of funding.

They are seeking to reform the campaign finance system and backing an amendment to the constitution to amend the Citizen’s United decision. In Montana and Colorado, voters will have the opportunity to vote for this initiative in the upcoming November election. You can learn more about the AMEND 2012 campaign here: http://amend2012.org/

Sara Werder and Susie Rush

On Thursday, October 25th at 7:30 pm, the League of Women Voters of Scarsdale will sponsor a Candidate Forum in the Scott Room at the Scarsdale Public Library. The public is invited and encouraged to attend. Participants will include Eliot Engel, Joe McLaughlin, and Joe Diaferia, candidates for US Congress, District 16; Andrea Stewart-Cousins, running for New York State Senate, representing District 35, and Amy Paulin, running for New York State Assembly, representing District 88.

Pictured at top: Susan Lerner of Common Cause with League President Marylou Cooper Green

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Published: 17 October 2012

Created: 17 October 2012

Last Updated: 18 October 2012

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Hey Scarsdale! You’ve been gerrymandered out of the hottest political contest in Westchester this November: the gladiator showdown between former Scarsdalian Bob Cohen and Rye Assemblyman George Latimer for the New York State Senate seat that’s open due to the Suzi Oppenheimer’s retirement. Scarsdale has two non-races for the state legislature: State Senator Andrea Stewart Cousins has no opposition -- and Assemblywoman Amy Paulin, likewise faces no opposition. Your congressional race pits Riverdale’s Eliot Engel versus nobody. Remember, you lost Congresswoman Nita Lowey to the northern hinterlands. Scarsdale probably has more in common with Riverdale than Rockland anyway...

Two years ago, Bob Cohen came within a hair’s breath of defeating long-time incumbent Suzi Oppenheimer. In 2010 Cohen positioned himself as a fresh alternative to the long time incumbent and therefore symbol of Albany dysfunction that permeated the electoral landscape. Cohen ran as a moderate, nonpartisan businessman with the mission to fix Albany. That 2010 campaign came on the heels of a slew of scandals and corruption and the hijacking of the State Senate by the Gang of Four (who are now gone from the scene with some serving jail time) and on the heels of Governor Spitzer’s ignominious departure as Governor -- replaced by the hapless David Paterson. Cohen’s campaign of a fresh start resonated against the 26-year veteran Oppenheimer -- causing the result to be a nail biter at the end -- with Oppenheimer eeking out a squeaker of a win.

Since then, Bob Cohen has moved out of Scarsdale to New Rochelle -- and the GOP controlled State Senate re-arranged the lines of the 37th senate district to get rid of Democratic leaning Scarsdale and Ossining and replace them with Republican strongholds of East Yonkers, Tuckahoe and Eastchester (as well as to loop into a section of New Rochelle where Cohen now resides) in an effort to craft a district more hospitable to Cohen. While the registration advantage of the new district still belongs with the Democrats, most political observers view the district as a tossup.

Yet before securing the Republican nomination for the race, Cohen did first have to deal with one nuisance, a somewhat bizarre challenge from the right by Diane Roth-Didonato of Armonk and a member of the North Castle Town Board. She garnered the endorsement of the failed and wacky candidate for Governor Carl Paladino. Roth ended up being bounced from her primary challenge by the Cohen campaign for her inability to obtain enough legitimate signatures to get on the primary ballot -- but not before lodging a nutty attack on Cohen -- lambasting him for being the object of an assassination attempt in 1991.

On the Democratic side, once Oppenheimer announced her retirement, George Latimer, a popular former Rye City Councilman, County Legislator (with a stint as Chairman of the Board), and Assemblyman George Latimer stepped up to run for the seat. Latimer is viewed by many politicos as a much stronger candidate than Oppenheimer would have been. Throughout Latimer’s career he has been viewed as a bipartisan, hardworking, and thoughtful policymaker, who actually thinks about a bill’s impact on the real world before he votes.

In 2012 the Albany political landscape has changed with the ascension of Governor Andrew Cuomo -- and his perceived manhandling of the legislative process. It becomes much harder to run on an Albany-needs-fixing-platform. So with the Cohen campaign not likely to gain traction on that theme again -- they have chosen to mount a one-issue campaign: define George Latimer as a tax and spender.

