The Scarsdale Forum is Not Living Up to Its Promise

In a letter to The Scarsdale Inquirer last week entitled ‘Explaining the Role of the Forum,’ the current Scarsdale Forum president stated that she "endeavored to bring new members into leadership positions…the Forum benefits from dynamic voices,” and that the “Forum should be a dynamic organization that evolves to reflect the changes in the make up of the Village population." These objectives are very worthy; unfortunately, they have not been achieved. Particularly worrisome, is that in the last two years, most of the Forum Board has become practically indistinguishable from the over 105-year old Citizens Non-Partisan Party (CNP).

I joined the Scarsdale Forum over three years ago, because I was told that it was the ‘Brookings Institution of Scarsdale’ where residents could make significant contributions to continually improving our village and schools by researching, writing, and reporting upon important municipal and school matters. Indeed, I have met smart and kind people at the Forum, many, whom I am now honored to call my friends and mentors.

In the last two years that I have been on the Forum Board, I have witnessed numerous conflicts of interest and questionable ethical practices. Below, I highlight only a few.

In November 2016, for example, when the majority of Scarsdale residents surveyed stated that they did not feel that an enormous library renovation was needed with urgency, the results were buried in the back of a report and disavowed by the survey designer. Also last year, the Forum’s Nominating Committee, which remit it is to recommend a vice president, was never given a chance to discuss who the Forum VP should be, because the former president simply emailed Forum members announcing whom she had chosen.

In June 2017, despite co-chairing the Education Committee, the largest and most active of the Forum’s committees, I was removed from the Executive Committee without any explanation and replaced with a man who had been a Forum member for only one month. How does having an Executive Committee without a single ethnic minority and whose members are all members of the Citizens Non-Partisan Party (CNP) achieve the objective of being a “dynamic organization that evolves to reflect the changes in the make-up of the Village population?”

Also in June 2017, the Forum president appointed numerous CNP members to chair many committees, even though most of the appointees had been members of the Forum only for a couple of months at most; one woman had not even paid her dues and was still appointed to the Board.

Eleven months later, what reports have the new appointees produced? None. How many community events have they organized? None. Have they increased and diversified Forum membership? No. Membership has decreased.

From June to September, rather than producing reports or invigorating the Forum, the president and most of her new appointees wasted so much time trying to oust two long-term Forum members from the Board, one who was a former Forum president. A number of us on the Board, were shocked at this unprecedented behavior at the Forum. Even one of the president’s new appointees quit the Forum Board when she saw the shouting matches that transpired at two board meetings.

This January, four of the Forum’s five-member Nominating Committee were two CNP trustee candidates, the CNP Campaign Co-Chair, and a CNP supporter. The Executive Committee, comprised entirely of CNP supporters did not ask any of them to step down, to avoid conflicts of interest or the appearance thereof . The Forum is supposed to be a 501 (c) (3) charitable tax-deductible entity that is not permitted by the IRS to engage in political activities or to support a political party or candidates.

I hunkered down from last May until now and worked with multiple Forum members on writing and editing reports about education, fiscal, and municipal matters, designing and analyzing education, traffic, and downtown revitalization surveys, organizing events on education, and editing Forum press releases and newsletters.

Effective today, I am making the painful decision to resign from the Forum Board. I want to volunteer in organizations where leadership respects research, new chairs are not running Borgia like vendettas against people with whom they disagree, no one is hiding survey results, or writing reports to whitewash the painful effects of the Ryan revaluation. I will dedicate more time to my family, career, and numerous other organizations in and out of Scarsdale where I volunteer.

I wish future Forum presidents and vice presidents the best of luck. Much work lies ahead of them to enable the Forum to achieve its promising potential.

Mayra Kirkendall-Rodriguez is a finance professional. She volunteers in a number of educational and civic organizations in the New York area.