To the Editor:

At the Village Board of Trustees meeting on Monday, August 10, a citizen of Croton
came forward to propose that a referendum be held to determine whether Croton’s voters would
prefer to move the village elections, which currently take place in March, to November, to
coincide with national elections. The referendum’s proponent argued that such a move would
save Croton money and would increase voter turnout. In fact, the gentleman who proposed this
plan stated that while approximately 80% of Croton’s registered voters went to the polls last
November, only about 40% of the village’s registered voters participated in the last village
election. No one on the board questioned these numbers.

Also at that meeting, several residents spoke in opposition to the Harmon rezoning
proposal. The village trustees, all of whom have expressed their approval for the plan and have
unanimously voted to move the rezoning process forward, repeatedly professed their
commitment to listening to the concerns expressed by the public regarding the proposal.
However, when the opponents of the plan expressed their belief that the board of trustees lacked
a popular mandate to go forward with the plan, the trustees balked. “But we won on this issue,”
retorted Trustee Demetra Restuccia.

Finally, a moment of truth and clarity. Yes, our village trustees are interested in listening
to the opponents of the plan express their criticisms – but only while they nonetheless inexorably
move forward with their plan to rezone the Harmon district in the manner that they have chosen
and, likely, alter the character of an established residential neighborhood as a result. Trustee
Restuccia’s comment speaks volumes regarding the trustees’ real feelings on the matter. Less
than thirty minutes before Trustee Restuccia’s comment, I watched the trustees sit and
uncritically accept the representation that less than half of Croton’s eligible voters went to the
polls last March. Yet apparently, our village board nonetheless holds fast to the belief, explicitly
stated by two members of the board now, that last March’s election provided them with some
“mandate” on the issue of the Harmon rezoning proposal. It’s difficult to miss the irony.

Unfortunately for the residents of Croton, and the Harmon neighborhood in particular, it
is also difficult to miss the serious deficiencies inherent in this rezoning proposal. As an initial
matter, none of the reports on which the proposed zoning changes are based – the
Croton-on-Hudson Harmon Commercial District Retail Study conducted by Danth, Inc., the
Harmon Business District Study conducted by Saccardi & Schiff, and the Harmon Business
Development Committee’s August 2008 presentation to the village board – identify the data on
which these reports are based. The reports are almost entirely bereft of footnotes and contain no
appendices or attachments that identify or clarify the data sources on which the assumptions and
conclusions that permeate these studies are based. As such, absolutely no independent
verification of the conclusions and assumptions of these reports can occur. The studies
repeatedly refer to development in “similar communities” without identifying what communities
are being referenced or how they are similar to Croton on Hudson (see, e.g., HBDC Presentation
pp. 13, 14, 18, 21, 22, 23, 35). In addition, the reports make assumptions of fact for which no
substantive basis is provided (see, e.g., Danth study, pp. 3, 5, 6, 9), and errors of fact on
important topics.
 For example, in the Harmon Business Development Committee’s proposal, the
committee presents information purporting to offer some insight into the impact on real estate
taxes and school population – a hotly contested topic among the proposal’s supporters and
opponents. On page 33 of the proposal, the committee estimates that currently, the school
district receives approximately $247,000 from the 36 parcels targeted for rezoning. They
compare the current zoning and tax revenues to likely revenues under the more “realistic” of the
two development scenarios they present, estimating that the school district would receive an
estimated $677,000 in tax revenues under a limited build-out scenario. On page 34, the
committee estimates that the $677,000 in “additional” revenues would pay for the addition of 47
students in the school district (assuming a cost of $14,522.50 per student per school year). This
is demonstrably false. The school district would not, in fact, see an increase of $677,000.
Because current tax revenues yield an estimated $247,000, the estimated increase would be, at
most, $430,000. By the committee’s own calculations, that provides for only 29 additional
students, not 47. Of note is the committee’s admission, in the very next paragraph of its
proposal, that a “significant number” of students already live in the apartments located in the
Harmon district. With the potential for 123 new residential units being constructed under this
same limited build-out scenario, it is not difficult to imagine that the school district, and thus the
taxpayers of Croton, would quickly feel the impact of such development.

In another less serious or pressing context, such a misstatement might be excused as an

error of calculation. However, given the shortcomings that permeate the documents that form
the basis of this allegedly well-researched proposal, I choose to attribute these errors to the
superficial, results-driven analysis that obviously underlies this plan. It is of additional concern
that, instead of recognizing the poor quality of the reports that we as a community received from
these consultants, the village board has instead authorized that an additional $16,000 in village
funds be spent for further study of the proposal by one of the two prior consultants.

In several local media outlets, including this newspaper, supporters of the Harmon
proposal regularly characterize the opposition’s arguments as trivial or baseless, or, worse yet,
unjustly and groundlessly slander those who speak in opposition to the proposal as racist.
Unfortunately, this seems very much in keeping with the tenor of our local politics, in which,
quite sadly, the party currently in power seems to prefer the method of ad hominem attack to
that of substantive dialogue. Given the significant and far-reaching implications facing us in
relation to this proposal, it seems incumbent upon us as a community to take care of this business
at a higher level of responsibility than that. Opponents of this proposal have raised serious and
substantive issues that deserve serious and substantive consideration. Unfortunately, the village
board has done little more than pay lip service to the proposition that they are “listening” to the
residents of this village, and it appears it is a fait accompli that the board will push forward with
this extremely questionable rezoning proposal. One thing is for sure: the next election will
undoubtedly be a referendum on the board’s actions in this regard.

Roseann Schuyler
Croton-on-Hudson