To the editor:

Below is my cautionary tale urging Village of Pelham Manor citizens to vote “no” on Proposition 3. When my family moved to Pelham in 2012, we experienced what lured us to this lovely town in the first place: a tight knit community organized around local events like neighborhood block parties, school events, Novel Night, and a web of theater, sports, music and faith-based activities that brought us together as Pelhamites. Even our politics was more focused locally on mundane but important tasks like installing speed bumps on busy streets or coming together for Hurricane Sandy cleanup. 

In the debate over Proposition 3 dividing our town to move the Village of Pelham Manor elections to November, we see how times—and our town—have changed. I just received a flier to “Vote Yes on Prop 3.” In infinitesimally small lettering, I noticed that the mailer is “Paid for by Town of Pelham Democratic Committee,” quietly abandoning any pretense that Prop 3 is anything but a hyper-partisan attempt by the Pelham Democratic Committee to change the election rules and timing to increase their chances to consolidate power by controlling both the Village of Pelham and the Village of Pelham Manor. 

I will vote “no” on Prop 3 partially because I was compelled by the arguments made by 13 former mayors of both Pelham villages who called on voters to reject Proposition 3 in their Oct. 21 statement in the Pelham Examiner. Many of us chose to move to Pelham during the successful tenure of these former mayors because of the community they helped to foster. 

I also find the proposed proposition to be anti-democratic. While there is dispute as to whether voter turnout would be higher in November, there is no dispute that the longer campaign period (nine months versus two months) will deter good candidates from running in local elections that have already become heavily politicized and increasingly negative.

I am also voting “no” because I am concerned about the behavior of the leadership of the Democratic Party in Pelham, behavior that I think will further tear our town apart if Proposition 3 is passed. I have now been personally attacked by leading Pelham Democrats, even though I am a registered Democrat myself who has the courage to think independently. In at least three instances, these Democratic leaders either knowingly spread falsehoods about me, attempted to demean me in public forums or even went so far as to send a letter to the New York State Senate Committee on Elections with false allegations. 

I am refraining from outing some of these individuals because I am dealing with their unacceptable behavior directly. Unfortunately, suffice it to say that when confronted, the leadership of the Pelham Democratic Committee was quite content to let this behavior go on, assuming that they could attack me with impunity. 

But I am not alone. I just learned by watching the October 28 Village of Pelham Manor Board of Trustees meeting that several of our Pelham Manor neighbors were visited at home by armed officers from the Westchester District Attorney’s office related to absentee ballots filed by their family members in the Village of Pelham Manor election seven months ago. This is an eerie reminder of the night of the school board election when three prominent Pelham Democratic representatives, including an elected town official, filed affidavits of fraud against the very same neighbors visited by officers last week. The voters challenged the night of the school board election were almost all registered with the Republican party and all from Pelham Manor. Nearly all these claims were adjudicated in favor of the voters, but the obvious effort to intimidate by the Pelham Democratic leadership is a serious problem. 

What is our town coming to? 

The last thing we need is a move that would further poison our local community with ugly hyper-partisan politics. This whole episode reminds me of the parable of Chesterton’s Fence, a principle and cautionary tale that reminds us to understand why something is the way it is—in this case the friendly character of Pelham—before enacting change that would destroy this very cohesiveness. 

Let me close with the tale of a Pelham neighbor who last week made an earnest post in the Parents of Pelham Facebook group hoping that Pelham Manor residents can independently think about our community without the influence of national politics and that a March election affords us that focus. 

What is most revealing though is how our neighbor closed their posting: “For what it’s worth… Please don’t attack.” 

This is what Pelham is becoming, a once tight-knit town that is increasingly one in which residents fear being pilloried or silenced by their own neighbors. My cautionary tale shows that this fear is real and is being promulgated by a small group of leaders of the Town of Pelham Democratic Committee. 

I urge you to vote “no” on Prop 3 to preserve Pelham. Not for any particular political party, but for the character and soul of our town that will be jeopardized if this kind of behavior is rewarded.

Ian Rowe

623 Francis St.