Tuesday, October 8, 2019

Lucas Cioffi, Independent Candidate for Greenburgh Town Supervisor: Paul Feiner flip-flopped on property taxes - Vote CIOFFI November 5th.


 My opponent is the current town supervisor, Paul Feiner, and he has flip-flopped on property tax relief in just two short months.

My name is Lucas Cioffi, and I am running for Greenburgh Town Supervisor.  If you live anywhere in Greenburgh -- including Ardsley, Dobbs Ferry, Elmsford, Hastings, Irvington, Tarrytown, or unincorporated (Edgemont, Hartsdale, Fairview) -- this is the first time you can vote for a new town supervisor in a general election in over a decade.

Vote "Lucas Cioffi" Independent - November 5th. Please mark your calendars.

I've met over three thousand voters in Greenburgh and by far their top concern is their rising property taxes.

Current town supervisor Paul Feiner has raised the town's property tax levies an average of 4% per year for the past twenty years.

If you elect me as your next town supervisor on November 5th, I will freeze the town's tax levies for two years. I will do it carefully, and I will do it effectively.

People ask, "How we can freeze the tax levies without cutting services?" The answer is easy:

Freezing both town tax levies last year would have cost us $1.6 million. We can definitely cover that cost, because in 2020 we will have $2.2 million in new taxes coming in from Westchester County's massive (and unfortunate) 33% sales tax increase.

My opponent must have forgotten what he claimed in August when he welcomed this sales tax increase. Here is his direct quote back then: "Westchester has had the distinction of having the highest property taxes in the country. I think this legislation is an important action step that will help us get rid of this unwanted distinction."

Well, Paul, the time to act is now. As recently as last Friday you stated that you would not freeze the property tax levy. We have $13 million in the bank, and we have more than enough money coming in from the sales tax increase.

Now is the time to help our residents save their money before the next recession. It's time for us to reward town employees for identifying cost-saving measures as President Obama did with the SAVE awards; town employees know where we can do better, and we need to empower them to help get costs under control.

Freezing the tax levy is just the start. We need to significantly increase transparency and public participation in our local government, especially in the budgeting process.

My opponent, Mr. Feiner, claims that he is already doing all that is necessary by publishing the budget in a dry and complex state-mandated format. Yes, of course we need to do the minimum, but we also need to publish the budget in a way that residents can understand.

Three charts in a 225-page document doesn't cut it anymore. We need to make the budget interactive and easy to search. We need to help residents see how their money is being spent and how it affects their daily lives.

And most importantly, we need to do all this work ahead of time and give residents much more of a voice before decisions are made. Giving residents three minutes at the microphone at 10pm on a Tuesday night is not an open government.

Residents deserve to see options for how we will spend their money and residents should be able to weigh in on trade-offs. Modern participatory budgeting techniques have been around for a long time, and it's time for Greenburgh to start using them.

Vote "Lucas Cioffi" Independent - November 5th. Please mark your calendars.

Lucas Cioffi
Candidate for Greenburgh Town Supervisor
Greenburgh, NY
Website: https://www.greenburgh.us

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