DATE: Monday, July 10, 2023
TIME: 10:30am
LOCATION: Yonkers City Hall ( City Clerk’s Office)
ADDRESS: 40 S. Broadway, Yonkers City Hall · Yonkers, NY 10701
TERM LIMIT PETITION TO BE FILED WITH
YONKERS CITY CLERK ON MONDAY.
On Monday Yonkers 6th District Councilmember and mayoral candidate Anthony Merante will be filing a petition with over 5,000 signatures with the Yonkers City Clerk. This number is well above the legal amount required for submission. The petition will reset term limits back to 3 terms and reverse the 4th term extension passed by the City Council. Merante vowed to fight the extension because it was an undemocratic move that shut out voters’ voices. This ballot initiative will let voters decide term limits on election day, Tuesday November 7, 2023.
The petition gathering process was a bipartisan team effort and Republican Merante acknowledges the contributions to the process by his Democratic colleague, 2nd District Council Member Corazon Pineda Isaac and Margaret Fountain-Coleman, both former mayoral candidates, and former Yonkers Inspector General Phil Zisman. Merante said, ”Although the courts may have found the City Council had the legal right to extend their own terms and that of the mayor that doesn’t mean it was the right thing to do. That move was self-serving and a slap in the face to democracy”. Merante also has pending Council legislation, stuck in committee, that he is pushing to be brought to the floor for a full Council vote. If his legislation passes, it too will allow the voters to decide to return the 4 terms back to 3 in 2024. We therefore have two potential ballot initiatives.
Merante concluded, “ In all our lives we do some things we regret. For me it was voting with the Spano administration to extend term limits the first time from the original 2 terms to 3. That was a huge mistake. I naively believed their empty assurances that it would only be a one-time extension like Mayor Mike Bloomberg in NYC. I underestimated their lust for power. What’s their next move after 16 years? Eliminating term limits altogether? Or maybe making Mike Spano mayor for life? Yonkers is not Cuba or North Korea. We refuse to be ruled by a family dynasty with an absolute grip on power. We must return democracy to Yonkers. If elected mayor, “I pledge to reconstitute the Charter Revision Commission and look to return all terms back to the original two terms. “
PRESS RELEASE
Yonkers Voters for Term Limits.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 10, 2023
VOTERS OF YONKERS SUBMIT PETITION FOR TERM LIMITS
REFERENDUM.
YONKERS, NY, July 10, 2023 - Today, a non-partisan alliance of voters from Yonkers delivered a petition containing more than 5,000 signatures to the Yonkers City Clerk to put the issue of term limits on the ballot in November’s general election.
It is now the responsibility of the Clerk and the City Council to refer the petition to the Westchester Board of Elections for inclusion on the November 2023 ballot. The ballot question would allow the people to decide once and for all whether they want term limits on elected City officials restored.
After the undemocratic override of the existing term limits law by only four votes of the Yonkers City Council in November 2022, voters are demanding their voice be heard.
We believe that only the people, not self-serving elected politicians, should decide the structure of our government. The enactment of the Yonkers term limit law, which the Council and Mayor overrode, had been twice approved by Yonkers voters, but it was removed by entitled politicians acting solely in their own self-interest.
In February 2023, an alliance of Democrats, Republicans, and independent voters organized to submit the restoration of term limits to the November 2023 ballot for Yonkers. With the submission of over 5,000 signatures, we have met the requirements of New York State law, and the Clerk and the Council now must take the necessary steps to place the term limits proposition on the ballot in November.
LET THE PEOPLE DECIDE!
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