To the editor:

I hope my neighbors won’t mind if I share a few final thoughts on Proposition 3 (Prop 3), particularly on why a “yes” vote would help our community move beyond the wasteful and divisive practice of the Village of Pelham Manor running its own elections. (This could have been done independently of an election date change, but the board of trustees rejected calls to do so.)

Across society, we spend money to avoid conflicts of interests and even the appearance of impropriety. Acting with a conflict of interest is considered an independent wrong in many circumstances—even if a decision-maker without a conflict would have decided the same thing—because a conflict undermines confidence in the fairness of outcomes and sows division among those affected by the decision. The beneficiary of a decision made by someone subject to a conflict of interest will inevitably think the decision was fair and defend it. The other party will feel cheated, even if the decision was objectively correct. So, we do our best to avoid conflicts.

We see this in action in all parts of our lives. We pay referees to officiate our children’s sporting events because we couldn’t possibly be impartial (and no one would expect us to be). We pay for judges and juries to adjudicate our disputes—and set ethics and impartiality rules for them—so that everyone can feel like they’ve gotten a fair shot. Companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars to implement and enforce policies against conflicts of interests and nepotism because they know the high cost of conflicted transactions (including how conflicted transactions invite disputes, even when the right decision was made). Yet in the Village of Pelham Manor, the trustees are doing the opposite. Not only do they reject having our elections run by someone with no skin in the game, they pay for the privilege of doing so with our money.

It’s human nature to subconsciously favor those whom we know, like and respect. Worse, we are experts at convincing ourselves that we’re being objective, when really we’re being swayed by friendship, loyalty or other external factors. This phenomenon is well known and understood. But, while the rest of the world is paying to keep conflicted decision-makers from having to make decisions, our trustees are paying to put our village clerk, who works under their supervision, in the line of fire, as we saw with the last Pelham Manor elections.

It is the wrong decision to force our village clerk to oversee elections—including potentially resolving ballot challenges—when her decisions could impact whether those who hired her win or lose and even ultimately whether she will remain the village clerk (and village manager). Let me pause to be perfectly clear about two things: (1) I am not criticizing the village clerk for acting despite a conflict of interest (she doesn’t seem to have had an option to recuse herself), and (2) I am not alleging that any voter irregularities actually took place. With that said, there was a very clear conflict of interest last year and there will continue to be in the future.

One might expect the response from village board to go something like: “This practice long pre-dated us and hadn’t created an issue before, but now that we see it can, of course we are going to turn over our elections to the county (and be fiscally responsible while we’re at it).” Instead, the trustees now double-down and continue to campaign/advocate for the right to pay (with taxpayer funds) for their own elections to be administered by someone they supervise, despite the high potential for actual conflicts of interest and the undeniably poor optics. Why?

Their reasoning seems to be: (1) We’ve always done it this way and some other villages do it, too; (2) it’s nice to see our neighbors as poll workers, and (3) it doesn’t waste that much taxpayer money. (1) Isn’t a reason, (2) might be true but we have numerous other chances to get together as a community, and (3) is a poor defense. Indeed, whether the cost of running our own elections is $5,000 (as the trustees assert), $10,000+ (a figure critics cite) or something else, it’s money that we should instead be spending on supporting our local police, firefighters and other first responders, or otherwise bettering our community (and that doesn’t even account for the $58,000 of taxpayer-funded legal fees that the village board spent trying to keep Prop 3 off the ballot).

The trustees’ insistence on continuing a system fraught with actual or perceived conflicts of interest (from which they could benefit) creates the appearance of impropriety—even though there may well be no underlying wrongdoing—which is deeply harmful to our community and erodes trust in elected officials and our elections. No one wants that. So, please join me in putting an end to the deeply problematic—and wasteful—practice of village-run elections by voting “yes” on Prop 3.

Ryan Kurtz

2 Elm Place