Wednesday, December 20, 2017
Cuomo vetoes bill that would allow wards for school board elections
Gov. Andrew Cuomo vetoed a bill Monday that would have allowed school districts to create wards for the election of school board members.
The bill was sponsored by Assemblywoman Aileen Gunther, D-Forestburgh, and Sen. Bill Larkin, R-Cornwall-on-Hudson, and was approved by the Assembly and Senate in June.
It was delivered to Cuomo on Dec. 6, and he had until Monday to sign it. Had Cuomo not acted on it, the bill would have automatically become law, according to Richard Azzopardi, spokesperson for the Governor's Office.
The bill called for a public referendum for a district to approve the adoption of wards. Once approved, a school board would have been able to divide the district into three to nine wards.
Supporters in the Pine Bush School District have discussed the idea since 2014, said school board member Roseanne Sullivan, but others opposed the bill, with some critics calling it anti-Semitic.
Joel Petlin, superintendent of the Kiryas Joel School District, applauded the veto Tuesday. He had written a letter to Alphonso David, counsel to Cuomo, saying the true reason for Pine Bush's advocacy for the bill was to limit the number of Hasidic and Orthodox Jewish people who could sit on the board.
In his veto message, Cuomo said he supports a path for local districts who decide an equal voice is ensured through a ward system.
"As drafted, however, the bill does not provide adequate protections to guard against disenfranchisement or discrimination against citizens or groups of citizens," Cuomo wrote.
Cuomo added that the bill does not require prior analysis of potential disenfranchisement or discrimination.
"It also lacks requirements to ensure that election wards appropriately represent communities, and it does not require school districts to provide open, transparent, and fair voting procedures to ensure a true determination of the public's desire to adopt such an election system," he said.
Larkin will revisit the bill to address Cuomo's concerns and "ensure ward voting becomes a reality," he said.
"I am extremely disappointed that the Governor vetoed my legislation ... Despite the Governor's veto, I am undeterred," Larkin said in an emailed statement.
Sullivan, who was involved in the drafting of the bill, said she wants to hear from the public before working with legislators to revisit the bill. She wants grassroots efforts to lead the next push for wards in school elections.
"Obviously, (Cuomo) has heard not enough from one side and overwhelmingly from another. The only thing that's going to change that is the voice of the people," Sullivan said.
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