Letter To The Editor: Robert Berg Lays Out Case For Election

I am Robert Berg, and I am running for Village Trustee on March 20, 2018 on Row A as the candidate of the non-partisan Voters Choice Party. This is an important election for our residents. Scarsdale is a very special community, but it is at a key crossroads. The newly enacted federal tax law greatly limits the tax deductibility of our local property taxes and mortgage interest. This change is likely to have significant negative ramifications for our local real estate market and our Village’s residents’ after-tax cost of living in Scarsdale.

These demanding times call for a new independent Village Trustee who: (1) is committed to the community; (2) has intimate knowledge of the issues, demonstrated civic leadership and experience; (3) believes in open and transparent government; (3) is open minded and takes principled, well-reasoned, data-driven stands; and (4) perhaps most importantly, asks probing, difficult questions and demands answers, and won’t shy away from the truth. Without bragging, I am that candidate, and our residents need my independent, fresh voice to be represented on the Village Board.

My qualifications for the job are straightforward. My wife and I have lived in Scarsdale for 16 years. We raised our two kids here. I have been very active in our civic affairs the entire time. I have served on our Board of Assessment Review for the past five years, and have determined over 3,000 property tax grievances filed by our residents. I am the present and former President of the Crane Berkley neighborhood association, and a current member of the Scarsdale Neighborhood Association Presidents. I am a former President of the Scarsdale Forum and a current Director. I have held many other officer and director positions in these organizations. I was largely responsible for bringing the first revaluation in 45 years to Scarsdale in 2014, and bitterly opposed the disastrous 2016 Ryan revaluation. I have worked with our Village staff and leaders; I know the issues; and I know what needs to be done to set our Village on the right course.

I have a B.A. degree from Amherst College, and an M.B.A. and a J.D. degree from the University of Chicago. I have been practicing law for the past 35 years, and I specialize in complex multi-district class action. I know a lot about complex financial matters, Board governance, and I'm an expert at untangling intricate factual webs. I know how to ferret out the right answers and when something doesn't make sense, it's tough to pull the wool over my eyes.

Protect Free Speech: Can you believe our Scarsdale Village Government illegally confiscated the political signs our residents posted on their front lawns supporting the recent school bond just a month ago? Residents like me, who supported the bond, had posted "Vote Yes" lawn signs in front of our homes. Some opponents of the bond, who sadly don't understand or care about the democratic values that make our nation great, called the cops and the police illegally removed the signs because they were in the village right of way. When I learned how our police were being used to suppress our residents' free speech rights, using our tax dollars, I contacted the Village Attorney, Village Trustees, Mayor, Police Chief, and Village Manager and told them to stop. They adamantly refused, and I had to file a lawsuit in federal court to protect our residents' precious rights to political speech. The federal judge held an emergency hearing and the next day, he issued a scholarly legal opinion in which the court determined that the Village and the Police Department were irreparably injuring residents' rights to political speech. The court enjoined the Village and the Police Department from removing or interfering with any political signs placed on residents' lawns within the Village right of way so long as the signs did not present a traffic or safety hazard. This is the first time since the founding of the United States that the Village of Scarsdale has been found to systematically infringe the First Amendment free speech rights of its residents. I had the guts to stand up to the petty tyranny of our Village officials to protect these most precious rights. And even after the federal court has ruled that the Village Code is unconstitutional and cannot be enforced, the Village has refused to revise the illegal provision and continues to fight the lawsuit. What a waste of our tax dollars!

Respect Our Residents' Property Rights and Pocket Books: The Village Board and Mayor are planning on ramming through a new and onerous Tree Preservation Ordinance in the next couple of weeks. This ordinance will impose high fees and burdensome restrictions on our right to cut down trees on our own private property for legitimate reasons such as concern that the trees are too close to power lines or our houses, to make room for a pool, to open up space for a garden, or whatever we want to do with our own property. For each tree greater than six inches that we want to cut down, we'll need to obtain a written permit, and in many instances, pay at least $500 per tree or replace the tree, for the right to cut down our own tree on our own land. This is an outrageous overreach by our Village government designed to appease a couple of tree fanatics. I'm a die hard environmentalist. This proposed law is actually dangerous. As we've seen from these recent horrible storms, in our "Village in a Park" trees and power lines are a deadly combination. Residents actually should be encouraged to cut down trees or limbs near power lines or too close to their houses. My family was nearly killed about ten years ago when a healthy, huge Village tree crashed down on our house during a windstorm, and our house suffered more than $50,000 damage. Yet the proposed tree ordinance will dissuade homeowners from taking smart, safe actions to stormproof their properties by imposing thousands of unnecessary fees on them for that right on their own private properties. Stop this madness. Come to Village Hall on March 11 at 8 pm and tell the Village Board to table this ridiculous tree ordinance at the Public Hearing. This is our last chance. Let's solve Village problems the right way instead of burdening our residents, who already pay the highest property taxes in the country, with more nuisance laws and fees and unneeded hurdles over how they use their private property.

