Moving Forward
As you may have heard, the New York Court of Appeals—the highest court in the state—denied our request to hear the matter of the EIC’s first petition seeking a vote on Edgemont’s incorporation. As the court only hears about 5% of the cases submitted to it, this outcome was not entirely surprising. We extend tremendous thanks to our tireless lawyers who advocate on behalf of our community with brilliance and zeal. The law firms of Gibson Dunn, Latham and Watkins, and Bernstein & Associates deserve our ongoing gratitude. We have now exhausted all our appeal rights relating to the first petition.
However, the case for Edgemont's incorporation is no less compelling today than it was when we began our efforts nearly three years ago, and we remain committed to bringing Edgemont's proposed villagehood to a vote. To that end, we plan to file our second petition, which carries the signatures of approximately 1,800 of our Edgemont neighbors (some 35% of the qualified voters in our community). The second petition addresses the issues cited by the Appellate Division in upholding Supervisor Feiner’s rejection of the first petition.
To address the Supervisor’s finding that the first petition’s list of Edgemont residents should have included children and non-US citizens, we will seek that information directly from the residents of each Edgemont household.
If you live in Edgemont and have household members who are not registered to vote (including children under age 18 and people who are non-US citizens), please email us at edgemont2019@gmail.com with the names and addresses of all those household members. If any household members are eligible to register to vote, but have chosen not to do so, kindly provide those names as well. If email is inconvenient for you, you may mail this information to: Shannon Feldman, 16 Club Way, Hartsdale, NY 10583.
Please be on the lookout for a postcard with the above request. We need all responses within the next two weeks.
The bottom line: the EIC’s goals have not changed since our efforts commenced. We will continue to provide research on all aspects of incorporation (visit www.edgemont2019.org) and work toward a referendum.
To accomplish these goals, we need your financial support. Please consider donating to the EIC to cover petition filing fees and legal fees. We will also incur lobbying expenses to oppose State Assemblyman Tom Abinanti’s efforts to pass legislation that will weaken our community’s incorporation rights under NY law. Mr. Abinanti’s legislative attempts to undermine incorporation represent additional hurdles separate and apart from our own Town Supervisor’s tactics to keep us from even voting in the first place. Go here to donate.
Thank you, as always, for your ongoing encouragement and support.
-The EiC
