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Community Corner

Croton Democrats win another election

I am compelled to respond to the trio of letters printed in the Gazette last week.  One attacked the current board for a laundry list of supposed ill-advised actions.  Another irrationally and absurdly accused a board member of deviously conspiring with a local property owner to donate millions to the village - a beautiful 16 acre track of land with a unique house, together with a one million dollar endowment.  Another advises voters that the village trustee elections have not yet been decided.  I wish I could find all this humourous, but in truth it is just sad.  

The outcome of the village elections was known to those of us who put in the effort to collect the results from each election district on election night.  Leo Wiegman was reelected for Mayor, Casey Raskob was re-elected for Village Trustee and Andy Levitt was elected to replace Ian Murtaugh as Village Trustee.  Even though on election night not every vote had been counted, based on the results we obtained through simple due diligence, we knew the result was mathematically certain.  

The voters in the village have again given the Democratic mayor and trustees an overwhelming vote of confidence.  Voters strongly support the great work the Mayor and the Board of Trustees have been doing for the past four years.  The contrarian writers in The Gazette and elsewhere online often claim to be speaking truth to power.  What they write is mostly fantasy, not truth.  Their goal is to foster distrust of our civic leaders and division within the community.  They have no interest in offering anything constructive for the continued progress of our community.  Last week’s letters from Robert, Otto and James were no exception.  

We in the local Democratic Party do not speak with just one voice.  Within the party there are many different points of view.  Those views are based on facts and reasonable analysis.  (Find out for yourself, the village Dems meet next on 12/12 at the library, 7:30pm.)  The village might benefit from more rational and respectful voices on the issues in the village.  But all we have is typical of Tea Party Republicans in America.  Their MO is to fight everything, to obstruct every government effort, good or bad, with incessantly loud fear mongering. In Croton, these forces are not even interested in engaging in the electoral process.  Rather than pursue the legal petitioning process to place candidates on the ballot, a few weeks before the election a write-in candidate appeared on the scene.  Before the election, Democrats offered the write-in candidate the opportunity to participate in a debate or forum, but the write-in candidate was unwilling to participate in an open discussion of the issues.  

I do believe that Democrats have better ideas. We believe that government can be a positive force to move the community forward.  I also believe we could benefit from other rational, fact based and respectful voices.  There is room within the Democratic party for those voices.  I don’t expect to see anything like that from the Tea Party or the Republicans any time soon.

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John McBride
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