Greenburgh’s Democratic Party held its annual convention on Tuesday, Feb. 19th, to endorse candidates for local elections. Greenburgh Democratic Party district leaders (appointed through an internal Democratic Party process) gathered at the Theodore Young Center to hear speeches and vote.
There are two advantages to getting the Democratic Party endorsement: 1) district leaders (DLs) will assist the candidate in obtaining petition signatures (currently set at 750) mandated in order to appear on the primary ballot in June, and 2) allowing the candidate to declare that he/she has the endorsement of the organized Democratic Party, a distinction which holds weight with some voters. It’s important to note that getting the petition signatures is a time-consuming, arduous process which makes the party’s endorsement extremely helpful to candidates.
This year the party convention considered two contests (town council and town clerk) and several one-candidate coronations (Paul Feiner for Supervisor, Alfreda Wiliams and Mary Jane Shimsky for county legislature, Dolores Braithwaite for town justice).
The terms for two councilmen ended this year, as happens every odd-numbered year. Both incumbents Ken Jones (who has served 8 years to date) and Kevin Morgan (who has served 12 years) announced their bids for re-election to an additional 4-year term. Eric Zinger (President of HNA and active in many causes around town) announced that he would challenge Morgan and Jones for town council. Thus, 3 candidates contested 2 spots.
District leaders voted to endorse Jones (65%) and Morgan (55%) over challenger Zinger (45%). The voting is weighted according to the number of Democratic voters in each district. DLs are allowed to vote for up to two candidates with the option of abstaining for one or both spots.
Now this is where it gets interesting.
First, some background information: The Town Board governs the entire town, but the extent of its responsibilities varies greatly between unincorporated Greenburgh (consisting of approximately half of Greenburgh’s 92,000 residents) and the six villages (i.e., Tarrytown, Irvington, Elmsford, Dobbs Ferry, Hastings, and Ardsley). The Town Board is the sole government body representing unincorporated Greenburgh (i.e., primarily, Fairview, Hartsdale, and Edgemont); however, the Town Board has only a very limited role n villages where municipal functions are primarily governed by village mayors and boards. This difference is reflected in the disparate town property tax rates for unincorporated residents (6.17 per mil), and villagers (0.47 per mil). For a house assessed at $500,000, an unincorporated resident pays $3,085 in property taxes to the town annually, while a villager with the same house value pays only $235 to the town each year. Of the property tax revenue collected and administered by the Town of Greenburgh, 93.4% comes from unincorporated taxpayers.
With respect to Town of Greenburgh government, unincorporated residents have infinitely more at stake than village residents but, because of New York’s constitutional structure, village and unincorporated residents both have the same right to vote for town board members. In Greenburgh, this inequity is exacerbated because the unincorporated and village populations are about equal. This same democratic quandary plays out in the Democratic Party district leader system.
Let’s get back to the convention. Eighty-nine DLs voted for town council. Morgan and Jones won the DL vote town-wide, but examination of the voting shows that Zinger came in first—by a comfortable margin—among the 51 unincorporated DLs who voted:
51 Unincorporated Delegates
Zinger: 5271.0
Abstention (1): 4256.0
Jones: 3963.5
Morgan: 2988.0
Let’s repeat this point: the majority of DLs whose lives are most directly impacted by the Town Board chose Eric Zinger over the two incumbents. Among the DLs from the villages, however, the results were dramatically different:
38 Village Delegates
Jones: 5854.5
Jones: 5854.5
Morgan: 5236.0
Zinger: 1517.5
The enormous disparity in the village DL vote compared to unincorporated DLs offset Zinger’s advantage among unincorporated DLs and gave the party’s endorsement to Jones and Morgan. In fact, Morgan’s margin of victory over Zinger came just from Village of Hastings DLs. (To explain the discrepancy between village and incorporated DL votes and why village DLs ignored the preferences of their unincorporated neighbors, you’ll have to ask the village DLs.)
Why is all this important? It matters because there could not be clearer evidence of the dysfunction of Greenburgh’s constitutional and Democratic Party structure which gives village DLs, who have little at stake in town offices, the power to reverse the decision of unincorporated DLs and determine the choice of candidates presented to unincorporated primary voters. As noted above, the primary vote is the only election that matters in Greenburgh: village DLs effectively have the power to decide who will be town board members.
Let’s summarize: in one-party Greenburgh, the Democratic primary is the only election that matters for local office. At the Democratic Party convention, DLs gather to decide who will appear on the primary ballot. At this convention, village DLs – who pay minimal taxes to the town and on whom town government has little impact – have the voting power to determine who will appear on the primary ballot and, consequently, who will serve on the town board (the disparity in the racial composition of the village and unincorporated DLs and residents makes this democratic imbalance even more troubling). During this past week’s primary, village DLs did in fact exercise that power by replacing a town council candidate favored by incorporated DLs (Zinger) with another candidate favored by village DLs (Morgan).
Is this fair? No, but it’s the democratic system we have. The essential question that remains, however, is why village DLs insist on dictating to unincorporated residents who may appear on the ballot for the town government while unincorporated residents have no voice in who governs the villages.
DISCLOSURE: I'm am 100% biased. I am a district leader and nominated Eric Zinger for town council.
- Daniel R. Weinfeld
email me at danweinfeld@gmail.com
NOTES:
Voters who matter: Greenburgh has 62,883 registered voters, but only 34,417 are Democrats. The 45% of voters who are registered as Republicans, Working Family Party, Green Party, Independents, etc., may feel great about their principles but have disenfranchised themselves when it comes to deciding who serves as town councilman, clerk, county legislator and, effectively, state assemblyman.
Districts and Areas: Greenburgh is divided into 81 electoral districts each, in theory, with about 1000+ residents. The borders of many of these are seem drawn arbitrarily by someone who doesn’t understand our neighborhoods. The Democratic party allows each electoral district two district leaders. Currently, there are about 150 district leaders, with about a dozen vacancies. The party collects the 81 districts into 13 areas: these include, logically, the six villages (Ardsley, Elmsford, Dobbs Ferry, Hastings, Irvington, and Tarrytown) and somewhat irregular, even bizarre groupings identified as Central Greenburgh, North Greenburgh, East Hartsdale, West Hartsdale, Edgemont, Fairview, and the memorably named Hartsley. Area leaders have the ability to appoint district leaders which grants them some degree of power to impact town politics.
District Leaders: The district leaders are an assembly of political activists, progressive crusaders, old-time political insiders, politicians and their family members or neighbors. For example, elected officials, Francis Sheehan, Kevin Morgan, Judith Beville and Alfreda Willians are all district leaders (and Sheehan and Williams are area leaders). One elected official has four immediate relatives who are DLs. You get the idea.
The Feiner Exception: Paul Feiner's unique brand of retail politics cultivated over 30+ years and his personal appeal have allowed him to float above and outside of Town Democratic Party squabbling and rivalries. More often than not, Feiner fails to receive the party convention's endorsement and has been challenged in primaries by party insiders three times in the past 15 years. None of this has daunted him or impeded his success. Aided by a band of devoted followers and 100% name recognition, Feiner has no problem attaining the requisite petition signatures and, the few times he is challenged, prevailing in primaries.