Fair Property Assessment: Our property taxes are supposed to allocated based upon the fair market values of our properties. The Village's assessment roll should accurately reflect these fair market values. Sadly, the Village Board and Mayors failed to carry out their fiduciary duties to residents and failed to supervise our Assessor and the incompetent mass appraisal firm she recommended the Board hire without competitive bidding. Village residents have suffered with a disastrous assessment roll that has caused residents millions of dollars in attorneys' fees and grievance fees to try to gain a semblance of justice. This entire situation is an absolute disgrace that has now lasted two years. The Village Board and prior two Mayors were warned not to go forward with the ill-fated Ryan revaluation in 2016. How do I know this? I warned them. I begged them not to go forward. While there was still time to pull the plug, I cried that the Ryan revaluation was a "train wreck waiting to happen." Your Village Board, paralyzed by indecision, stuck their heads in the sand, and allowed JF Ryan to unleash chaos in the community. Then they said they'd get to the bottom of this mess. So what did they do? Did they fire the Assessor who perjured herself when she signed the tentative assessment roll on June 1, 2016, swearing that the values on the roll were accurate? No. She's still on the job, collecting her full $135,000/year salary plus benefits. No action has been taken against her, nor is any likely until her term expires in the Fall of 2019. What a disgrace! What a waste of our tax dollars! Instead, over my objection, the Village Board adopted the Village Manager's recommendation to hire an outside consultant for $35,000 to "assess" the Assessor's office and make recommendations. After a seven month study, the consultant came back with a woefully inadequate report that contains such gems as recommending that the Assessor's staff receive better customer service training and that they prepare a video that explains what the office does. Another waste of our tax dollars. We need to replace the Assessor immediately. We need to prepare for a proper townwide revaluation which will likely be concluded by 2020. Let's run our Village like a professional enterprise. For the tax dollars we pay, we certainly deserve no less.

Fix our Village Roads: Our decrepit 79 miles of Village roads are reminiscent more of Mogadishu than of one of the wealthiest communities in the United States. The last complete road condition survey was performed ten years ago. Our pot-holed streets are dangerous and disgraceful. Our Village has no plan to remedy the situation and with the amounts budgeted for road repair, we never catch up. I have a plan. I propose a $4 million bond, payable over 10 years, at current low interest rates, to fund an accelerated road repair program. Properly rebuilt roads last at least 15 years so a 10 year pay back period is conservative municipal financing. This way we can fund the paving of 11 1/2 miles of Village roads in one season in a fiscally responsible manner rather than the normal 3 miles per season. Right now, the Village funds occasional spurts of extra road repair with "once in a blue moon" revenue shots such as unexpected funds from tax foreclosure sales of private properties. That's no way to get a grip on a long-term safety problem that plagues every resident on a daily basis.

Institute Cost-Effective Sanitation Pick-Up That Increases Re-Cycling Yet Preserves Needed Backyard Services: We all need to do our parts to reduce our impact on the environment. Increasing recycling is a win-win for everyone. The newly proposed sanitation program, modified because of vocal input from residents, especially seniors, achieves this goal. The new plan will maintain bi-weekly backyard pickup of recyclables, biweekly curbside pickup of cardboard and newspapers, twice per week backyard pickup, and will offer on a voluntary trial basis weekly curbside pickup of food scraps. This program, a compromise that protects our seniors and physically challenged residents, is, in my opinion, the best collaborative community/Village effort I have seen in my 16 years of civic activism in Scarsdale.

Build a Village Dog Park: Scarsdale is home to many dogs. They lead a sad and tethered life. Our Village has a strict leash law. Dogs are not allowed off leash on any public way and are forbidden in any public parks or on school grounds. But dogs love to run free and play with their furry brethren. I have been working as the Co-Chair of the SNAP Dog Park Committee for the past year to have the Village build a dog park in Scarsdale. Dog parks are successfully established in our neighboring communities and all throughout the City of New York. They provide a wonderful playground for our furry friends, and more importantly, they provide our residents with a terrific opportunity to meet and mingle with their neighbors. Dog parks help build strong communities.

Revitalize Downtown Scarsdale: The hideous Freightway parking garage and parking site on the west side of the Metro North tracks is Village-owned and presents the Village with an amazing opportunity to turn an eyesore into a revenue generating, multi-use community treasure that can revitalize and rationalize our downtown. We need to continue planning for an integrated downtown revitalization/Freightway redevelopment that will create a new mixed use parking/retail/residential complex at Freightway offering connectivity with Scarsdale Avenue and Downtown Scarsdale. The new development should provide a substantially enhanced commercial and residential tax base for the Village and Schools while impacting the school enrollment only modestly. This is a once in a lifetime chance to redevelop a significant portion of our underutilized downtown, and we need to do this carefully and correctly.

Smart Investment in our Schools: While the Scarsdale Schools are governed and funded completely independently from the Village government, their health and value affect all our property values and our community. All our residents, whether empty nesters, newcomers, or families with kids in the schools, have a tremendous stake in ensuring that our public school system spends our tax dollars wisely and provides the finest education possible for our students in a rapidly evolving world. I was a strong advocate for the $65 million school facilities bond which residents recently passed by an overwhelming 2-1 margin, and I was proud to have taken a public role in supporting the bond's passage.

Please vote for me on March 20, 2018 for Village Trustee. Vote Row A for Robert J. Berg. Thank you.

— Robert Berg

Photo caption: Robert Berg. Photo credit: Submitted.