By Mary Marvin, Mayor of Bronxville

Oct. 21, 2025: Some of you were asked to sign a petition this summer to move the Village local elections from March to November to coincide with national and state elections.

As background, New York State law now permits any group of citizens who garner 400 signatures to trigger a proposition to move Village elections from March to November to appear as of right on the upcoming November ballot. This was accomplished by Village proposition supporters this summer.

Our experience locally is the same experience of 100% of the statewide efforts to effect this election date change.

As has been the case statewide, efforts to move local elections have been spearheaded by the political party in the community that currently has the advantage in voter registration. Bronxville is no exception.

Of the 457 signatures:

-359 signatures collected by Bronxville Democratic Party officers and District Leaders

-98 collected by three Democratic Party volunteers

On first blush, the arguments of a monetary cost savings and increased voter turnout which are offered by the proponents of this change seemed logical to me.

Understanding it would be a sea change of over 100 plus years of voting in March in Bronxville, I felt it was my duty this summer to dig deep into the issue.

As a result, I spent a great deal of time calling my mayoral colleagues throughout the state to get their opinions, pro and con, and I reached out to the Westchester County Board of Elections to get financial data.

Given my job and my fiduciary duty to you, I looked at everything through the lens of, “Is this change in the best interest of our Village?”

Cost

I tackled the issue of a cost savings first as that was the easiest as it is most verifiable. The actual cost of a Village March election is $2,355. This amount is paid in full by your Westchester County taxes with no cost to the Village.

To put in perspective, Villagers pay $8.4 million to the county every year for their services so as you can see a potential tax savings, even if 100% of the $2,355 election cost is directed to the Village, is deminimus.

Turn Out

As to the issue of greater voter turnout, our March elections clearly do not garner the same voter attention as a presidential election, but our numbers are quite robust when we have contested positions or issues of great import affecting Villagers.

My experience over more than twenty-five years in Village government has taught me the following: when something is at stake, Villagers respond and the State of New York has made it even easier to vote in March as you can now vote by mail without any accompanying reason – traveling, infirmed, etc. and just do it as of right.

I am concerned that those of us who make the local decisions will end up buried at the end of your ballot and that highly partisan national and state political noise may drown out focus on Village concerns that impact you on a daily basis and have significant monetary implications.

On a personal note, I do not ever want someone to vote for or against me because I have an R, D or an I attached to my name, rather than to vote solely based on merit.

My colleagues in state government—both those in favor of the change and those opposed—agreed that the most likely outcome of the November change would be voting along party lines, particularly when voters are new to the community or less familiar with a candidate’s record, as often occurs in judicial elections.

Moving the election to November can only work against the vital need for local control of Village issues not getting minimized under a deluge of national concerns funded with millions of dollars.

Separate school board elections operate under this same theory that the best candidates should be elected without great partisan noise. Voting for school board candidates in May keeps the issue focused solely on education. Voting for Trustees in March keeps the focus solely on Village issues.

Thinking and voting local has resulted in our Village retaining the highest bond rating in the county and our  leading the opposition to the building of 10,000 housing units in our community of only 2,652 residences via a state government mandate just last year.

Attraction of Volunteers to Government

I know for certain that all of my colleagues over the past decades have gotten involved in Village government strictly as a public service to our community. We need to vote for the person and not the party in a Village as small as ours.

Village government should appeal to the best and the brightest candidates who are committed to Bronxville and Bronxville’s issues with no national or state political agenda beyond our one square mile. This kind of thinking and the talent it has attracted has distinguished the history of our Village government and has served us so well for over a century. Staying laser focused on Bronxville interests has kept our Village an oasis of stability in a county filled with constant change and divisiveness. Also, moving the election to November requires the nomination process be completed by April thus requiring a candidate who wants to offer their volunteer services to campaign for half a year every two years. I cannot imagine anyone welcoming this scenario, thus creating a real deterrent to volunteer service.

I can relate that our current board is the envy of my colleagues in the county as two of us are non-affiliated, one a member of the Republican Party and two members of the Democratic Party and no one ever brings national party affiliation or opinions to the Bronxville table.

I have been a steadfast proponent of “Home Rule” and local decision-making. Moving the Bronxville election to November runs counter to our highly beneficial and decades tested local control.

We have attracted the finest of volunteers and retain a very high level of decision making in our community by thinking local, helping local, shopping local and I would argue, voting local.

After much research and soul searching, I, along with Deputy Mayor Underhill and Trustee Knapp, will be voting NO to change the date of Village Elections to preserve 125 years of Village autonomy.