By Dan Murphy
State Supreme Court Judge George Fufidio ruled on April 21 that changes made to the City of Yonkers Term Limits law in November 2022 by a vote from the Yonkers City Council, and signed into law by Mayor Mike Spano are lawful. The vote changed the number of terms that the Mayor and Councilmembers from 3, four-year terms, to 4 four-year terms.
Judge Fufidio ruled on a motion to dismiss by attorneys for Mayor Spano and the Council on April 21. While Fufidio denied the motion to dismiss, he went on to rule that “there were no ethical violations committed by the Yonkers City Council by increasing their own and the Mayor’s term limits.”
In addition to finding no ethical violations in the vote to extend term limits, Judge Fufidio ruled “this Court does not find that the increase in term limits for the City of Yonkers Mayor and the Yonkers City Councilmembers violates the Yonkers City Charter.”
“The Court agrees with the Respondents that this case is, factually and legally, almost identical to the Molinari case (Molinari v Bloomberg in which the Federal Eastern District and Second Circuit courts found that the increase in term limit for the New York City Mayor, City Councilmembers and other city officials was lawful. “
“More specifically, using the same analysis as the Molinari court did, this Court does not find that the increase in term limits for the City of Yonkers Mayor and the Yonkers City Councilmembers violates the Yonkers City Charter section C1A-6 ethical standards. Section CIA-6 prohibits a city employee from using their official position in a manner that they either know or have reason to know may result in afinancial benefit for themselves or enumerated others (Yonkers City Charter sec. CIA6). Financial benefits are defined by the Yonkers City Charter as a pecuniary or material benefit that is not available to the general public (Yonkers City Charter sec. CIA-4(I)).
“Simply put, the term limit increase and the concomitant salary is not the kind of “financial benefit” contemplated by such rules. First, it is a benefit which is not guaranteed to Mayor or any of the Councilmembers. Each still needs to win their seat in a general election, which leads to the second point, that is the seat, salary and term limited office is potentially available to anyone who is eligible to run for office in the City of Yonkers.
“Third, the Yonkers City Charter authorizes the City Council to vote on, among other things, their own and the Mayor’s salary increases without that being considered a “financial benefit”. That they are able to do so is entirely consistent with the New York City Conflicts ofInterest Board’s (COIB) advisory opinion that was heavily relied upon in Molinari and which also cited to New York State case law, Golden v New York City Council, 305 AD2d 598 [2nd Dept. 2003]).
“The COIB held that the New York City Council had the authority to enact laws regarding term limits. Critically, the COIB concluded, and the Molinari court agreed, that a reading of the New York City ethics regulations, which are arguably more restrictive than the Yonkers equivalent, prohibiting sitting Councilmembers from voting on increasing their own term limits would effectively deprive them of authority granted to them by State and local laws and afortiori would prohibit them from voting on anything affecting their office, such as salary increases and, ironically, ethics regulations; resulting in governmental standstill (Molinari II, 564 F3d at 616).
“Here, the Court sees no difference between the authority the New York City Council had to increase the Mayoral and City Council term limits and the authority that the Yonkers City Council has to do the same and thereby declares that there were no ethical violations committed by the Yonkers City Council by increasing their own and the Mayor’s term limits.
“Next, although Municipal Horne Rule Law sec. 23 requires that changes to the laws of succession of certain offices (MHRL sec. 23(2)(d)) and changes to the term of an elected office (MHRL sec. 23(2)( e)) be put to the people in the form of a referendum, New York State decisional law has held that a change to the length of term limits that does not change the length of a term of office does not need to be enacted by a referendum.”
“Finally, although the City of Yonkers voters have twice in the recent past, in 1994 and 2001, voted directly on the establishment of term limits, there is no requirement that the referendum process be applied to future term limit modifications and it is recognized that, “laws proposed and enacted by the people under an initiative provision … are entitled no greater sanctity or dignity” that those passed by the legislature
“As the Molinari court explained using Caruso as its rationale, neither the Municipal Home Rule Law nor the New York City Charter restrict the legislature’s ability to modify laws passed by referendum. Here, again, this Court does not find that the Petitioners have shown the law in the Yonkers City Charter to be otherwise and thus declares that the City was not required to hold a referendum vote on whether to raise the term limits in question despite having done so in the past.
“Accordingly, the Respondents motion to dismiss is denied, however the Petitioners victory is pyrrhic because the court ultimately finds that the petition must be denied as well,” wrote Judge Fufidio.
The lawsuit was filed by ANNE MARIE McARDLE, CAROLYN SOLIERI, MICHAEL REPRESA, CHRISTINE ANITA PETERS, ERIC ADRE JOHNSON, FRANKE. COLEMAN JR, GEORGE McANANAMA, JOAN GRONOWSKI, JOSEPH PINION III, KISHA SKIPPER, MARK PAROLISl and RONALD MATTEN.
