Paul pedals ahead to a comfortable lead in his 16th Tour de Greenburgh triumph

[UPDATE: AS OF JUNE 24  (PM), THE BOE HAS THE GREENBURGH RESULTS FROM PRIMARY DAY AND EARLY VOTING AT:

Paul Feiner.     3,426.  59%

Tasha Young:  2,342. 41%.        This total probably does not include the 500+ absentee votes]

The warnings of some observers that Feiner's cycling campaign would stall in the steep hills of Greenburgh  proved unfounded tonight as the thirty-year Supervisor coasted to a commanding margin in his bid for re-election as Town Supervisor.    

With 75 of 81 Greenburgh electoral districts reporting, Feiner has claimed about 3200 (61%) votes  to Tasha Young's 2080 (39%).   In addition to the six missing districts, there are at least 500 absentee votes left to count.  Considering that the median age of the absentee voters is a spritely 77, is it very unlikely they will favor the challenger over the longtime incumbent but will tend instead to increase Feiner's lead. 

In an impressive performance, Feiner earned the yellow jersey by leading in every part of the town except his challenger's home course of Elmsford village and the peloton precincts of Edgemont.   

Most stunning to me is Feiner's nearly identical margin in each of three general areas of electoral Greenburgh:  the four Rivertowns with 58%, North Greenburgh also with 58% and South Greenburgh with 56%.  You can't get much more consistent than that.  

Over the course of the campaign, Tasha Young righted herself after early stumbles to conduct a compelling and classy challenge that brought to the fore issues of fair housing and social justice not usually featured in Greenburgh primaries.  We hope she will continue to add her voice and perspective to town discussions. 

Low turnout, however, likely doomed Tasha Young's prospects.  When all the votes are counted, turnout will likely not exceed 6200 or 6300 votes.   This means that 16% to 17% of eligible Greenburgh Democrats bothered to vote and these are the hardcore, regular primary voters who consistently support Paul by 60% or more.   Young needed to expand the primary electorate beyond the older hardcore regulars, which means that she needed to energize progressive women under the age of 50.  It's pretty clear this did not happen.  

In upcoming posts, I plan to delve deeper into the primary voting data when finalized, the campaign finances and some uninvited editorializing about some problems with Young's campaign that may have fatally undermined her promising challenge just as it began.   

Greenburgh Primary: a June surprise as Edgemont threatens to sit this one out

As of the Monday morning, 1,546 Greenburgh Democrats voted early and 501 voted by absentee ballot.  In sum, 2,047 have voted so far in the June primary, although, as absentee ballots can be postmarked as late as primary day, a few more (though likely not many) will add to that number.    

The absentee/early votes (so far) can be broken down as follows:

[NOTE: I define TOV areas as the following Election District groupings:

         Fairview: 42, 44-46, 61, 63, 64, 78.

         Hartsdale: 36-41, 56, 57, 66, 71, 72, 75

         Edgemont: 33-35, 49, 69, 70

         Ardsley SD TOV: 32, 43, 50, 62, 73

         Elmsford SD TOV:  51, 77, 81

         Pocantico Hills SD: 29, 68; Valhalla SD: 47, 48, 67

         East Irvington: 30;  East Tarrytown 31

Yes, these are inexact groupings, but I think they work well to generalize communities which tend to vote similarly, without getting even more micro.]  

For context, the last column on the right shows the % of vote that each grouping comprised in the 2013 Greenburgh Supervisor primary when Bob Bernstein challenged Paul Feiner.   There was no early voting in 2013, and absentees were by excuse-only, making it impossible to compare the 2021 early/abs with the 2013 totals.  In addition, early and absentee voters may not reliably predict turnout in a given community because early and absentee voters are much older than average.   The median age of the early voters is 67 and the median age of absentee voters (so far) is a rather formidable 78 (!) [Fun fact:  our oldest absentee voter is 105].  The median voter age in Greenburgh's 2019 town board primary was 62.    66% of absentee voters are female (I don't have the early voting gender breakdown) which is higher than the 61% of female Greenburgh Democratic primary voters in 2019. 

Nonetheless, I think the early/absentee numbers can give some sense of voter enthusiasm in the campaign, and the big story here is that Edgemont threatens to go AWOL in this primary.  Edgemont early/abs voters  comprises just 5% of the early/abs votes received, far less than the nearly 9% of the townwide population that lives in the Edgemont school district.  When Edgemont is motivated it can turnout - see the example of 2013 primary where Edgemont far out played its voting weight at 14% of the townwide vote.   

