By Dan Murphy Twelve Yonkers residents and their attorney Michael Sussman have filed a final appeal with the NY Court of Appeals regarding their suit alleging that the change in the Yonkers Term Limits law last year was not legal. Sussman has also filed a motion to move the matter forward in time for this year’s November election.
So far, the 12 Yonkers plaintiffs Anne Marie McArdle, Carolyn Solieri, Michael Represa, Christine Peters, Eric Johnson, Frank Coleman Jr., George Mcanama, Joan Gronowski, Joe Pinion, Kisha Skipper, Mark Parolis and Ron Matten, have lost their legal argument.
In April, State Supreme Court Judge George Fufidio ruled that the vote by the council to modify the number of terms that councilmembers and the Mayor can run from 3-four year terms to 4-four year terms was lawful, writing, “there were no ethical violations committed by the Yonkers City Council by increasing their own and the Mayor’s term limits,” and “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.”
Last month, a NYS Appeals Court in a unanimous vote, ruled that the vote by the Yonkers City Council last year was illegal was without merit. In a unanimous decision, the Appeals Cour Judges found that the Council and Mayor Spano did not violate the Yonkers Charter and did not commit an ethics offense simply by voting for a signing the term limits extension.
The one unknown question is can this suit have an impact on the November election for Mayor. Most believe that it woudl be legally and practically impossible to remove a person from the November ballot, or postpone an election without disenfranchising Yonkers voters. The City of Yonkers has argued in court that the vote was legal, and that the remedy, as always in elections, is to vote the person serving many terms out of office.
