By Dan Murphy
An “urgent rally” against making changes to the Yonkers Term Limits law was held at the City Hall Fountain on September 13. Whoever organized the so-called “Urgent” Rally at Yonkers City Hall should be ashamed of themselves, because only one “protestor” showed up. And it gets worse-four other people showed up in support of changing term limits!
The rally, held to show the outrage from the public against any change to term limits did the opposite: With many believing now there is no groundwell of support against repealing term limits, which would allow Mayor Mike Spano to run for a fourth term.
Mayor Spano has yet to make up his mind on whether he wants to run for a fourth term, if it was allowed. But in interviews, he has said that he wants a sign from the people of Yonkers to move forward and consider a run for a fourth term, before he moves forward. The lack of interest in the rally, could give the Mayor that signal to move forward with plans for a fourth term.
“Are you telling me that you can’t get 20 people to attend your rally in a City of 200,000? And the weather was great that night, so what’s the excuse,” asked one Yonkers democrat.
And of course the person or persons who organized this rally are nowhere to be found. But if hundreds had shown up, do you think we would know who they are? “Some claim that there was no organizer for the event, but that’s not true. Someone set this up and it failed miserably. They were afraid to put their names on it before and no way they take credit for it now that it backfired,” posted another Yonkers dem on social media.
One former elected official thought that maybe supporters of changing term limits to allow Spano a fourth term organized the event in the hopes that it would fail like it did. “I now wonder if the purpose was to leave it as vague as possible, have little to no turnout as a result of non-sponsorship, to have the appearance that everyone is fine with the status quo,” was the comment.
We disagree because that would have left open the possibility that hundreds could have attended. Most of us thought that a big crowd was coming, and that there was opposition to making another change to the term limits law.
“I don’t support or endorse any candidates but I think that the fact that NO ONE showed up yesterday in speaks LOUDER. Maybe Yonkers Residents are happy with the current Leadership and would like to the Mayor to run for another term,” posted one Yonkers democrat.
The empty rally provides us one fact. Mayor Spano gets to make up his mind first, whether to change term limits and allow him to run for a fourth term. Until that happens all best are off and all candidates must wait.
“People are happy with direction of our city, and they want it to continue. If people are upset they come out. And nobody came out.”