The drop in Edgemont voters, however, may be more than offset  by the interest Fairview voters are taking in this campaign.  

The huge Dobbs Ferry turnout so far may reflect nothing more than that one of the two townwide early polling places was Dobbs Ferry townhall.  

   

For these purposes, I defined Hartsdale as 

Predictions anyone?

Write your prediction (with your reasons) for the Town Supervisor and County Clerk primaries in the comments below or email me at danweinfeld@gmail.com.  I'll update this post to feature the best and most amusing submissions.  Maybe there will even be a prize for someone who both gets the races right and entertains us.      

ok  - some content too. 

Absentee Ballots:   the Westchester Board of Elections sent out 1,195 absentee ballots in response to requests and has received 463 absentee votes back as of the morning of Friday, June 18.  Remember that New York is once again effectively allowing no-excuse-needed absentee balloting during this second primary season under pandemic rules.  If you submitted an absentee ballot filling the health/COVID box, no campaign operative is going to be checking up on you that you really aren't home on primary day (as has happened in past Greenburgh primaries).  It appears that several hundred absentee ballots are languishing unreturned at the town's many senior care facilities.  We understand that in the past, the Board of Elections organized the senior facilities ballots but is not doing so this year. under COVID restrictions.  

In contrast, in the 2020 primary for town assembly (which was the under-ticket to two high profile primaries in CD16 and CD17), Greenburgh Democrats returned 8,868 absentee ballots.   Yes, the 2020 primary was the mother-of-all (non presidential primary) turnouts, and absentee voting was actively encouraged by the unprecedented move of NY State making voting (relatively) easy for once by proactively sending out absentee ballot applications (sending out absentee ballots unasked would have been too much to expect from NY).  

Because of the unusual circumstances of the 2020 primary, there really isn't much to be learned from the absentee vote differentials, except that local primaries are returning to their pre-pandemic tepid level of voter indifference.  

Who are our absentee voters so far? 

Wise and Mature:  The absentee voters so far have a median age of 79 years old and 360 of the 463 are 70 years and older.  

Hooray for Hartsdale: The biggest contingent (121 or 26%) are from Hartsdale 10530.   In an exception to the problems stated above with senior facilities returns, 34 absentee voters (so far) are from the 555 Grasslands Road senior residences in Valhalla (I did not make that up).   104 are from the "North Greenburgh" zips (10603, 10607, 10523) where Tasha Young may be expected to find her strongest support.    A mere 23 come from Edgemont, pointing toward the lack of interest I've observed in this campaign in our presumptive breakaway Republic.  In contrast, those meddling kids in Hastings have returned 41 absentee votes, once again showing that voting is that village's favorite pastime and suggesting that the Hastings-on-Hustings will once again play an outsized role in a townwide primary (where the voters have just about nothing at stake - harumph).   In contrast to H-on-H, Irvington has returned 20, Dobbs 28.  Tarrytown,  has returned a remarkable 57 ballots.  Tarrytown has a few senior facilities, but still this sum is puzzling and bears watching.  

Money in the Greenburgh Supervisor Race- and debut of The Paul Paradox theory

The latest round of campaign finance disclosures, for the period from May 18 through June 11, were just released.  Let's start with the premise that Paul Feiner doesn't actually "need' your money.   As noted before on this blog, he started this campaign with $87,263 safely snug in his campaign account.  He then raised $33,962 from November through May 18th, and has raised another $7,277 since, bringing him to a total of $41,239 raised to add to his campaign chest, for an imposing heap of $128,502 available to spend on this Supervisor's primary.

The New York campaign disclosure website reports that as of this past weekend, Paul has $82,382 left in his campaign account, meaning that he has spent $46,120 this campaign season - $15,266 of that spent after May 17th.  I won't say he has spent all this on his campaign since Paul reliably pays for his car and cellphone expenses and makes charitable contributions from campaign funds but it can be said that the bulk of the amount he has deployed has been efficiently and effectively spent on actual campaign expenses, not salaries or consultants.  Whether he is spending enough (or as some might argue, too much - See: The Paul Pardox, below) is another question that will have to await the primary's results.  

