Candidate Profile: Alli Choi For Bedford Town Board

BEDFORD, NY — In 2021's general election, residents of the Hudson Valley will be voting for local officials. In anticipation, Patch asked candidates in the contested races to answer questions about their campaigns and will be publishing candidate profiles as Election Day draws near.

Alli Choi is seeking election to the Bedford Town Board in November. The 38-year-old is running on the Bedford United ticket.

Learn more about Choi on https://bedfordunited.org/alli

Check out Patch's full Q&A with Choi:

Family

7-year-old and 5-year-old

Does anyone in your family work in politics or government?

No

Education

Harvard University, B.A. Economics

Occupation

Goldman Sachs (2 years), Equinox (5 years), The Flip Side (4 years)

Previous or Current Elected or Appointed Office

No

Why are you seeking elective office?

I can help. I want to serve as a leader and as a partner on our Town Board. I will contribute my ideas to solve the pressing challenges facing the Town of Bedford. I will lead in initiatives where my professional experiences and demonstrated skills can be used to benefit all our residents. I will collaborate in discussions and projects to support our vision and goals for our town. I have loved supporting and serving on committees of local nonprofits, including those preserving our town's history and environment. I am thrilled for the opportunity to bring my experience and ideas to the Town Board.

The single most pressing issue facing our (board, district, etc.) is _______, and this is what I intend to do about it.

Planning: There is a lack of planning for our town. The Town Board needs to do a smarter job planning for the short, medium, and long term. This includes, for instance, planning for the inevitable need for cell service coverage, predictable funding frameworks for our three libraries, solutions to help fill continued empty storefronts, and appointing vacancies on committees and departments in a timely and responsible way. There needs to be proactive – not reactive – planning. I can help.

I will use my private sector experience to identify how we can be proactive in planning expected needs and adopting best practices for the unexpected. Cell coverage requires leveraging updated technology and multi-pronged approach; predictable library funding involves budget analysis and forecasting; strengthening small business activity can be supported by private-public partnerships; filling vacancies requires proactively searching for qualified replacements and preemptive succession planning so institutional knowledge is not lost in leadership or position transfers.

What are the critical differences between you and the other candidates seeking this post?

My professional experience and skill sets include extensive work in financial and business analysis at Goldman Sachs and Equinox after studying economics at Harvard. I also have extensive experience engaging in communication, generating productive dialogue, and building consensus through civic bipartisan work at The Flip Side (digital media startup) and Renew Democracy Initiative (nonprofit organization).

If you are a challenger, in what way has the current board or officeholder failed the community (or district or constituency)

Disregard for transparent governance: In January, residents of our town became aware that members of the Town Board privately appointed a new supervisor and a new board member – two elected office positions. Indeed, during the midst of a pandemic, special elections would be complicated and costly. Nevertheless, a public announcement regarding the resignations and subsequent vacancies to be filled should have been a default procedure of the appointment process. Town Board members should have elicited input on who or what qualities the constituents would like to see in the seats to be appointed. Instead, board members decided to comply within an echo chamber. Without a diverging point of view, a majority of our Town Board is made up of unelected appointees with well under a term of experience.

The consequences of that go beyond principle. Town governance has seen dysfunction and inaction on a number of basic responsibilities. For example, department and committee vacancies remain unfilled, and an excessive number of board meeting agenda items are relegated to sweeping “consent agendas” without questions, clarity, or deliberations. Residents have recently seen the highest property tax increase in over a decade, backlogs in building permits, and a lawsuit filed by Verizon against the Town relating to its inability to identify a solution for cell coverage. This alone has cost taxpayers in massive legal fees while we are still left without sufficient coverage.

How do you think local officials performed in responding to the coronavirus? What if anything would you have done differently?

