Yorktown Board Under Fire for Backing Astorino’s Sanctuary City Veto
The Yorktown Town Board is facing criticism for its recent support of Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino’s controversial veto of the Immigration Protection Act, a bill approved by the Board of Legislators that would restrain Westchester from using its resources for immigration enforcement because it would jeopardize public safety.
Near the end of its September 5 meeting, a resolution was added to the agenda, which Councilman Vishnu Patel vehemently argued was not presented or discussed earlier. Astorino’s veto took place on August 16.
“This is a dirty trick and I’m not going to vote for this,” Patel, the lone Democrat on the board, remarked. “The whole thing is really wrong. This is a sad thing to have this.”
However, Supervisor Michael Grace and Republican councilmen Greg Bernard, Tom Diana and Ed Lachterman disagreed, pointing out comments made by county Department of Public Safety Commissioner George Longworth, who claimed the measure would “make Westchester families and police officers less safe.”
“Having reviewed the legislation by the Board of Legislators it is clear, from my experience in law enforcement, that lives will be put at risk if this became law,” said Diana, a retired police officer. “It is clear this legislation was written with a political objective in mind and not one for enhanced public safety.”
“As the son of a German immigrant who also survived the Holocaust, I fully acknowledge the important role immigrants have had in shaping our nation,” Grace said. “However, we are also a nation of laws and it’s simply absurd to provide sanctuary to dangerous criminals who are here illegally. I applaud County Executive Astorino’s courage and leadership in protecting the Constitution.”
When Astorino vetoed the measure, he maintained while the legislation was well-intended, it marked Westchester as a sanctuary county, ultimately placing it at risk and at odds with the federal government. He added that by not cooperating with federal laws, the county could lose upwards of $13 million in federal grants.
In an emailed joint statement, former town justice and Democratic candidate for supervisor, Ilan Gilbert, Patel and Town Board hopeful and former Town Clerk Alice Roker called the board’s action “ethically challenged and nothing more than a distraction from the real issues facing this town.”
“The majority of the board, declaring Yorktown not be designated as a Sanctuary City, coincidently coinciding with President Trump’s striking down of DACA, is not just about politics, it’s about a lack of compassion, ethics and smart open government,” the trio stated. “The ‘Resolution’ is a slick political trick designed to divert attention from the very serious shortcomings of the town board majority. Passage of this ‘resolution’ is completely, utterly and totally gratuitous. It’s without legal purpose. It is not legislation. It does not enact or repeal any law.”
“Does the majority of the Town Board really believe that our town is home to undocumented, felonious, criminal illegal aliens that we have to fear? It is not. That is not the Yorktown we live in,” they continued. “To say that they are doing this to protect our police officers or prevent withholding of funds is simply to provide cover for a misguided and deceptive political action. To pass the resolution at the end of a meeting, when it was not on the agenda and when few people were in attendance was not only wrong, but cowardly. The statement attributed to the great Republican orator, Abraham Lincoln, years ago about deception, is still relevant today: “You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”
Meanwhile, several Yorktown residents and clergy are planning to speak out against the resolution at the Yorktown Town Board meeting tonight (September 19) at Town Hall.
Rick has more than 40 years’ experience covering local news in Westchester and Putnam counties, running the gamut from politics and crime to sports and human interest. He has been an editor at Examiner Media since 2012. Read more from Rick’s editor-author bio here. Read Rick’s work here: https://www.theexaminernews.com/author/pezzullo_rick-writer/