The vast sums Paul plays with puts Tasha Young's otherwise impressive fundraising into context.  Tasha had raised $38,343 through May 17th and has raised another $3,980 since for a total of $42,323, which is $1084 more than Paul has raised during the same period.   It's surprising to me both that Tasha has raised so much and that Paul hasn't raised more. The absence of many usual donor names from the latest reporting period suggests that Paul does not consider the need to raise new money as urgent.  For example, it appears that of the $7,277 that Paul raised from donors since May 18th,  $4277 came from a fundraiser on June 4th at a private home held by Paul's supporters in the Indian-American community, which makes the remaining $2,800 Paul raised this reporting period appear even more desultory. Nevertheless, unlike Paul's money,  a large amount of Tasha's fundraising is coming from outside of Greenburgh, including about half of the funds she raised in the latest reporting period.  The large majority of Paul's donors live in Greenburgh.  And, as stated before, Paul has more than enough campaign funds to outspend Tasha by 3 to 1, if he so chooses.

Tasha's spending disclosure summaries show she spent $3,725 since May 18th, bringing her to a total of $36,243 spent so far on the campaign. While it may appear that Paul has outspent Tasha by nearly $10K in the campaign to date, I'm reluctant to reach that conclusion because Tasha's confusing account expense reporting makes it appear that she has lots of unpaid campaign bills owed mostly to consultants no longer affiliated with her campaign. 

While Tasha's spending reports have cleared up dramatically in the latest reporting period, the large amount of "outstanding" billing owed to "campaign consultants" from the prior reporting period, along with several subsequent reporting amendments, make it difficult to analyze exactly what she has spent her resources on.   It does seem safe to say that Tasha's campaign has not spent her funds (or yet to be raised funds) with anything resembling the efficiency of the Feiner campaign.  To me the telling evidence comes from visible examples, such as Paul's campaign signs far outnumbering Tasha signs  - at least in Hartsdale - and that Paul has managed at least three mass mailings to date, compared to none from the Young campaign.   If Tasha has spent more than $36K on this campaign, and possibly owes much more to consultants, she does not appear to have much in tangible results to show for it. at least compared to Paul Feiner.   If Tasha Young loses a close primary on June 22, her failure back in April and May to effectively spend her impressive haul of donations will be a leading cause. 

The Paul Paradox:  Is Paul spending too much?  Think about it:  Paul is a fairly popular incumbent with 100% name recognition.  As discussed in previous posts in this blog, Paul has 3000 to 4000 devoted Democratic primary loyalists who will certainly turn out for him.   Tasha will need to expand the primary voter base beyond the usual 6000+ hardcore Democratic primary voters if she is to bring down Paul.  If Tasha is failing to expand awareness of her campaign because of her ineffective campaign spending, does Paul's spending risk potential backfire by raising awareness of the primary among the 80%+ of town Democratic voters who don't typically bother voting in town-only primaries, especially those occasional-only younger, primary voters who came out for Jamaal Bowman and Mondaire Jones last year?

We'll find out next week.       

How Much Will the Dromore Settlement Cost Me?

After years of multiple litigations, the Town of Greenburgh settled the lawsuit brought by S&R Development. This particular claim filed in 2016, arose from zoning map changes made by the Town in 2007, which prevented S&R from constructing an apartment building at Central Ave by Dromore Road.  The litigation is long, convoluted, and the facts are disputed.  I'm not going to assign blame.  I'm interested in the costs to taxpayers.  Under the settlement, the Town is to pay S&R $9,500,000.  Of this amount, insurance will cover $2,750,000, leaving taxpayers to cover the remaining $6,750,000.   In addition, it is reported that the town spent over $4million in legal fees to date. Because this is a zoning matter, only unincorporated residents are responsible for forking over these funds;  you villagers can relax and laugh at the TOV suckers.  

Some of you may remember the last big Town Board blunder that residents had to cover and that we are still paying for:  the Fortress Bible settlement in Dec. 2013.   Then, the Fortress Bible Church claimed that the Town's actions prevented it from building on land the church purchased.  The church sued the Town and received a settlement of $6,500,000.  Insurance only covered $1,000,000 of the Fortress Bible leaving TOV (again a zoning matter so villagers had no liability) compelled to pay up.  The town bonded the $5,500,000 with payments payable over 10 years (with interest, the payment by taxpayers was much larger).  At the time, I took the assessed values of a number of homes on Mercer Ave, which were probably slightly above average in value for TOV, and I then calculated that the Fortress Bible judgment would cost my neighbors individually on average about $350 over the bond's ten years to fund that settlement.

