PRESS RELEASE
 

 

December 12, 2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                           CONTACT:  Douglas Colety
                                                                                    914-949-3020
 
REPUBLICAN CHAIR COLETY SPEAKS OUT ON
BOARD OF LEGISLATORS’ SALARY INCREASE OUTRAGE
 

Westchester County Republican Chairman Douglas Colety, speaking today from GOP Headquarters, urged all Westchester residents to contact their county legislators and express outrage concerning the Democratic back-door scheme to raise legislators’ salaries through stipend increases.  The most reprehensible increase would be for Democratic Chairman Bill Ryan who would receive a 90% increase in the stipend for the chairman position. 
 
“To make matters worse,” Colety stated, “they also plan on increasing stipends paid to other leaders of the Board; all of which would total more than $225,000.00 of taxpayer dollars.  This is a disgraceful money grab for politicians in the same week that this group of Democratic legislators raised property taxes 4% and spending to the tune of tens of millions of dollars.  While Westchester County citizens suffer from living in the most highly taxed county in the nation, Mr. Ryan’s total compensation package for this  part-time job could be pushed to $124,000.00.”
 
Colety points out that the Board of Legislators recently voted themselves substantial pay raises in 2005, which faced tremendous public criticism.  He praised the The Journal News for leading the charge against this blatant act as “surprising gluttony.”  Colety continued, “the complete lack of candor by the Democratic leadership in trying to rush this matter to a vote early Monday, December 10th, before any public awareness of  the increases, ‘does amount to lying by omission,’ as declared by the editorial board of The Journal News on December 9th .”
 
Colety added, “On November 6, Westchester voters gave the Democrats a supermajority on the Board of Legislators.  As a result, there are no checks and balances in place to prevent the majority from taking complete advantage of this lopsided legislature.  “This unfair and unjustified compensation grab is a perfect example of the danger of concentrated power in one political party.”