The newly elected chairman of the Westchester County Association said the business group”™s advocacy on key public policy issues and economic development for the county and region will be “more of the same” under his leadership.
Alfred B. DelBello, the White Plains-based attorney, businessman and former lieutenant governor and elected official in Westchester County, is the 30th chairman in the membership organization”™s 57-year history. He succeeds Stanley E. Freimuth, former senior executive vice president and chief administrative officer at Fujifilm U.S.A. Inc. in Valhalla, who had served as chairman since July 2005.
Association President William M. Mooney Jr. said Freimuth”™s leadership “had a major impact in transitioning our organization into one of the premier business groups in New York state. He led the creation of the blue ribbon task force on health-care reform, whose efforts resulted in major legislation being enacted. His vision also led to the development of many new and successful programs at the WCA, such as the connections program, the Young Professionals Group and an enhanced advocacy focus.”
His successor, DelBello, a county native, former two-term mayor of Yonkers and a founding partner of DelBello Donnellan Weingarten Wise & Wiederkehr L.L.P., has been an association member for more than 20 years. He has served on its board of directors and has chaired its government relations committee in the county over which he presided for three terms as county executive. In the last two years, DelBello, a former chairman of Westchester Medical Center, which was built during his tenure at the county”™s helm, has lobbied in Albany as a member of the WCA”™s health-care-reform task force. The task force and its suburban allies were instrumental in getting long-blocked reform measures passed and signed by Gov.George Pataki last year and in August by Gov. Eliot Spitzer.
Last December, DelBello was named chairman of the WCA”™s newly formed property tax reform commission, which is exploring the county”™s antiquated and multilayered property tax structure. Since his election as WCA chairman, DelBello said he has relinquished that commission leadership post to Richard E. French Jr., president of Regional News Network (WRNN-TV).
In a prepared statement, the newly elected chairman said the “remarkable accomplishments” of Freimuth and his other predecessors in the post have given the WCA “a solid foundation to build on as we tackle some of the toughest challenges facing the business community and Westchester”™s quality of life.”
“The first and most important one” of those challenges tackled by the WCA “is the HMOs,” DelBello said in an interview with the Business Journal last week. (His wife, Dee DelBello, is owner and publisher of this and other newspapers at Westfair Business Publications in White Plains.) “The HMOs have gotten totally abusive,” he said, making “egregious” profits at the expense of health-care consumers, hospitals and physicians.
As it has done in the last two state legislative sessions, DelBello said the WCA this fall will present another legislative package of health-care reform measures in Albany. “This is a process, but I can say politically we”™re starting to get support that we never had before,” he said. “We”™re now bringing the whole state”™s focus to the issue.”
Health care and property tax reform “are the biggest issues in the country,” he said. Following its hard-won successes with health-care legislation, WCA is tackling the latter challenge through its property tax commission, whose first statement on the sprawling issue is now in draft form and will be released “very soon,” DelBello said.
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Initially, the commission will identify problems and individual areas that need to be addressed before solutions are proposed, he said. Interim reports will be produced by each of four committees examining K-12 public education; county government; all other taxing agencies in the county; and real property assessment and revaluation.
DelBello, a Democrat who served as lieutenant governor from 1983 to 1985 under Gov. Mario Cuomo ”“ after DelBello”™s initial running mate, New York City Mayor Edward Koch, was defeated by Cuomo in a party primary ”“ also serves on Gov. Eliot Spitzer”™s Commission on Local Government Efficiency and Competitiveness, which is taking a statewide approach to the property tax issue. He and other state commission members were to meet in Albany last week to sift through numerous recommendations for reform, he said.
“It”™s interesting that we started our (WCA) commission before the governor created his, but we”™re working together with the state,” DelBello said. “We actually have a rapport with the state staff. We may be the only county that actually has a commission working on it.”
The state commission”™s report is due next April 15, “but the governor”™s not waiting,” DelBello said. “He”™s taking these interim recommendations to act on them now.”
DelBello said one recommendation that he favors is “to strengthen BOCES (the Board of Cooperative Educational Services) and put a great deal more of administration of (school) districts under BOCES, including labor negotiations.”
“There”™s too many taxing entities,” he said. “It”™s like 9,600-some in New York state. There”™s 330-some-odd taxing entities in Westchester. It”™s an anachronism, the way our government has been set up in New York state.”
“The timing may be right. I think people are really pretty fed up with the taxes they pay. Hopefully the public will put some pressure on their elected officials.”
The WCA will continue to apply pressure of its own. “WCA is an advocacy group,” DelBello said. “Most of these business groups are like fraternal organizations,” unwilling to offend anyone, he said. The organization he newly chairs “is willing to make some enemies if necessary. These things have to get done.”
“You combine high medical costs and high property taxes and the high cost of living, and we”™re a business-unfriendly area,” said the Waccabuc resident and former CEO of Signal Environmental Systems in New Hampshire. “We have to turn that around.”
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