Politics on the Hudson

Walter Schwartz, who is celebrating his silver anniversary on the bench of Ardsley Village Court, has decided to throw his robe into the ring for Greenburgh Town Justice.

Schwartz, a village justice since 1982, plans to challenge longtime town justices Doris Friedman and Sandra Forester in the Sept. 18 Democratic primary. The 69-year-old grandfather described himself as an “independent Democrat” who is ready for the challenge of the Town Court, one of the busiest in Westchester County.

“I have the enthusiam for it,” he said.

Schwartz need to collect 1,000 signatures from registered Democrats in Greenburgh to get on the ballot. As of yesterday, he had 60. But he has until July 19 to get the rest.

Bill Greenawalt said today that he won’t run for town supervisor against incumbent Paul Feiner and the Democratic Party-endorsed challenger Suzanne Berger. Read more about it “here”:http://lohud.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070613/NEWS02/706130373/1018/NEWS02

The competition for elected office in Greenburgh continues to grow.

Valhalla school board member Judith Beville announced today that she will try to unseat Alfreda Williams, who has been town Clerk since 1993.

According to her press release, Beville is a former regional director with the New York State Mentoring Program who is going for her second master’s degree at Mercy College. She lives in the Parkway Homes/Parkway Gardens neighborhood.

Beville joins a growing number of people trying to boot Greenburgh incumbents: retired Greenburgh cop Kevin Morgan and Greenburgh PTA officer Sonja Brown are trying to unseat Town Board members Eddie Mae Barnes and Steve Bass. Democratic Town Committee chairwoman Suzanne Berger and 2005 Town Supervisor candidate Bill Greenawalt are duking it out to see who will oppose Town Supervisor Paul Feiner in the Democratic primary.

Berger and Greenawalt, as I previously posted, are vying for the party’s designation. Technically, so is Feiner, but the chances of him being named the party’s candidate of choice are slim to none, considering the Democratic committee backed Greenawalt two years ago and the party’s executive committee is backing Berger now.

FOLLOW-UP: Thanks for pointing out the error, Bob. A tired reporter trying to do 8 things on a Friday afternoon sometimes slips up.

Greenburgh Supervisor Paul Feiner has put out a call on the “town website”:www.greenburghny.com for Greenburgh residents to help the tornado victims of Greensburg, Kansas.

Feiner says that a number of residents have contacted him about how they could help the residents of the community with almost the same name. The weekend tornado destroyed more than 90 percent of the small Kansas town and has claimed 10 lives so far.

Similar efforts are happening in like-named communities nationwide. Yesterday, local officials in Greensburg, Pa., near Pittsburgh, met to talk about what they could do for their Kansas namesake. Read more about those efforts “here”:www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribunereview/news/westmoreland/s_506536.html.

Feiner is urging people to visit the “American Red Cross website”:www.redcross.org. He also suggested sending donations to the American Red Cross, Westchester County Chapter, 106 North Broadway, White Plains, NY 10603 or to the national headquarters of the Red Cross, 2025 E Street, N.W. Washington, DC 20006.

Meanwhile, Feiner pledged to keep looking for other ways residents can help. Anyone who would like to organize a local community outreach effort or who would like to know about such efforts can e-mail him at pfeiner@greenburghny.com.

Even though he didn’t get the support of the Greenburgh Democratic Party’s executive committee, Bill Greenwalt said he believes that the full Democratic Town Committee will support him in his bid for Town Supervisor.

“It’s a going to be a fight, but I think I will prevail,” he said this afternoon.

Greenawalt, who came within 200 votes of beating Supervisor Paul Feiner in the 2005 Democratic Primary, said the executive committee’s endorsement of Suzanne Berger — the party’s chairwoman — doesn’t mean she will win the majority of votes at the party May 24 convention.

“They’re independent people,” he said, referring to other party members.

To no one’s surprise, Greenburgh Democratic Party leaders threw their support behind Suzanne Berger, the party’s popular chairwoman, to topple Democrat Paul Feiner for Town Supervisor.

