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A handful of okey-dokey political appointees and a few go along to get along councilmen have enabled Supervisor Michael Grace to become Yorktown’s virtual Emperor with few checks on his actions. Few dare to challenge Grace for fear of reprisal. Grace's hubris has made him unwilling or unable to listen to dissenters. Grace has created a political bubble where he's deaf to his constituent’s concerns.
It appears that Grace uses his Town Board position and his televised municipal access show "Grace Notes" to ridicule and not inform. Grace can’t see the handwriting on the wall, which now has become so obvious to so many. Residents now have come to the realization that Yorktown is definitely heading down a wrong path where multiple-family apartment buildings and mega buildings on micro lots can appear in anyone's neighborhood.
Yorktown has become a place where building a highway garage is more important than repairing crumbling bridges. Grace stated that using $1,500,000 in Spectra Energy funds for infrastructure repair is "foolish". Undoubtedly, these same Spectra Energy funds will be used to further Grace's pet projects and not be focused on Yorktown's current reality. Grace's overzealous rezoning efforts and his fast-tracking of a partisan Industrial Development Agency will only further the perception that a select group of businessman and developers with political ties will somehow prosper while others unexplainably will not. Didn’t Ramapo’s Supervisor Joseph St. Lawrence just get indicted for allegedly misusing his own industrial development program and subsequently exchanging favors with businessman/developers? Is Yorktown perilously perched on the very same slippery slope?
Yorktown’s Ethics Board appears to be sitting on the sidelines uninvolved yet again. Yorktown as a community has come to expect a lot from its elected officials and have been become used to being routinely disappointed. The most egregious repeat offenders are Supervisor Michael Grace, and Senator Terrence Murphy; whether its their tax delinquency, cronyism or simply not putting the needs of Yorktown residents first. Why has Yorktown's political ethics bar been set so low? Maybe these elected officials can’t hear you now but you can make your voice heard on election day.
Robert Jeffreys
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