Assembly George Latimer (D-Assembly District 91) sent a letter declaring his intention to run for New York State Senate from the 37th Senate District against Republican Bob Cohen.
This is a time for people to hear the truth – not partisan platitudes – about what must be done in government.
The changes we need – the changes I have fought for all my life – involve sacrifice from everybody, not just from ‘the other guy’.Property taxes are too high, and I have worked hard to address that major worry many of us face; it always comes up as the #1 local issue homeowners are concerned about.
But I’m also worried that we are going to wreck the good things we’ve created, over many years: our transportation system, our police and fire protection, health care for our seniors and veterans, education for our kids, all because our political system has been captured by cynical politicians who play to people’s anger. Their voices are drowning out the reasonable and rational majority of us. Those politicians are trying to tear down the very things our grandparents and parents fought so hard to build.
I’m not here to sell “snake oil solutions”. I grew up in a tough, poor part of this County. My parents worked hard and sacrificed, to give me a better life than they had. That’s still possible for the next generation.
And that’s what I’m going to fight for in the State Senate. Join me.
George Latimer
Stop Latimer!
I hope it bothers other New Rochelle residents that Latimer screwed over Ron Tocci, got into office & took away our tax cap, and then tried to knock down the Armory.
I mean — he is like the worst elected official that New Rochelle has ever had!
Why would the voters give him a promotion to state senate. 25 years in office is more than enough for this career politician.
Great news from Latimer
I was so thrilled to read that George Latimer is running for state senate. He’s a smart businessman who has terrific experience and I think has served as an upstanding elected official. I’m so tired of hearing candidates attack our electeds because of our high property taxes here in Weschester as if there were some quick and easy fix to make them lower. If that were the case, it’d have been done by now. We all know that we get what we pay for and since we done want to cut services or any of the programs that our kids enjoy in school, or heaven forbid the salaries of our teachers and administrators, then we pay the taxes. We’re all well aware that our property taxes are directly linked to our schools. And I love our award winning schools. I think competition for our elected representatives is a good thing so I look forward to the debates. But I hope each candidate focuses on explaining why they themselves are right for the position and not why someone else is wrong. Give us your credentials candidates, tell us why you want the job and what you’ll do when you get it…then we’ll tell you who we’ll hire for the job. Good luck!
Eileen must love high taxes
The only way anyone can vote for Latimer is if they support their property taxes going higher and higher. Latimer is not a complicated guy…he serves in office and just keep voting for higher taxes and higher and wasteful spending. He has a very steady record – as county legislator, taxes and spending skyrocketed and then the same thing happened when he went to state legislature. And he is obsessed with voting against property tax caps.
Latimer is like a scam artist…he talks a big game when running, but votes like a puppet – first for Andy Spano and then Sheldon Silver. Latimer has been in office for way too long – 26 years? – and it is time for him to go.
Latimer’s first vote relating to New Rochelle was to take away our property tax cap, and I have been waiting to vote against him in a real race for awhile and can’t wait for Cohen to beat him.
Facts please
Abe, you are clearly more informed than I but it’s my understanding that the local tax cap was removed legislatively at the request of our local government because they couldn’t afford the automatic increases in payments for the salaries and benefits of our first responders like police and fire. And if I’m not mistaken, legislation such as this that affects New Rochelle on a direct local level must be formally requested by our local government before the state officials can do anything about it. So as I remember it, our local government asked our state officials to remove the tax cap because New Rochelle was the only minicipality in the state that was restricted by a state tax cap from making the necessary financial decisions. That hardly seemed fair. That’s why I supported removing it at the time. As a longtime business woman, I would never have accepted having someone prevent me from increasing prices to increase profits so that I can afford to pay my employees a better wage or provide them with benefits.
I think the tax cap makes residents feel like they have some protection but I’ve also read about how many issues it causes for local governments. Again, there are pros and cons to everything. While your assertion that “Eileen must like higher taxes” is false, what is true is that I, like most people, like having a more overall perspective of an issue so I can have a better understanding of it from a non-partisan perspective. I’ll continue to keep up with your blog in the hopes that you’ll be able to provide that moving forward. I appreciate the efforts of civic-minded residents who take the time to discuss important issues. Even if we may not agree on everything, the conversations will make the city stronger and better for it.
Fact – Latimer screwed New Rochelle taxpayers
FACT – In the early 1990s, the City and State made a very public agreement that New Rochelle could increase its sales tax to bring in more revenue, but the city also agreed to cap property taxes at CPI. That was when we had a much better Assemblyman named Ron Tocci.
