County lawmakers seemed ready to sign a deal Monday that would have ended a lawsuit from a company that leases space at the Westchester County Airport. But the county Board of Legislators blinked in the face of local opposition to the proposed settlement after parts of the agreement were changed just days before the vote.
At stake are millions of dollars in property tax revenues for two local governments and a small Westchester school district that feared the proposed settlement kept the door open to a tax exemption that would cripple their relatively small municipal budgets.
State Sen. George Latimer, a Democrat and former county legislator himself, addressed the board at its Dec. 16 meeting on behalf of the people in his district.
“This is an example where the corporate interest of the county of Westchester is your immediate responsibility, but it”™s important as well to understand the corporate interest and the human interest that is affected by the decisions that are made,” Latimer said.
Signature Flight Support Corp.”™s current lease with the airport dates to 2008. The company provides support services there, such as fueling and parking. The company sued, claiming it should have its property taxes exempted partly based on its location on the county”™s land. The property is located in the village of Rye Brook and pays property taxes that mostly go to the village, Blind Brook school district and Westchester County.
If a court ruled the property should be tax exempt, the village and school district could both lose roughly $700,000 each year in revenues. Blind Brook, Rye Brook and Westchester would also be on the hook to refund back taxes of $2.3 million, $700,000 and $400,000, respectively. Rye Brook”™s entire general fund is just over $19 million and the Blind Brook school district budget is likely to be around the $40 million mark.
Joe Carvin is the supervisor of Rye Town, today mostly an administrative town, which encompasses Rye Brook as well as Port Chester. He was among the many local officials who converged on the county board”™s chambers ahead of the expected vote. “It has a devastating impact on our community,” he said.
The county took the lead in the lawsuit, with some defending the taxable status of the property based on the language of the lease. Representatives of the local governments and school district gave the “thumbs up” on a proposed deal that would see Signature withdraw its lawsuit in return for concessions in its agreement with Westchester.
In that draft settlement, Signature would extend its lease through 2026 in exchange for reduced rents of $200,000 a year beginning this year. The county would also agree to assign to Signature two existing leases at the airport, one with Avitat Westchester and the other with Westair Aviation. Local officials said that draft agreement hinged entirely on Signature withdrawing its legal action and agreeing not to seek tax-exempt status for the life of the contract. The company would also pay $160,000 total in reimbursed cost and fees to the municipalities in the legal proceeding.
The agreement, complete with endorsements from the local communities and the company, was ready to be reviewed by the board”™s Budget & Appropriations and Government Operations committees. It was formally submitted to the county on Nov. 12.
That”™s when the consensus fell apart.
Sometime just before the board”™s Dec. 9 meeting, the draft was changed. The revised version kept the lease provisions but no longer contained the portions that said Signature would remove its lawsuit and promise not to seek tax-exempt status. That was the version distributed and that a public hearing was scheduled for.
Paul Rosenberg, the mayor of Rye Brook, said he and other village representatives, as well as school district officials, left that Dec. 9 meeting without knowing the document had been altered.
“This version was not disclosed to the public, the village or the school district prior to or during the meeting,” he said in a Dec. 12 letter to the county board. “In addition, there was no discussion of any substantive changes to the draft of the local law which had publicly disseminated prior to the meeting.”
Rosenberg later sent out an email blast urging residents to attend the public hearing and express their frustration. But even prior to the meeting, legislators agreed to “recommit” or shelf the discussions of the proposal until next year.
Representatives of the company said Signature was – like local and school officials – not consulted of any changes prior to the amendment. Larry Jorash, vice president of operations planning for Signature, said the revised legislation could have caused a financial tax burden that the company did not want.
“A lot of time, effort and resources were exhausted to reach this agreement, which resulted in the proposed legislation originally submitted ”“ only to have it changed without our knowledge,” he said. Jorash said the company was ready to continue to work together to reach a solution.
