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This story has been updated with a comment from Lucas Meyer.
SCARSDALE, N.Y. Scarsdale Procedure Committee Chairperson Michelle Lichtenberg and Vice Chairperson David Brodsky spoke publicly for the first time Monday about a controversy surrounding the village Citizens Nominating Committee (CNC) elections held in November.
The duo addressed their comments to an open meeting of the League of Women Voters of Scarsdale.
A letter to the editor in the weekly Scarsdale Inquirer presented some Fox Meadow-area residents' concerns about what they said was inappropriate electioneering conducted in their voting district by Lucas Meyer, a community volunteer who is active with two Fox Meadow neighborhood associations and a member of the CNC's nominating committee that works to recruit candidates for next spring's board of trustees election.
Meyer declined to comment Monday night beyond saying that the situation was regrettable and he thinks continuing to discuss it would be bad for the village.
Brodsky and Lichtenberg confirmed Monday the letter-writer's complaint that Meyer sent e-mails to the membership lists of two associations backing two of the four nominated candidates, and appeared to be giving the candidates an official endorsement of those groups.
It's a situation that made both procedure committee heads uncomfortable, they said.
"It's very detrimental to the people of the community," Lichtenberg said. "I really fear for Fox Meadow next year," because the candidates not mentioned in the e-mails feel like they were set up, she said.
In prepared remarks distributed to the group and the media, Lichtenberg wrote that neighborhood association members (NAs) should support the process of a truly contested election. In our view, there is nothing anti-democratic about asking the NAs to get out the vote and refrain from endorsement. To the contrary, we think that endorsement of one set of candidates by an NA over other candidates suggests that the endorsement might have come with express or implied commitments on the conduct of the endorsed candidates in their activities on the CNC.
She continued in the statement, We think that any such appearance would be highly detrimental to the principles underlying the non-partisan system which is designed to produce the candidates best qualified to understand and take into consideration the problems of the entire village, and not just the particular neighborhood in which one resides."
Brodsky said he did not see any violation of procedure committee rules, looking at it instead as a neighborhood association issue regarding use of the e-mail lists and endorsing specific candidates. He did say, though, that procedure committee members should refrain from giving the appearance of endorsing candidates and, instead, simply urge residents to vote. If they want to work on behalf of certain candidates, he said, "They should not accept a position on the procedure committee."
Lichtenberg also expressed disappointment in the turnout, which she said was about 4 or 5 percent of eligible voters. She was pleased, though, with changes made this year to the procedures for accepting and handling absentee ballots, which included renting a post office box and requiring ballots to be postmarked by the day of the election. There were 56 absentee ballots cast this year, down from more than 100 in the past.
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