No. Castle Officials Served Article 78 Over Term Limits Petition

North Castle officials were served with an Article 78 by the North White Plains resident who had his term limits referendum petition ignored by the Town Board, touching off a brief brouhaha last week at Town Hall.

Anthony Futia, who submitted his petition last September requesting a proposition be placed on the general election ballot, is one of three town residents to be listed on the litigation. Former Republican Committee Chair Rosemary Bellantoni and Susan Coppola are also listed as petitioners.

Each of the five Town Board members are respondents in the action along with Town Clerk Alison Simon and Town Attorney Roland Baroni.

The Article 78 was filed Dec. 28 in state Supreme Court in White Plains.

An individual first came to Town Hall on Jan. 2 prior to a swearing-in ceremony for re-elected board members Barbara DiGiacinto and Barry Reiter to deliver the notices to each respondent, but Supervisor Michael Schiliro intercepted the envelopes and gave them to Simon, Futia said last week.

Futia contended that when he contacted his attorney, Lewis Oliver Jr., after the Jan. 2 meeting, the lawyer told him he should repeat the serve to ensure it was properly executed because the respondents must be served individually.

On Jan. 8, another attempt was made to serve several board members and Baroni at their office or residence but some wouldn’t accept the item or weren’t home.

That’s when Futia said he hired a company to re-serve the respondents. He said he told the company that there was a Jan. 10 Town Board meeting and all seven officials were scheduled to attend.

“This is a professional service,” Futia said. “This is what the company does. The company did it. These people are coming up here and they’re (the town officials) are running away from them.”

However, last Wednesday the person delivering the notices, who Schiliro later described as a “fairly large gentleman,” forced his way into the supervisor’s Town Hall office where the board was attempting to convene an executive session. That forced the board to call town police up from their downstairs headquarters to intervene at 7:02 p.m., according to the police blotter.

“Personally, I would say tonight was alarming to have a fairly large gentleman follow us upstairs as we’re moving into a now open and private exec session and walked right in (and) almost barreled me over to get into my lobby and not remove himself from my actual office for a few minutes until we had to call the police up,” Schiliro said. “Very troubling, I would say.”

The matter was quickly resolved, but that didn’t stop officials from criticizing how the serve was accomplished. During the latter portion of last week’s board meeting, Baroni said since he, Simon and each board member are being sued in their official capacities and not as individuals, leaving the envelopes with the Town Clerk during regular business hours would have been sufficient.

“What happened tonight was totally unnecessary,” Baroni said.

He also said it’s the first time in his career he’s been named in a legal action in his capacity of representing a municipality.

The Town Board agreed to retain outside counsel Silverman & Associates since Baroni, whose firm represents the town, was named in the matter. It is too early to estimate how much the additional legal counsel will cost.

Futia has argued that the town wrongfully failed to accept his petition to place a proposition limiting the terms of the supervisor and town council members to eight consecutive years on last November’s ballot.

In September, Baroni said under a section of state consolidated law there are a limited number of matters that can be included as a referendum on the  ballot through a petition filed by the public. Those matters include changing the number of council members, changing the length of terms and establishing or abolishing the ward system.

Unlike a city, imposing term limits on a Town Board can only be accomplished through the board’s legislative action, Baroni previously said.

The Article 78 states that since Futia had submitted a valid petition containing 401 signatures – more than double the required 193 – and met the time limit to have the proposition scheduled for Nov. 7, 2017, the board should have accepted the petition and set the vote.

However, at the Sept. 13, 2017, meeting, Baroni stated that Section 81 of state consolidated law does not allow for that to occur.

Oliver has asked the court to entertain oral arguments on the matter on Feb. 5.

Futia has said that he wants to impose term limits because the town’s Republican and Democratic political committees have sought to limit or eliminate competition by either cross-endorsing candidates or refusing to run against a candidate against each other.

“I believe in term limits for everybody under the president, and it’s not a personal thing,” he said.

Schiliro said while Futia has the legal right to initiate the legal action, he questioned how it would entice more candidates. He said that several years ago Futia ran a primary against him for the Democratic nomination, and in 2013 three board members were replaced at once.

“I don’t know how (term limits) would encourage more people to run, and the example that happened tonight, I don’t know how that would encourage people to run as well,” Schiliro said.