May 3, 2023

To the Bronxville Community - 

Many residents, both new and long-time residents, have asked why the Bronxville Non-Partisan Committee exists and why the term “Non-Partisan” is used.  During the election season, sometimes rumors and misinformation get traded, so I wanted the opportunity to correct the record.

The Bronxville NPC was created because New York State law mandates that school board elections are conducted on a nonpartisan basis, i.e., party affiliations are not listed on the ballot. In 1936, residents of Bronxville created this committee with 21 elected representatives to ensure qualified candidates would run for the school board election.  

Neighboring towns, Scarsdale, Edgemont and Pelham have similar elected volunteer committees, and have found that identifying and ensuring qualified candidates run in school board elections is beneficial to their communities.  

In this context, the Bronxville NPC Plan requires that this committee seek “qualified” candidates to run in the school board election without regard to political affiliations, and solely based on qualifications. Therefore, we do not ask applicants about their political affiliation, nor does any applicants’ political affiliation in and of itself disqualify any individual from seeking or receiving the NPC nomination. (The same is true for the NPC members, though our rules exclude officers of any political party from serving on the NPC.)  

This year, four truly outstanding individuals applied to receive the NPC nomination.  All the volunteers of this Committee have great admiration and appreciation for the applicants who raised their hands to serve our school district, this year and in past years.  As chair of the committee this year, I can assure you that our process was conducted according to NPC rules and that all applicants were treated with the utmost respect and consideration.  As always, we invite anyone who feels differently to let us know and give us feedback. We hope to incorporate any actionable suggestions into our Plan or our Rules of Procedure following the election. 

We have selected two exceptional individuals - Christina Skinner and Sara Kenny - to run for school board trustee.  We hope that all the residents of this community will take the time to learn about them and vote on May 16th at the school.  More information can be found at our website www.bronxvillenpc.org.  

Finally, residents have asked us about why candidates have to run for specific seats in our district and how the current petition on the ballot to change that rule affects the NPC process.

In short, that is the default under New York state law, and changing to “at large” elections will have no effect on the NPC, since our mandate is simply to select as many nominees as seats are open each year.  Accordingly, the NPC takes no position on this ballot petition. 

Notably, Scarsdale recently voted in 2019 to change its school board elections from “specific seat” to “at-large” and the Scarsdale nominating committee continues to operate in the same manner.  For those who may be interested, the NPC compiled recent election vote counts that may be relevant to this question at https://www.bronxvillenpc.org/election-vote-counts-info 

Best,

Wendy Halley, Chair of Bronxville NPC 2022-23