Letter to the Editor:
By now many of you will know that a special election was held in Westchester County for the office of County Executive on February 11th. This special election is being held to fill the vacancy left by the departure of George Latimer to Congress after his election a few months back. On January 6, the County Legislature appointed Deputy County Executive Ken Jenkins to fill the post temporarily and set a date for a special election. The arbitrarily chosen date is little over 30 days after Jenkins’ appointment and whoever wins will have to run again in November of this year. The County Legislature prescribes the need for a special election within the 90 day window period, and a law dates back to 1938. The legislature could have used the full 90 day period (end of March or early April) to help raise voter awareness about this special election, the candidates and maximize voter turnout. If I were very cynical I would think that this arbitrary date was done deliberately so that one side, in this case the Democrats, will leverage their full advantage. But my initial default position is to give the benefit of the doubt unless I have reason to believe otherwise.
As it is this special election will cost taxpayers $4 million to conduct, we should be looking to save money not spend it unnecessarily, To that end the county law mandate this should be amended. So for example if the County Executive has less than a year left, or better yet, less than 2 years left in his or her term and has to leave office for whatever reason then no special election is necessary and the appointed acting County Executive should serve the remainder of the term until the next general election for that office. That should help in saving taxpayer’s money. I sincerely wish Mr. Jenkins the best of luck in his new job and hope he does well for this county but this is not setting off on the right foot and this law should be amended. Otherwise Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency – DOGE – may pay a visit to White Palins.
– Bruce Kelly, Somers
