To the Editor:
Our local elections in Sleepy Hollow are on November 4th.
I’m grateful to everyone serving on our current board and to both slates. At the end of this election we will all still be neighbors and we will either be friends with each candidate personally or know someone who is friends with each candidate personally. I believe every candidate has the best interests of the Village at heart. As voters we have to decide who we think will best serve our collective needs.
For me, after looking carefully at Village budgets, listening to board meetings, reading what the slates are putting out, the Sleepy Hollow Democrats / TAG have my confidence and vote and here is why…
None of us wants higher taxes. Including every member of both slates.
Whether taxes needed to be raised or not is a moot point now. I want to have confidence going forward that taxes will not be raised erroneously and that we will have a responsible government whose representatives are committed to our Village employees, our wonderful volunteer fire department and ambulance corps, our infrastructure, our businesses, and our community life.
I feel Marjorie Hsu and her team will bring a strong responsible business sense to this task.
As much as I would love a 15 percent tax rebate as promised by the USH team, that seems impossible. Looking at the Village budget, we had a 10% overall increase and it does not seem as though it was bloated in any way. The budget was passed by the current majority Republican board.
We have projected income from Edge-on-Hudson to help balance our debt service but I have yet to see an analysis that shows an actual revenue stream that matches our past projections. From what I have seen, all the future projected revenue to manage our debt is based on a best-case scenario. After living through a pandemic and many costly construction delays I am not confident that a best case scenario is a prudent financial model.
I believe that Marjorie Hsu, and engineer with an MBA who is a former Verizon executive, and her team have the vision and expertise to usher us into this new era. Responsible government who are responsive to all of our needs. That is not an easy task. We have many neighborhoods with many varying concerns. Marjorie Hsu and her team live in different neighborhoods, and bring different voices to our local government. They have a complimentary set of skills, an understanding of the nuanced perspectives of our community, diverse representation on their slate, and the business expertise to get the job done.
The most important thing of course, is that you go to the polls and vote for the candidates you feel will best represent you.
Rebecca Scarpati
Sleepy Hollow