And if you’re a registered voter but unaffiliated with the Democratic party in the district -- you have been deluged with 2 or 3 mailers per day for weeks -- from the Cohen campaign, from the New York Republican Campaign Committee -- and from some anonymous Teaparty/Superpac from Virginia -- all smearing Latimer as the worst, most evil, pernicious tax hiker the world has ever seen. Find out more about the mysterious originis of the PAC in the Journal News and The New York Times .

The problem with this generic dumbed down tea party line of attack -- is that while property taxes are a huge issue here-- Westchester residents are typically a little savvier and a little more sophisticated to swallow whole what the Cohen campaign is selling. Latimer has not been in a position to directly raise or lower property taxes since he left the County Board of Legislators nearly 10 years ago when he was elected to the State Assembly. The Cohen attacks have latched onto three of Latimer’s votes on which the Assemblyman actually put good policy ahead of good politics:

• 2% property tax cap: Latimer voted against the 2% tax cap -- because it was not coupled with any kind of mandate relief -- mandates that require municipalities, counties and school districts to provide programs and services but without any funding -- i.e., Albany mandates must be paid by those governmental entities that are funded predominantly by the property tax. A tax cap without mandate relief is a ticking time bomb for our schools, towns and counties. One of the most egregious unfunded mandates is requiring counties to pay for a major portion of Medicaid costs. New York is one of two states in the entire country where these costs --mandated from the State -- are pushed down to the county level for payment. On the education front, New York has a much more intensive level of mandated services for special education than is required by Federal law. And as well intentioned as these programs and requirements are -- Albany fails to provide any funding for these requirements-- further burdening the property tax payer. So George Latimer bravely voted no on the tax cap -- not because he’s for higher taxes (as the Cohen campaign has been relentlessly pushing) but due to the lack of concurrent mandate relief -- which still is not on the table in Albany yet. The result -- school districts like Port Chester had to make a decision to either end full-day kindergarten -- or an elementary school literacy program. They chose to end the literacy program.........this year. The tax cap has already adversely affected poorer school districts -- and more and wealthier school districts will get hit with layoffs, larger class sizes, and program eliminations.
• MTA Tax: While Latimer has sponsored bill to eliminate the MTA payroll tax -- he felt compelled to vote for the its implementation when the MTA was on the brink of insolvency in 2009 -- and the only option on the table for Latimer was to vote for the MTA payroll tax -- or watch commuter fares more than quadruple. That was the Hobson’s Choice that Latimer faced -- and seeing the need to maintain a viable mass transit system in the New York metropolitan area -- held his nose and voted for the tax -- and ever since has been working for repeal and a viable long range plan for the MTA’s sustainability.
• Tier Six Pension Plan -- in the arcane world of public sector pension policy (or lack thereof), a proposed Tier 6 was proposed which would lessen the pension benefits of public employees hired in the future. This was buried in an avalanche of bills at the very end of the legislative session earlier this year-- and seeing that there was no immediate or even near-term relief from skyrocketing pension costs and how the bill was delivered to legislators -- with no time to read it and/or amend it -- Latimer -- acting on sound policy principles (and again, perhaps unsound politics) -- abstained on the measure.

So basically, these three votes -- taken on principle -- not politics -- is being used by the well-funded Cohen campaign as a cudgel against Latimer -- with a mail drop volume and Cable TV buy that has never been seen for a state legislative race in Westchester.

With alot less in the bank than Cohen, Latimer is now pushing back -- stating that he has a real record of lowering taxes and has the experience and clout to fight for Westchester residents. In addition, the Latimer campaign has recycled an attack Oppenheimer used in 2010 -- labeling Cohen a slumlord. Cohen’s business is owning and operating apartment buildings in predominantly lower income areas of Manhattan. In fact the Daily News just ran a piece on Cohen’s real estate business this past week.

A Sienna College poll released two weeks ago had Latimer ahead of Cohen by about 3 points -- well within the margin of error. So all eyes are on this race -- and all expect the fur and mud to fly. A series of debates are slated to be held over the next couple of weeks. These should be interesting.

Folks in Scarsdale will have to just be passive observers in this slugfest.