According to the data posted to the Board of Elections website, it wasn't even remotely close, with 81% of those who voted electing to keep an at-large system for the election of the four non-Supervisor members of the Huntington Town Board or Town Council.
Given the fact that the Council District proponents were dramatically out-spent -- and that is a gross understatement -- by the builders and lawyers and Huntington politicians and their toadies and sycophants, that result should not be surprising. In this process, I have lost a lot of respect for some people that I once admired, even if I did not agree with them on every issue. But, I would like to have seen them at least be morally offended by the unholy alliance that financed the "NO" campaign.
For my part, I would rather be on the right side of history, than the winning side, particularly when we look at how their victory was achieved. If we had a local press that was actually independent of the political powers behind our current town government, we might hope to see some good investigative journalism of how that spending package was put together. But, good investigative journalism has not been seen in the Town of Huntington for at least the last five years, and it is unlikely to begin now.
Therefore, it is time for all of us -- proponents and opponents -- to move on and to proceed with our normal interaction with a town government that has generally done a decent job, but could have been even better with greater representative democracy.
Jerry Hannon
About Me
- Jerry Hannon
- After a thirty year career at Chase, serving as a Managing Director and Global Relationship Manager, I took early retirement in the summer of 2000, and that enabled me to become active in community, school district, and town activities. Since 2004, I have been a member of the Elwood School District's Citizens Finance/Budget Advisory Committee, and since 2005 I have been a member of its Audit Committee, and serve on three other committees of the district. During the 2006/07 school year I was President of the Elwood PTA Council, and I remain active in PTA activities. In the community I serve as EVP for Community Affairs of the Old Chester Hills Civic Association, and served the Town of Huntington as a member of its Comprehensive Plan Advisory Committee. For thirty five years, I have been a Director of the NY Council of the Navy League, and currently am Chair of its Audit Committee. A Vietnam Veteran, I retired as a Commander in the US Navy Reserve, and previously commanded two Naval Security Group reserve units.