According to her campaign spokesman, Berger got 15 out of 24 votes from the executive committee to be the party’s choice for supervisor. Three committee members did not attend the meetong.

Bill Greenawalt, the party’s choice to topple Feiner two years ago, got 6 votes.

No one voted for Feiner, who has been Town Supervisor for 16 years and who has locked horns with the party leadership in the past. Feiner said he would run as an independent if he loses the primary.

Feiner was the only incumbent who didn’t get the committee’s support. The executive committee backed Town Board members Eddie Mae Barnes and Steve Bass, Town Clerk Alfreda Williams, Town Justice Doris Friedman and county legislators Lois Bronz and Tom Abinanti.

The entire Democratic Town Committee will meet on May 24 to choose the party’s official designations for the Sept. 11 primary.

Kevin Morgan, who ran for Town Board two years ago with Greenburgh Supervisor Paul Feiner, says he’s making another attempt for a board seat.

This time, he’s going at it alone.

Morgan, a retired Greenburgh police detective who lives in the North Elmsford section of town, said he will run independently if not endorsed by the Greenburgh Democratic Town Committee, who are expected to endorse incumbents Steve Bass and Eddie Mae Barnes.

Morgan said he believes he lost last time was partly because “some people thought I’d be a rubber stamp for Paul.” He said he wants to put a stop to the bickering on the Town Board.

“You can’t keep on governing by fighting,” he said.

That brings to 4 the total candidates for the Town Board. Greenburgh school administrator and community activist Sonja Brown says she will collect signatures to get on the ballot.

Feiner has yet to announce who, if anyone, he will choose as his running mates.

Greenburgh Town Board member Steve Bass said the board’s push to restrict campaign donations was not aimed at Town Supervisor Paul Feiner — even though the practice that would be banned sounds a lot like Feiner’s past fundraising.

The Town Board has recommended changing the town ethics code regarding campaign contributions from anyone with applications before town boards or from their representatives. This would mean candidates for town office who accepted campaign money from developers or their lawyers would be an ethics violation.

Feiner has come under fire for accepting such donations from such applicants.

“I’m saying they have nothing to do with each other,” Bass stated. “Other council candidates have done it as well. I think it’s wrong.”

Bass added that the Town Board did not “reject” Feiner’s proposal to ban campaign contributions from Greenburgh’s municipal unions and to limit who can donate town political parties. The board “tabled” the item indefinitely.

Greenburgh’s town supervisor, Paul Feiner, is once again in a battle with the rest of his town board, this time over potential campaign finance reform. Feiner wants even stricter limits on donations, while the rest of the board thinks he wants too much. Check out the story “here”:http://www.thejournalnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070420/NEWS02/704200375/1026/NEWS10.

Three people have announced their intentions to run for Greenburgh Town Board this fall.

Longtime councilwoman Eddie Mae Barnes and fellow incumbent Steve Bass sent out a joint statement yesterday about their plans to seek another four-year term on the ever-lively Town Board. Barnes, the Director of Nursing at Rye Hospital, has been on the board since 1991. Bass, an aide at the Westchester County Board of Legislators, has been on the board since 200?, when he was appointed to fill an unfinished term.

Barnes and Bass are not the biggest fans of Town Supervisor Paul Feiner, who often finds himself at odds with them and the other two council members on the Town Board.

The contentious nature of Town Board meetings has led Greenburgh school administrator Sonja Brown to announce her bid for a board seat last week. Brown is well-known in social-service circles. She is a member of a half-dozen school and town committees and has served on at least that many town, county and community boards. She plans to run as an independent, since the powerful Democratic Town Committee will almost certainly will endorse Bass and Barnes.

We’re still waiting for Feiner to announce his Town Board running mates. The pair who ran with him two years ago got thumped at the polls, but Feiner squeaked out a victory in the Democratic primary and ran unopposed in the general election.