Yonkers’ landmark board spat
After exchanging testy press releases about bulletproof vests on Thursday, Yonkers Mayor Phil Amicone and City Council President Chuck Lesnick moved on to the Landmarks Preservation Board.
Amicone, a Republican, accused Lesnick, a Democrat, of politicizing the appointment process to the landmarks board because the City Council’s Intergovernmental Relations Committee did not schedule a vote on the appointment of five new nominees. Under the city’s charter, it’s the mayor who appoints, but the City Council must vote on the appointments.
Amicone noted that he nominated four of the five proposed board members almost 10 months ago and Lesnick let those nominations die in his committee. Amicone submitted the five new nominees on Sept. 1.
“I fully expected Council President Lesnick’s committee to take action in a timely fashion. Unfortunately, this was not the case. Although the committee met and interviewed each of the five appointees on September 16, Council President Lesnick refused to move the appointments forward for vote of the City Council at its September 22 meeting,” Amicone stated in his release.
Last month Amicone told The Journal News that under the strong-mayor form of government he is entitled to appoint landmarks board members and the City Council should not try to have its say in the matter.
Last month Lesnick told The Journal News that he wanted to see qualified people on the landmarks board who have a genuine interest in historic preservation.
“Even before we interviewed the five mayoral nominees, some council members had
asked me to put off a vote, scheduled on September 16, so that they could further
examine and reflect on the qualifications of each of the nominees in order to determine whether they met the standards,” Lesnick stated in his press release.
The city code requires the following: “All Board members shall have a demonstrated interest, competence or knowledge of historic preservation. At least one Board member shall be a member of the Yonkers Historical Society, if in existence. At least two Board members shall be licensed architects. At least one Board member shall be a licensed realtor. At least two Board members shall be drawn from among one or more of the disciplines of history, historic architecture, city planning, archaeology, historic preservation or a similar closely related field.”
Lesnick said Amicone’s complaints about the council’s scrutiny of his nominees were another effort to “emasculate” the landmarks board after he withdrew a proposal to change the city’s charter to give the Planning Board a veto over the landmarks board’s decisions instead of the advisory role it currently has.
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its really very simple..the members of the landmark
board should be made up of people with either historical
experience, or architectural experience or some understanding of what is and is not important in the
hudson valley
City Code: “All Board members shall have a demonstrated interest, competence, OR knowledge of historic preservation.” Not “AND.” “OR.” Laughable in the extreme.
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