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Hopes Voters Will Oppose 'Lilburne- Prentice Alliance'
To the Editor:
It is abundantly clear that the Garrison School Board crowd salivates to take over the town and impose its extravagant spending and higher taxes on the entire Philipstown population.
The Catherine Lilburne candidacy recalls when a Garrison School Board member in Lilburne's administration as president remarked about seniors losing their homes to school taxes: "If they can't afford it, they should move somewhere else." These remarks became public knowledge. Perhaps Lilburne, who never repudiated the statement, would like to do so now as Democrat candidate facing a primary race for town board.
Lilburne was a contentious president who chose not to run for reelection. My private assessment is that she felt she could not win. Her school board buddies engineered and supported her appointment: to the BOCES Board of Education, a non-elective post.
Then we have Nat Prentice, who quarterbacked his wife's run for Garrison School Board. As current president, she continues the policy of fomenting tax increases for hapless citizens. Philipstown citizens repudiated Nat when he was a Republican candidate in a previous town board race. Switching from Republican to Democrat, but rejected by the Democrat Committee as a Democrat nominee, he has filed petitions as an independent. This crowd never gives up.
I will say that I supported David Brower because he was not entrenched in the Garrison School Board crowd or the race when his wife ran for board. It is regretful that he will not seek town board reelection.
Voters have options. Garrison can look for good representation from Barbara Scuccirmarra, a Republican candidate for town board, and Michael Gibbons, who is running in a Democrat primary. Both have integrity and proven devotion to the town.
Voters have two opportunities to squash the Lilburne candidacy. In the September Democrat primary, they can support Montgomery, a candidate of the Philipstown Democrat Town Committee who has been active in town recreational programs, and Gibbons, the man with Planning Board service who is not supported by the Democrat Committee. If Lilburne survives that primary, voters can eliminate her in November.
Although less threatening than Lilburne, the Prentice independent candidacy should be repudiated by voters to demonstrate opposition to the Garrison School Board's penchant to spend and tax. It was to thwart this situation that I chaired opposition to formation of a Village of Garrison, certain that once a village government was in place, school board forces would move in to take control. In fact, I was convinced that the primary motive of the provillage crowd, to thwart the proposed senior citizen compound on the Capuchins' property, was fear that a large influx of senior citizens would vote down extravagant school taxes.
I hope that voters will join me in opposing the Lilburne- Prentice alliance.
Catherine Portman-Laux
Garrison
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