FACT – After a few years, the City tried to go back on the deal it made and asked Tocci to lift the tax cap – while still keeping the higher sales tax. Tocci said NO – he properly stood with New Rochelle taxpayers.
FACT – As soon as Latimer got into office, he put in legislation to lift our tax cap, which sadly passed. Latimer picked the politicians at City Hall over the taxpayers. The over-taxed citizens of New Rochelle will surely remember this when Latimer is kicked out of office in November.
FACT – Latimer even voted against Gov. Cuomo’s tax cap, which was passed by a majority of Republicans and Democrats in both houses of State Legislature. So Latimer was not just against a property tax for New Rochelle – he is against a tax cap for everyone.
FACT – Latimer is just a tax and spend liberal career politician that has been in office way too long.
And that’s only the short list!
And that’s only the short list & stuff that involves New Rochelle. The full picture of Latimer’s voting record is even worse.
I cannot imagine a less suitable person to represent us in the state senate than George Latimer.
Welcome Bobby & Eileen! And thanks for the input.
Lots to think about
This had been a very enjoyable exchange. There are clearly many different perspectives and you have certainly raised several issues that will have to be explained in greater detail during the campaign. I am thankful that NR has residents who are engaged and protective of our great city. If anyone has specifics about what made the budget jump the $3m and/or what should have been cut to balance the budget but wasn’t handled properly, I hope you’ll share it. My understanding was that the budget increases were a direct result of previously negotiated union wages for civil servants et al. and the automatic increases in pensions. If that’s not accurate, please share.
Thanks for taking the time to discuss these issues and for doing so respectfully. I look forward to learning more about both candidates so that we can make educated decisions.
If the budget increases were
If the budget increases were the direct result of negotiated union wages, I suggest laying off 10% of the workforce. But the layoffs need to be prioritized, such as firemen/policemen should be last. What’s the benefit if the city lays off 10 firemen to balance the budget and then we all pay more to insure our homes? There’s no winner there.
But NR just hired another development coordinator for a salary of $100k plus benefits that I bet are worth close to 50% of the salary. I bet I could find 5-10 people in the same salary range that also could be eliminated.
What about not financing the city’s share of the county tax? What does that mean? NR should collect & pay its county tax in April like the rest of county. As it stands now because we have a school tax due in April, NR borrows the money for a couple of months and then collects the money in June.
Also what about collecting garbage 1 day a week? Heck, maybe garbage collection should be privatzed so NR doesn’t have pension obligations & could rebuild its city yard for a fraction of what’s being proposed.
There’s lots of ways to cut the budget & there’s plenty of fat, we just need a leader that’s willing to do what’s best for NR and not what’s best for them and a select few, but sadly our current leaders prefer to look for more revenue to support there spending.
Don’t be bamboozled by a career politician!
Eileen, the fact that anyone would attempt to defend Latimer is hilarious. The request to lift the tax cap came from Noam Bramson. The request was made publically years before of Assemblyman Tocci who would have gladly granted it if NR would honor the letter of the law. What you fail to identify, or maybe aren’t aware of, is that the NR tax-cap was an agreement whereby NR received an extra 1% in sales tax in EXCHANGE for keeping taxes at or below the CPI. So, like any other arrangement, if one side breaks the deal, the deal is dead. That means NR would lose the extra sales tax and have the ability to raise taxes without limit. FYI, that extra 1% represented and average $9 million per year. Only after NR outspent that cushion did they request to lift the restriction on raising taxes while keeping the extra 1% sales tax. George Latimer had two bills introduced, in the waning days of the session: one to lift the cap and one to keep it. That was the first look at Latimer’s yellow streak. He didn’t have the backbone to take a stand.
The second revelation of Latimer’s cowardness was the NR Armory where he submitted a bill, again near the end of a session, late at night on a Friday in hopes that on Monday morning it would pass without being noticed by representatives pre-occupied with ending the session for vacation. If not for an alert TOTS blogger George might have snuck this through allowing Bramson to give the NR Amory to Forest City for nothing.
