44°
MAMARONECK, N.Y. – Mayor Norman Rosenblum and Deputy Mayor Louis Santoro’s statement on LMC-TV’s “Meet the Candidates" series that Democrats “want to cut the Police Department by 30 percent” is false, the Westchester County Fair Campaign Practices Committee ruled Wednesday.
Democrats Andres Bermudez-Hallstrom and Leon Potok, who are running for the Village of Mamaroneck Board of Trustees, filed the complaint.
As chairman of the village’s Budget Committee, Potok compared the size of the village Police Department with those of the City of Rye and Port Chester at an April 16 meeting. At the end of his report, he recommended that, “the Board look carefully at any possibilities of reducing staffing and the impact of such reduced staffing.”
Neither Potok nor any of the other Democratic candidates made mention of reducing the staffing 30 percent, the Fair Campaign Practices Committee said in its finding.
“The mayor is confusing an observation with a recommendation,” Potok told The Mamaroneck Daily Voice.
Rosenblum said he made his remark based on verbal and written submissions to the Board of Trustees, which, he said, include Potok’s report comparing the size of the three departments. The comparison found that the Mamaroneck Police Department had 52 officers while the Rye Police Department had 36, a difference of 30.77 percent.
“This is not a call for cutting the Police Department, but a call for the board to analyze the trade-offs between cost savings from eliminating the two vacant positions and the related impact on police services,” Potok said.
The Fair Campaign Practices Committee’s findings have not swayed Rosenblum.
“I stand by my statement and conclusions based on what was presented to the Board of Trustees,” Rosenblum said.
Potok’s statement at the April 16 meeting is posted in full on the village's website.
Click here to follow Daily Voice Mamaroneck and receive free news updates.
