A Village United... or Not

Only 158 people hit the polls Tuesday to decide who would fill three spots on the Scarsdale Board of Trustees and, as usual, the race was uncontested, meaning the election was little more than a formality to satisfy state law.

Scarsdale's unique one-party system developed out of the desire to avoid the mud-slinging and fundraising that characterize politics, but has been criticized and periodically challenged when the village faces particularly pressing issues.

The system is designed so that candidates are virtually guaranteed to win once they get on the ballot. But that's not always the case. Several times in Scarsdale's history residents have led insurgencies against the one-party process.

Here's a brief look at the development of Scarsdale's political system.

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Prior to the 1930 elections, Scarsdale had a political system similar to other towns and villages.

Democratic and Republican committees picked nominees to run for office, and voters chose between those candidates. Scarsdale had only recently incorporated as a village, so government duties were split between a town board, which operated under majority rule, and a village board, governed jointly by both parties.

The GOP was stronger so, naturally, Scarsdale Democrats made attempts to change the system and make it easier for their candidates to take office.

In the fall of 1929 two seats on the all-Republican town board were up for grabs.

Democrats wanted to split the seats among the parties, but Republicans refused.

A nasty campaign followed and, despite high turnout among Democrats, culminated in a GOP victory. The animosity spilled over into the March 1930 elections, which would decide who would fill three vacant seats on the village board.

"Another contested election seemed imminent. Yet the autumn's strife had brought a new appreciation of the political peace that Scarsdale had for years enjoyed," author Carol O'Connor wrote in A Sort of Utopia, her sweeping history of Scarsdale.

The GOP called for a bipartisan committee to select a slate of candidates and, after just a few hours of deliberation, had chosen two Republicans and a Democrat. More importantly for the future of the village, the group decided that future nominations would be decided by a nonpartisan citizens' commission. Party officials would have non-voting positions on the commission. The system was tweaked over the next few years. By 1933, it largely resembled the process that exists today.

But that's not to say there haven't been bumps in the road.

Demographic shifts in the 1960s saw many traditionally Democratic Jews and Catholics move in, as a steady stream of WASPs – who were largely conservative – left town. Until that point, most Democratic officials thought it wise not to oppose the nonpartisan system because of the relative strength of the Republican Party.

But the influx of liberal voters, coupled with political tension on the state and national level, emboldened the Democrats, who wanted to elect trustees and mayors who supported racial desegregation and anti-discriminatory housing laws.

This, in turn, enraged some of Scarsdale's less affluent residents. Arthur Manor would've likely been the site of affordable housing development, so some of the neighborhood's residents came together to protest the Democratic agenda.

Partisan politics were back in full swing.

In 1967, political science professor Robert Koblitz and social studies teacher Emily Korzenik ran for trustee seats on an opposition ticket. The candidates had decried the "perfunctory" and "ceremonial" nature of the system and compared it to one-party rule in the Soviet Union, according to O'Connor.

They lost by hundreds of votes, but garnered enough support to show that a significant minority of residents rejected Scarsdale's nonpartisan ideal. Korzenik ran again in 1968, this time losing by a narrower margin.

In 1970 the Democrats formally sponsored a slate of candidates to run against the Non-Partisan Party's nominees. Once again the nonpartisan choices triumphed, but the undercurrent of opposition remained.

By 1980 there was a new opposition group, the Nonpartisan Coalition for Open Government, whose members claimed that the one-party system prevented transparency and debate.

The leader of this insurgency was law school student Paul Feiner, who cut his teeth in Scarsdale politics when he joined a campaign to integrate the all-male Town Club, from which trustees and mayors were traditionally culled.

The Club opened its doors to women in 1977, and has since transformed into the Scarsdale Forum, an influential group that debates policy and often provides a platform for residents who want to eventually seek elected office.

The Coalition never won an election, and Feiner was so disillusioned that he left Scarsdale and moved to Greenburgh. He was elected Town Supervisor in 1991, and still holds the position nearly 20 years – a feat that never would have been possible in a village that spurns career politicians.

After more than a decade of relative calm, a decrepit parking lot sparked a debate that renewed calls to throw out the one-party system. Village officials supported a proposal to build luxury apartments and retail space over the lot, on Christie Place in the heart of the village's commercial district.

Many residents, though, were concerned about the scale of the proposed development and felt their voices were not being heard. In 1999, an opposition party was organized that ran three candidates in that year's election.

It was one of the closest elections in the village's history, with opposition candidate Joseph Zock winning a seat on the Board of Trustees. Zock was well-liked and won a second term in 2001, this time running on the nonpartisan slate.

The other opposition candidates, Bob Harrison and Miriam Flisser, lost by only a handful of votes. In 2009, Flisser was elected to the board on the nonpartisan ticket. Harrison has never held office, but remains a fixture at village meetings. He recently told the Journal News that he's attended more than 2,500 meetings over the last 30 years.

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Bruce Wells, the current Vice President and soon-to-be President of the Scarsdale Forum, said that most years the only campaigning that goes on is confined to the Nominating Committee, whose 30 members select the party's slate each year.

This year there was no divisive issue, no ethno-religious tension, no Emily Korzenik or Paul Feiner.

The handful of people who showed up at the polls were presented with three names to fill three position, a ballot as tidy and carefully structured as Scarsdale itself. Thirteen people voted for Bob Harrison, the 1999 candidate, as a write-in. 

Both critics and proponents of the one-party process say the system thrives because Scarsdale residents are generally satisfied with the village's services, and with the high-caliber candidates the process produces.

But, as history has shown, the peace can't hold forever. Some observers believe that Westchester County's recent agreement with federal officials to build 750 moderate-income housing units in the region's most affluent areas could be a flashpoint for a new opposition movement.