Yorktown Town Board - "The Sanctuary Set-Up"

The Sanctuary Set-Up

The two Republican Councilmen placed a last-minute resolution on Yorktown Town Board's agenda on Feb. 20.

Their resolution said "don't make Yorktown a Sanctuary town." But Yorktown is NOT a Sanctuary town, and there is NO effort to make it one. The county legislature may again take up the Immigrant Protection Act in the coming weeks -- but even if it passes, it will not make Yorktown a Sanctuary town.

But the Councilmen's meaningless resolution is not my point.

My point is that a usually empty meeting room was crowded with pro-resolution people, fully prepared, with typed remarks, ready to speak in favor of this last-minute measure. Maybe it was the ‘heads up’ on the Yorktown Republican Facebook page at 7:47AM, long before the 4PM agenda was available.

It was added well after the deadline to put items on the agenda, because the two Councilmen claimed it was an "emergency." Does this sound like an emergency to you?

Somehow the Councilmen managed to alert their supporters to come prepared and told them about the resolution long before any other Yorktown residents knew about it.

Supervisor Gilbert called for a public hearing before voting on this measure, which some of the board members had not even had a chance to properly review. The two Councilmen rejected that, which reveals that they have no interest in actually debating the core issue. If they did, they would support Supervisor Gilbert's proposal to give all Yorktown residents an opportunity to speak on this subject. Then, with input and compromise from both sides, the whole board could rewrite the resolution together. Especially since Supervisor Gilbert stated there were many items in the resolution he could support.

But the two Councilmen aren't interested in our input, or in input from their colleagues. They're only interested in capitalizing on a wedge issue -- and in wasting time with a meaningless and divisive vote on their meaningless and divisive resolution.

So Gilbert's olive branch was snapped by the two Republican Councilmen, who demanded a vote knowing it would be 3-2 against. No politician in their right mind calls for a vote they will lose unless their motive is not to win, but only to get their opponents on the record -- purely a political motive. Maybe on behalf of future candidates for election.

Get ready for their false outrage! There will be editorials and letters claiming Yorktown is now a Sanctuary town. They know it's not true, and they're just trying to drum up fury over a toothless resolution that has absolutely no impact on the town either way.