Politics & Government

Residents to Board: Don't Appeal Voting Rights Lawsuit

People in Port Chester may not like the federally-imposed cumulative voting system, but they say they don't want to pay for a costly appeal

Port Chester may fight the Department of Justice on the infamous lawsuit that brought cumulative voting to the village – but not yet.

Trustees stepped back from the brink of an appeal on Monday night after Mayor Dennis Pilla and Trustee John Branca called for a delay on the vote.

Trustee Joseph Kenner pushed hard for an appeal, raising an issue many thought long-dead with an op-ed in The Journal News last week. Initial copies of Monday night's agenda didn't include a resolution on an appeal. While opponents say Kenner added the language after the agenda had been distributed, Kenner said he notified the village clerk of the change a week before the meeting. Several members of the public said they were unaware of the pending discussion until reading a follow-up story in the Journal News on Kenner's push for an appeal. (Editor's note: See clarification at the bottom of this story.)

Kenner's resolution would set aside $225,000 to retain Michael Carvin, brother of fellow Republican and Rye Town Supervisor Joseph Carvin, at a rate of $750 an hour to fight the Department of Justice.

So what are Port Chester's chances of winning an appeal? It depends on who you talk to. While trustees said Carvin's law firm, Jones Day, estimate the chances at 50-50, Pilla and Trustee Daniel Brakewood said they'd spoken to "dozens and dozens of experts" who put Port Chester's chances well below the 50 percent mark, down to slim to none.

"I don't know what kind of cockamamie theory you have," said Jackson Chin, senior counsel with Latino Justice, a legal advocacy group.

Chin joined a chorus of residents who urged the board not to appeal the case during Monday night's board meeting: "I think it's highly unadvisable and rather costly. Basically, you have waited too long."

A handful of residents who heard about Kenner's proposal showed up to Monday's meeting, despite the lack of official notice that the item was on the agenda. Almost universally, they took a nuanced view–they're not happy with cumulative voting and they think the DoJ was unfair to Port Chester, but they said fighting the DoJ would be costly with little chance of success.

"I will go to my grave calling the DoJ the Department of Injustice," resident Heather Paul told the board. "Port Chester doesn't deserve it, and I know no one wants to spend more money on it."

Others said they viewed Kenner's plan as a "political strategy, not a legal strategy." Pilla and Brakewood pointed out that legal experts said the original fight would cost only $250,000, and "they were off my $1 million," Pilla said, referencing the $1.2 million in legal fees the village has already paid to fight the DoJ.

"It appears that the same trustees who were elected through the cumulative voting process are now in power and wish to remain in power," said Gregory Adams, a former trustee and current vice-president of the Port Chester-Rye NAACP. Reading from a statement co-signed by NAACP President John Reavis, Adams said it was "possibly an attempt to hinder the campaign of incumbent Mayor Dennis Pilla."

Still others said it was a retroactive attempt to claim unity and draw attention away from Trustee Bart Didden's track record. Didden, who is running for mayor, inadvertently helped the DoJ make its case when he distributed fliers during the 2007 mayoral election that warned, "the Hispanics are running the show already." The federal judge cited Didden's flier as one piece of evidence showing bias against Hispanic candidates in Port Chester.

While Kenner had vocal support from fellow Republican Sam Terenzi, Didden said he hadn't made up his mind on an appeal.

In the meantime, some say cumulative voting and the lawsuit are burdens on Port Chester, but maybe they're burdens the village can live with in the short term.

"In my opinion, the village of Port Chester has already spent entirely too much of the taxpayer's money on appealing this in the first place," resident Tom Kissner said. "While I'm well aware that the cumulative voting process is very unpopular throughout the village, I would like to suggest it has actually served the village very well. The board of trustees, for the first time, reflects the community that voted for it."

CLARIFICATION: A revised version of the agenda from the Feb. 7, 2011 trustee meeting does include reference to a discussion on appealing the DoJ lawsuit. The agenda is available here (.pdf version) or by visiting the village's main meeting agenda page here. A copy of the agenda has been added to this story. Kenner told Patch he notified the village clerk to include the item on the meeting agenda a week earlier, and hard copies of the agenda available to meeting attendees included mention of the discussion. During the meeting, board members moved the discussion higher on the agenda to accomodate several members of the community who were waiting to provide feedback on the issue.


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