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Health & Fitness

Setting Aside Party Politics

A crucial vote at the Yorktown Town Board Meeting last week.

Something extraordinary happened at the Yorktown Town Board meeting last week. Democracy worked. Three Board members put aside party politics to join together and do what’s right for us, the people of this town.

Nick Bianco, Vishnu Patel, and Dave Paganelli – a Conservative, a Democrat, and a Republican – said no to one of the more egregious floutings of our town ordinances and laws in recent memory, the attempt to ram through the transfer of town parkland to a private enterprise.

It sounds crazy – how could this be? There’s no doubt about it: the swamp in question, over on Route 6 by the old church that is now The Winery, is an unsightly mess. As is so often the fate of our public land – particularly now, with a supervisor who can barely contain his distaste for the idea of open spaces – it’s been used as a dumping ground for years. But even the most treasured of parks, if left unmaintained, can turn into a war zone: anyone remember Central Park, back in the Seventies?

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Our supervisor, Michael Grace, has known for a long time that this particular stretch of our park system was in serious need of attention. But rather than do something about it, he decided it would be the perfect showcase for one of his pet ideas, the ‘public-private’ partnership. Watch out! Some of these work fine – The Central Park Conservancy, for example – but more often than not these deals are just another excuse for paying back favors and raiding the public treasury. It all depends on the terms and who you’re dealing with; and the track record of the Winery is problematic at best.

So rather than waste a lot of time and attention on what would be a bad deal for the town and a terrible precedent, Nick, Vishnu, and Dave decided that we should just say no and move on to more important matters. Grace and his sidekick, Terrence Murphy, were furious to have their plans thwarted. But the people of Yorktown got to see three elected representatives put aside party politics to do what we elected them to do: keep an eye out for us.

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It’s sad; we’ve gotten so used to the politics of division, of pitting one group against another, that it comes as a shock to see what it can be like when people stop the name calling and get together to actually get something done. It’s the way leadership is supposed to be. 

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