An actual contested election for Greenburgh town supervisor

I'm reviving this blog because for the first time in years there should be a competitive election in Greenburgh.  To no one's surprise, Paul Feiner is running for re-election for Greenburgh Town Supervisor. This was just assumed - I'm not sure he even bothered making a formal announcement. Robert Bernstein, an attorney from Edgemont - and long-time Feiner antagonist- received the Greenburgh Democratic Party endorsement for Town Supervisor on 5/21.  Both candidates now have to obtain the necessary signatures to claim a place on the ballot.  This is not necessarily automatic: in a previous election year, Feiner knocked off his opponent Pat Weems by successfully challenging the validity of her ballot signatures (whether justified or not, Feiner paid no price in public opinion for this sly tactic).

A statement by Bernstein on the www.edgemontcommunitycouncil.org website suggests that the focus of his campaign will be Feiner's alleged mismanagement of town finances. It's unclear at this very early stage what reasons Feiner will claim to convince voters to send him back to the same office for the 12th or 13th time.  Feiner consistently trumpets his purported achievements on various websites (www.paulfeiner.com; his active FB page; www.greenburghnycom; and recently with comments on the ECC website).  But a hint that Feiner is also willing to go negative comes in a comment on his FB page where Feiner described Bernstein as wanting "Edgemont to separate from the town." [Feiner, FB comment 5/24]

The campaign has barely begun and the money aspect is already fascinating: Feiner went on his FB page claiming that he expects Bernstein "to spend more money on his campaign to unseat me than any of my previous opponents." Feiner then asked his FB friends "to contribute or volunteer" and to circulate petitions.  [Feiner FB post 5/24]. This is interesting because according to the ECC website, the NY State Board of Elections reports that Feiner already has "$136,547 in campaign funds" [ECC FB comment, 5/20].   Bernstein suggests that Feiner will spend $200,000 on his re-election.  [ECC FB post 5/19].  Is this possible?   Notice that Feiner doesn't actually suggest that the opponent will spend anything close to the amount his may spend, just more than previous candidates.  What is there to spend on money on other than yard signs?  Will they actually high campaign managers and workers for this election?

My bias/perspective: I'm an outside observer: I've never spoken a word to either Feiner or Bernstein, or participated in town politics. I've never attended a town council meeting, but I have been following Feiner's various websites, the ECC FB page and lohud.com articles about the town with interest for several years.    I switched my party affiliation from independent to Democrat a few years ago because it finally dawned on me that independents were disenfranchised in Greenburgh because the only important election was the closed Democratic primary.   .