To the editor:

When my family and I moved to Pelham Manor in 2018, most everyone we met gave us a warm, “Welcome to Pelham!” It felt great to be welcomed into a new community where my kids could grow up, and we could make some wonderful, lasting friendships.

As an individual family, that’s mainly remained true: We are welcome in Pelham and Pelham Manor.

But, over time, I’ve seen “Welcome to Pelham” increasingly including a big asterisk in Pelham Manor. As I’ve experienced our Village of Pelham Manor government and the people who support it, “Welcome to Pelham Manor” actually means, “Welcome to Pelham Manor, as defined and determined only by certain voices and perspectives.” Points of view other than those held by the existing Village of Pelham Manor government are not “Welcome.” Disagreeing with Manor residents who believe they speak for the community is not “Welcome.” In truth, residents here are “Welcome to Pelham Manor” only so long as they adhere to the belief system of those who assume they have the right to control the politics and discourse here. Residents who don’t adhere to that belief system are attacked on social media and demonized for thinking differently.

When more than 800 Pelham Manor residents have to assemble a petition to vote on whether our village elections should be moved to November, that clearly indicates that a meaningful percentage of our community has been excluded from village leadership and discourse. This active exclusion renders “Welcome to Pelham Manor” hollow.

Calling these petitioners underhanded on social media and using the term Democrat as almost an epithet renders “Welcome to Pelham Manor” hollow.

Ballot harvesting, name-calling, and ad hominem attacks on neighbors render “Welcome to Pelham Manor” hollow.

Spending $58,000 of Manor resident tax dollars in an attempt to silence the voices of our neighbors renders “Welcome to Pelham Manor” hollow.

And, the murkiness of the current Pelham Manor election process, which is set up to be run by someone whose continued employment depends on people with a vested interest in its outcome, renders “Welcome to Pelham Manor” hollow.

In the end, I really don’t care what political affiliation our village trustees have—as long as they’re respectful and inclusive of all the voices in our community. And, sure, it would be great to keep our village out of national politics, but when members of only one party have controlled all village leadership for countless years—irrespective of the demographic evolution of our community—it becomes clear that political partisanship has never really been as absent as some claim.

I am voting “yes” on Proposition 3 because I want all Pelham Manor voices to be included in our village and because I want to see Pelham Manor live up to the inviting, inclusive and respectful community that “Welcome to Pelham Manor” promises.

No individual has the right to speak for Pelham Manor, and no group or political party has the right to control it. All communities evolve, and no matter how much we might wish things would stay the way they’ve always been, they just don’t. The best way to manage inevitable change—and our own fears about it—is to embrace it fully in respectful, collaborative partnership with the entire community. Pelham Manor can be welcoming for everyone here without a zero-sum game of winners and losers.

If you want “Welcome to Pelham Manor” to truly mean what it promises, please join me in voting “yes” on Proposition 3.

Steve Salee

528 Stellar Ave.