While we're getting close to the end of the Fortress Bible settlement bond payments, now we'll have to start paying for the Dromore settlement which at $6,750,000 exceeds the Fortress Bible settlement of $5,500,000.     

How much will Dromore cost residents?

I asked a muni bond expert to review the numbers with me.   We'll ballpark this number based on a few estimates.  I'm going to assume that the Town will issue a ten year bond again like the Town did to fund the Fortress Bible settlement.  This time the bond will fund $6,750,000.  Bond interest rates are low, but rising, and the bond won't be issued immediately, so we'll go with an estimate of 2.00%.  With an annual principal being paid of $675,000 at 2% interest, the actual payout by taxpayers would be $7,492,500 over the ten years.

Funding the Dromore bond would require a 1.37% increase in the current B (unincorporated) budget.   The Greenburgh town tax rate is currently 6.12112 per mil for TOV property owners.   A homeowner with a $500,000 assessment currently pays $3,061 dollars in town taxes per year (remember that town taxes do not include school, fire district and county taxes).   Someone with a home valued at $750,000 pays $4,591 in town taxes, etc.   

For the Dromore settlement, the $500,000 home owner will pay an extra $41.39 in taxes next year and a minimum of $325 over the course of the ten year settlement.  Similarly, the $750,000 homeowner will pay an extra $62.90 next year, and a minimum of $485 over the entire settlement.    

Add in Fortress Bible and you can see that typical TOV single family homeowners will have the pleasure of paying from $560 to more than $850  in additional property taxes arising from these two mostly uninsured, town board litigation fiascos.    

Granted, these extra taxes are being paid out over 18 years.  Except for the first few years of the Fortress Bible payments, all such tax increases are non-deductible because of the SALT cap.  These estimates do not include more than $ $4,000,000 in litigation payments to outside lawyers already incurred by the town for Dromore.   

So bottom line:  how much is Dromore going to cost me?  I estimate a minimum of $436.  Then add in my share of the legal costs, which I'll guess as costing the town about $500,000 per year over the past 6 years in additional property taxes  (about 75% of the town budget is paid for from property taxes), or a very rough 1% increase in property taxes for each of those years. As a result, I'll guess that I've already paid above $200 for the litigation costs.  In conclusion, I'll estimate that I have - and will have - paid cumulatively at least $986 in additional property taxes for these two settlements.       

GREENBURGH COVID ACTIVE CASES AND "GREATER GREENBURGH" VACCINATION RATES

 At 43 total active COVID cases (June 1), Greenburgh has returned to low numbers last seen on October 2, 2020.   For context, the lowest number since the pandemic started was 25 active cases on August 25th.  

Vaccination numbers increase.  I'm removing 10595 (Valhalla) from these charts because, looking at registered voters, I discovered that there are only 200 registered voters in Greenburgh in 10595 and the majority live in the various seniors facilities at 55 Grasslands Road. Removing 10595 from "Greater Greenburgh" only very slightly increases the overall vaccination rates.  

The county is now replacing the 18yo+ %s with 12yo+ %s.  However, as we don't have the 2020 census yet, I still would like to see the Census populations that the County is using for these calculations.  For example, are they using 2019 ACS projections (such as found at https://censusreporter.org/, or is the county just applying the 2010 numbers?).   

Maybe Memorial Day weekend is suppressing numbers, but the increases are very mediocre.  Just 1,625 "Greater Greenburgh" (including Scarsdale, Sleepy Hollow and WP portion of 10603 and 10607)  residents got a first shot over the week ending June 1 - the smallest in three weeks.  And this low pace comes after  12-15 year olds were approved.  

We're now seeing the "North Greenburgh" zips, which have the highest minority resident percentages, start to close the gap with the most white/asian zips, as it looks like the high vaccination rate zips are either maxing out on remaining residents wanting to get vaccinated or a lot of people went away for Memorial Day weekend.  In any event, overall, fully vaccinated rates increased  only to 53% from 52% from May 24 to June 1.  I'll wait for the next non-holiday week before trying to quantify the declining pace.  But, as some pundits are starting to ask:  with all the people who actually had COVID (likely many more than the positive cases) and all the vaccinated residents, have we effectively reached herd immunity?