Scarsdale Village Mayor Needs Community Input to Set Priorities

10 April 2018

Good evening, I am Mayra Kirkendall-Rodríguez .

I hope that everyone had a blessed Easter. And to those of you who celebrated Passover, “Chag, Pesach Sameach L'Shana Haba'ah B'Yerushalayim.”

In a recent email exchange that I had with Mayor Hochvert, I asked when he would announce what the priorities are for Village Hall in 2018-2019. The mayor responded that he would announce them at a meeting on April 26th. I commend the mayor for setting a date to discuss this. I urge you to make this meeting at a time such as 7 or 8pm so that as many residents can attend. I also encourage the BOT and the Mayor to involve all Scarsdale residents in determining what should be the priorities at Village Hall. I urge you to have an open hearing to determine what are the community’s priorities. I also recommend that you run a survey. From Brice’s and my work on multiple surveys, I can attest to the richness of information that you can find, and the data would be very useful to Village personnel and you to design and implement budgets and long-term financial and capital plans. It is critical for you to have data to identify what services and quality thereof, we residents want. We are a village of almost 18,000 residents from over 60 countries. Please, dig into that pool of talent and find out what our priorities are.

In your first year, Mr. Mayor there have been countless meetings and discussions devoted to trees, sanitation pick-up and recycling. Yet, what about other important Village matters? What about having a fair and well-run property revaluation so that residents are taxed fairly? Are you still withholding Ryan’s last payment? Are you ever going to try to get all or our money back since he did not complete his contract and never handed in documentation to prove if he ever even had a model? A fair revaluation is not only critical to residents’ pocket books, it would also reduce the enormous challenges to our school district’s budget and long term financial plan, that are caused by the uncertainty posed by tax certiorari. What about paving the 50% of the roads that according to the road consultants’ report are only in fair or poor condition? What about reducing the number of aggressive drivers, especially around our schools and school buses, which is a top priority in Scarsdale as demonstrated in the Forum’s Municipal Services traffic report on which I worked with Madelaine Eppenstein, the Chair of that Committee, and my husband?

I also encourage you to take into account recent federal tax code changes and macroeconomic factors into consideration, not only in this year’s budget but also in creating and implementing a long-term financial model and plan for our Village. It has come to my attention that Scarsdale Village has not developed a long-term financial model. It has been almost 10 years since the financial crisis. This is the time to be thinking about different macroeconomic stresses and how they could impact the Village’s fiscal stability. The Scarsdale school district released a draft long-term financial model today, and I commend Asst. Superintendent Stuart Mattey and Treasurer Jeff Martin for their important work in that area.

While it is good that most economies, including that of the United States, are currently in an upward trend, this also means that commodity prices are rising. The Bloomberg Commodity Index is up 20 percent since early 2016. Oil prices have more than doubled since bottoming in February 2016. The Morgan Stanley Composite Index (MSCI) for World Metals & Mining Index of equities has risen about 90 percent since the start of 2016. Additionally, if a trade war between the United States and China erupts, many commodities will rise even more in price. Commodity prices are relevant to any construction or repairs that you have to do in the Village.

The growth in the global economy and also of commodity prices means that there is significant upward pressure on interest rates. This will affect not only the cost of goods and services for the Village, but also, will increase your cost of borrowing when you issue any new debt. Additionally, since in the United States, we are at the lowest unemployment rate in a decade, hiring any contractors of any kind is going to get more expensive as there is upward pressure on wages.

There are two other factors specific to the United States that trouble me. American households are back to being as leveraged as they were in 2008 in just about every debt category, especially student and car loans. Rising interest rates could increase the default rate. Moreover, in this unfortunate administration in Washington, there is strong pressure right now to deregulate banks and to curb protections for consumers. These two factors remind me too much of where we were in 2006-07. The New York City metro area, more than any other part of the United States is very sensitive to market and banking crisis, due to the nature of our professions. I urge you-- Village personnel, mayor and trustees to create a long term financial model and plan. It is essential that you stress test the model. You must look not only at today’s macroeconomic factors but you must include adverse scenarios to see what that would do to the Village’s fiscal stability.

Lastly, on a different but very important matter. I often hear from the Mayor and a few others that it is so difficult to find volunteers for councils, boards, and committees. It would be good if you could show us with numbers or other information whether this is, indeed the case. And if it is really true, that you reached out to a wide variety of residents, including outside of supporters of the Citizens Non-Partisan Party, and have a hard time finding enough volunteers, why then would you not reappoint a very talented, decent, ethical, and quantitative volunteer such as Jane Curley. I assure you that if you had to pay for her services, you could not afford her.

Thank you and good night.