Hoehmann Stays On The Clarkstown Ballot, NY Court Rules

CLARKSTOWN, NY — Clarkstown Town Supervisor George Hoehmann may run for a third term, the New York Court of Appeals said on Friday.

Hoehmann had taken his quest to have the town's 9-year-old term limits law voided to New York state's highest court, after a Supreme Court judge ruled in March that Clarkstown's term limits law, put in place in 2015, was valid.

"The right of the people to vote is fundamental within our democracy," he told Patch in an email Monday. "The court of appeals, the highest court in New York State, unanimously agreed that the term limits legislation in Clarkstown was hopelessly, flawed and invalid, because it denied the people the right to vote in 2014."

Some residents of Clarkstown had been trying to enact a term limits law since 2011, when the town board received a petition with more than 3,400 signatures in favor of term limits that would restrict the town supervisor and town board members to eight consecutive years in office. At that time, Clarkstown Town Attorney Amy Mele and an outside legal expert said a term limits proposal could not be put on the November ballot as a referendum but could be made law by the town board.

Hoehmann supported term limits as a town councilman and voted for the law in 2014. However, in November, he led the Town Council to set but cancel a vote to repeal or modify the law.

Then he challenged it in court with co-plaintiffs Councilman Donald Franchino and resident Tom Foley. Judge Amy Puerto rejected their arguments that the law was invalid because it hadn't been put to a referendum and because it required a super-majority for repeal. She ruled that because the plaintiffs were challenging not the substance but the procedure, the 4-month statute of limitations for challenging a local law applied, and that not being able to run for a third term did not constitute continuing harm to them or the town.

However, an appellate panel of the New York State Supreme Court reversed her decision, and the Court of Appeals affirmed their ruling. They said the Town Board illegally adopted the 2014 law by never allowing residents to vote on term limits in a public referendum.

The court, unlike Mele, said under New York's municipal home rule law, a local law shall be subject to mandatory referendum if it abolishes, transfers or curtails any power of an elective officer. "Through the referendum process, such local laws must be 'submitted for the approval of the electors' at a general or special election," the judges said in their brief decision.

The decision guarantees a spot on the ballot in the June Republican Primary to Hoehmann. Rockland County GOP Chairman Lawrence Garvey also is on the primary ballot, after a convoluted spate of political infighting involving ballot challenges and accusations of deception, The Journal News reported.

Clarkstown Town Clerk Justin Sweet, the Democratic candidate for Town Supervisor, does not have a primary challenger.

"Someone who advocated for term limits and ran for election on the issue of term limits will not be allowed to ignore his own law," said Sweet on his Facebook page. "The term limits will be enforced on this Supervisor in the general election on November 7."

SEE ALSO:

• Clarkstown Taxpayers Group Discusses Term Limits Petition
• Term Limits Petition Reaches Two-Thirds of Goal
• Gromack Proposes Term Limits for Clarkstown
• Clarkstown Lacks Authority To Add Term Limits As Referendum On November Ballot