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Mamaroneck REVIEW THE

January 26, 2018 | Vol. 6, Number 4 | www.mamaroneckreview.com

Dems look to revive gun, immigration bills By JAMES PERO Staff Writer

OPPORTUNITY OF A LIFETIME

In February 2017, “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” gave 41 students four-year scholarships to college. One of those students is Quincy Phillips, who now attends SUNY Purchase College where he is pursuing a degree in visual arts. For story, see page 6. Photo courtesy Michael Rozman

Trustee work sessions go live with new law By JAMES PERO Staff Writer For the first time in village of Mamaroneck history, Board of Trustees work sessions will be televised and shown online after the unanimous passage of a local law late last year. “I’m of the firm belief that you cannot be too open,” said Mayor Tom Murphy, a Democrat, at a public meeting on Dec. 26. “The tone of meetings gets set in work sessions, so I think it’s worth giving this a try.” Work sessions are precursors to public Board of Trustees meetings where village staff and Board of Trustees members dis-

cuss items that may or may not appear on the official agenda. According to Murphy, who together with recently sworn-in Trustee Nora Lucas, a Democrat, campaigned on greater transparency in the village, the practice of televising the meetings will continue for four months, after which point it will be reviewed for further implementation. All of the meetings will be broadcast live onto public access station LMCTV and will also be available to view online. The move comes after last year when the village came under fire by two residents who claimed that the village had been routinely skirting state Open

Meetings Law by convening closed executive sessions without proper cause and had forced residents to leave meetings that they claim should have been open to the public. The lawsuit, filed by residents Stuart Tiekert—an avid Freedom of Information Law enthusiast— and Sue McCrory, also sought to mandate Open Meetings Law training for the village Board of Trustees and staff. In June, the village voluntarily hosted Open Meetings Law training with the state Committee on Open Government Executive Director Bob Freeman, an event that was organized by Lucas. The lawsuit by Tiekert and McCrory

was dropped shortly after the training session was held. In addition to Lucas and Murphy, the 2016 village board Democratic ticket—which included current trustees Leon Potok, Victor Tafur, and Keith Waitt— ran on a platform of increased government transparency, touting initiatives like the digitization of Building Department records which are now available to the public. The first-ever broadcast of a village work session was aired on Jan. 8 and is currently online for viewing at LMCTV’s website, lmctv.org. CONTACT: james@hometwn.com

Under a new Democratic regime, legislators will reincarnate two vetoed bills, including a piece of controversial gun legislation, that were nixed under former County Executive Rob Astorino, a Republican. The legislative agenda on Jan. 22 will feature the reintroduction of a bill to ban gun shows on county owned property that was vetoed by Astorino last year, after being passed by Democrats on the Board of Legislators. Specifically, the bill seeks to eliminate the possibility of hosting gun shows at the Westchester County Center, which Democrats say promotes a toxic gun culture in the county. While current County Executive George Latimer, a Democrat, has already signed an executive order banning the gun shows—a reinstatement of a previous ban that lapsed under Astorino—unlike the order, the passage of a more formal piece of legislation would permanently ban the shows in the future. In tandem with a bill to ban gun shows, Democrats will also reintroduce a county immigration bill that would limit the amount of information that the county shares with the federal government. This bill was also introduced and passed last year, but was eventually vetoed by Astorino who said it would hamper the efforts of county law enforcement. Both bills are being revisited

With a new Democratic majority, legislators will look to resurrect bills that had been vetoed under a previous Republican administration. File photo

by a new Democratic majority with an extra advantage of three seats over last year’s Board of Legislators makeup. Currently, Democrats outnumber Republicans 12-5, giving them a supermajority, in addition to the support of Latimer, who unseated Astorino in November last year. In addition to both bills, Democrats will also push two bills that expand paid sick leave countywide—companies with five or more employees would be required to provide at least 40 hours of paid sick leave—as well as a bill that would ban employers in the county from asking how much prospective employees made at a previous job. These bills will mark the start of a reinvigorated progressive agenda from Latimer and the Board of Legislators, who recently elected a new majority leader, Ben Boykin, a White Plains Democrat, to replace the previous chair, Michael Kaplowitz, a Yorktown Democrat, in a divisive nomination process. CONTACT: james@hometwn.com