Now the third strike with Tier 6. George claims he left the building in disgust because this was everything he has fought against as a “good legislator”. Wasn’t the previous bill, redistricting, just as egregious? Yet George hung around to vote no on that bill, why? Because it hurt George’s chances for a senatorial run, that’s why. Can’t you understand why George ran “chicken”, the buzz word this week in NR, from the Tier 6 legislation? It was a no win situation for Latimer. No matter which way he may have voted he would have lost his senatorial bid. If George votes yes, he offends the civil service unions and they oppose him. If he votes no, he offends property owners seeking tax reform and they work against him. So in a republican senatorial district, Latimer would seal his fate by voting on Tier 6 / pension reform. It has nothing to do with good government; it is Chicken George being Chicken again. I understand Speaker Silver sent the sergeant at arms looking for George as he ran away. Don’t be bamboozled by a career politician!
George is only going to appease people by saying yes all the tim
With regard to NR’s original tax cap, when the sale tax went into effect the new revenue more than balanced the budget. In fact there were a few years of excess, in which New Rochelle built up its reserve balance and stayed within the tax cap. This happened for 3-5 years, I’m not sure nor does the timeframe really matter.
After the initial influx of money, NR started to produce unbalanced budgets that started eating into the reserves. Rather than actually try to balance the budget by cutting expenses, Idoni keep going to the reserves. Year after year until the reserves were gone. Still unbalanced budgets and now a real problem, NO reserves left. What to do? Pull $3 million of library funding from the budget but don’t reduce the budget by the $3 million. New Rochelle gets a new tax, the library tax and we’ll be saddled with that forever.
Now the budgets been balanced because the city shed a $3 million expense. But wait, the budgets still not balanced. Its off by $3 million that won’t be there next year. This is called a gimmick because the budget is balanced for the year, but structurally its not balanced at all as the city just spent $3 million that it didn’t have.
Okay, fast forward a year or two & now the NR is broke again because it hasn’t tried at all to reduce expenses…hm, what to do to balance the budget without going over the tax cap? I know, let’s put in a garbage tax/fee. We’ll just make up a number to charge everyone and we’ll charge by the number of units at the property, simple math to balance this years budget. Find out how much were short and divide it by the number of housing units and whola that’ll be the amount we charge for garbage. The garbage tax/fee had nothing to do with garbage collection and was a fudge factor to get around the original tax cap.
Anyone see were we’re going with this? Years and years of tax increases, and absolutely nothing done to curb expenses so is it any wonder why New Rochelle’s finances are now a wreck? Where the money goes I couldn’t tell you either as it obviously doesn’t go into improving our infrastructure, like street paving, the Armory, Ward Acres Barn and the City Yard not to mention the fact that almost every wooded parcel owned by the city is off limits in the summer because its overgrown with poison ivy.
No it doesn’t shock me at all that Noam asked George to submit legislation to increase the taxes New Rochelle residents pay on utilities last year. What does shock me is how willingly and gladly George submitted the legislation and its happened numerous times over the years so I am glad that the Republicans control the NYS Senate; otherwise we’d all be paying a little extra to ConEd so they can give it back to NR. One big happy circle.
So Eileen, if the Democrats had control of the NYS Senate 1 year ago, you could be sure that Noam would have increased your utility bills (not only ConEd, but also water & home heating oil) and this is only 1 example of why NR would be better off electing Bob Cohen to the Senate. Big George is only going to appease people by saying yes all the time & that costs money.
Statement for Bob Cohen Campaign
Statement from Bob Cohen for State Senate on
Assemblyman Latimer’s Entry into Race
March 19, 2012
“We welcome Mr. Latimer into this race, but find it head-scratching, frankly, that he would bring up property taxes in his announcement. Westchester families pay the highest property taxes in America because of what George Latimer did as a county legislator and as an assemblyman. He and the other career politicians are directly responsible for the staggering property taxes Westchester families pay today. On top of that, Mr. Latimer voted against last year’s historic property tax cap vote and he went MIA for Governor Cuomo’s pension reform vote last week that will ease costs on local governments. We look forward to discussing all these issues at length throughout this campaign.”
— Bill O’Reilly, spokesman, Bob Cohen for State Senate.
Latimer for Senate – this is a joke…right???
Why would anyone vote for this guy?
He lifted New Rochelle’s property tax cap in his first term on office!
He tried to sneak through legislation in the final week of session in 2010 to allow the armory to be knocked down!
He failed to vote YES or NO last week on pension reform because he ran out of chambers just before the vote!
He is a rubber stamp vote for left wing Democrat Speaker Sheldon Silver!
When he was a county legislator, taxes and spending skyrocketed!
He has been in office for 25 years…isn’t that enough?
Vote for Bob Cohen!