Local officials responded well to the coronavirus. Our supervisor was helpful to constituents in search of scheduling vaccination appointments. Town board members were helpful in securing masks when there were shortages early in the pandemic. But an issue I would have handled differently relates to the private physician hired by the Town Board to administer Covid tests. The Town requested that residents get tested by this physician at a new testing site. Unknown to town officials and to residents, the physician charged upward of thousands of dollars per patient for a larger panel test he referred to as “super Covid tests” (this included tests for non-Covid viruses) and hundreds of dollars for follow up patient phone calls. The physician billed these tests to insurance companies which then passed uncovered costs along to the residents. The Board’s decision to hire with insufficient vetting and oversight proved financially burdensome to many residents. Amid a crisis in which panic tends to lure rash decisions, I would have asked background questions such as, “What are the background, references, and credentials of this physician?” and “What is the quality and cost of these services to our residents?” Measured leadership requires striking an appropriate balance of questions, research, and actions even during an emergency.

Describe the other issues that define your campaign platform.

In addition to improving our town’s ability to plan for the short, medium, and long term, my other priorities include improving communication and budgeting.

There is insufficient communication from our Town Board to the constituency. For example, the manner by which circumstances of Board member and Supervisor replacements have been handled – behind closed doors – has been opaque at best. Town leaders need to be better at communicating with those they were elected to represent. I promise that as a Town Board member I will be accessible, listen to everyone, and communicate with integrity, transparency, and respect for all residents.

More recently, public health and safety have emerged as issues facing the Town of Bedford. Questionable drinking water and car thefts have become concerns. Residents must feel secure living in Bedford. Security comes in the form of town operations running smoothly and communicated responsibly. Security also requires confidence that our elected officials are on top of addressing unexpected emergencies.

There's also a lack of responsible budgeting. Our taxes and fees are too high. Our town has excessively high property tax rates and the board recently approved an excessively high increase of 4.5% – incomparable to neighboring towns. We've seen and heard of too many seniors and residents feel they must move out of Bedford because the taxing burdens are too high and only going higher. These are neighbors who grew up here and raised their families here. I promise as your Board member I will go line by line reviewing budgets, identifying financial inefficiencies, and allocating money and resources responsibly on behalf of those I serve. Our public sector services must stretch each dollar more wisely.

As a member of the Town Board, I want to guarantee the fundamentals for a stable, secure, and thriving town are in place so that as I complete my term in four years, we can see a true revitalization in all our hamlets. I say this not only because I know it's the right way to govern, but I also have skin in the game with my two young children. I want this for them just as I want this for all our neighbors in the Town of Bedford.

What accomplishments in your past would you cite as evidence you can handle this job?

From my financial analytical work at Goldman Sachs to my project management experience at Equinox, I’ve been able to address and solve problems in a variety of contexts. These challenges often involved working collaboratively with and communicating to multiple stakeholders. I am also proud of my accomplishments in contributing to the startup success of The Flip Side, a digital media daily digest that covers the most thoughtful op-eds from sources across the political spectrum. The Flip Side founder, Annafi Wahed, wrote in a recent Letter to the Editor: “because of her authentic passion for working together and placing common goals above partisan wins, we have earned subscriber and funding support from across the political spectrum. I am confident that Alli Choi will bring smart and productive viewpoint diversity to achieve what’s best for the mission at hand — whether that’s advising bipartisan projects or representing local interests for the good of all in her town.”

The best advice ever shared with me was:

Be good, have fun, and work hard.

What else would you like voters to know about yourself and your positions?

In a current climate of polarization, I have worked hard to shed light on pluralism. That is, an environment or system in which multiple beliefs, groups, ideas coexist. Confident pluralism is a prerequisite for a democracy. I believe this is powerful and far more in line with what the vast majority of people want in our society and our communities. I have long acted on pluralism. My values are a product of my diverse upbringing, relationships, research, and experiences. My character embodies pluralism and diversity in many ways: I am a biracial woman, a mom to a daughter and son, a spouse in an interfaith marriage, and the daughter of an American immigrant and US Navy veteran. Most importantly, I am a good neighbor committed to common ground and effective solutions for our town.

Find information about absentee and early voting here: Election 2021: New Systems For Early Voting In Westchester. To find all your candidates, as well as statewide, county and local propositions, follow the links offered by the Board of Elections:

• View the 2021 General Election Candidates List.
• View the 2021 General Election State Propositions.
• View the 2021 General Election County and Local Propositions.