About Vote 6 Wards
LETTER FROM THE WEBSITE EDITOR
Dear Residents of Ramapo,
I built this website with a number of friends – the “Ramapo Residents For a Ward System” – and it is designed for all the residents of the Town of Ramapo in Rockland County New York.
Preserve Ramapo has been at the front of this initiative for many years but not everyone supports PR. I am not part of the Preserve Ramapo organization but I do support specific initiatives on a case by case basis. I have followed the efforts by Mike Parietti (he ran for supervisor in 2013) and Bob Romanowski (who ran for town council in 2013) to organize and defend the petitions that led to this Special Election and I have supported their effort because I really believe in this solution for Ramapo very strongly.
So this is a non-Preserve Ramapo website that I built with the support of a number of close personal friends, all of whom are not part of the Preserve Ramapo organization where we can share the logic and reasoning of why a Ward System should be implemented, how it will address a myriad of governmental problems that have been occurring over the past decade in the Town of Ramapo, and why it is a change for the better for everyone.
So regardless of your love or hatred for the Preserve Ramapo organization and its messages, this is a seriously great opportunity to do something fundamentally important for everyone in the Town of Ramapo.
Who am I and why am I so highly motivated on a personal level?
Well first off, I am resident of the Village of Montebello and made the biggest single investment of my life when I bought my home here in 1993. I have always taken pride in not complaining about something unless I am willing to offer solutions and roll up my sleeves to get something done. I have done this countless of times over the years. I helped run the Ramapo Little League for 7 years, I wanted the amphitheater at the Suffern High School built and was on the board of the REACH Foundation of Rockland for 8+ years, when Pack 69 needed volunteers I became a den mother for 4 years, when a cell tower was planned for the Antrim theater I got involved in the fight, when the Town of Ramapo approved the Patrick Farm project back in 2010 and everyone was freaking out I helped form and run ROSA 4 Rockland. And there is more. The main point is that I have always been willing to be engaged and to make an effort to make a difference and my efforts to stay informed and to make changes have made me highly aware of the flaws in our current system of government. What I can’t do – and what those of you you reading this letter can’t do – is run for town council and have any chance at all in winning. Why not? Because it’s too hard and too expensive to promote yourself to the population of the Town of Ramapo at large. While many people in Montebello, Suffern, Airmont, and Wesley Hills might know me, I am not known in Spring Valley, Monsey, New Hempstead, Chesnut Ridge and so on. This is a daunting situation for any intelligent, well meaning, community minded citizen of Ramapo. So who gets election? Those few who play the current game; who get money from developers and people with money and agendas, from communities whose votes are easily organized.
Why do I believe in bringing the Ward System to the Town of Ramapo? Well its pretty straightforward. I don’t believe that the current administration has represented my best interests and those of the majority of the Town of Ramapo and I see the current election process as a hindrance to change. I want board members who are responsive to their neighbors. I want board members who are professionals not politicians. I don’t want a couple of people making decisions without a conversation where the different interests of the various and very different neighborhoods of Ramapo are represented.
We can all whine about how little notice we got about this electio, or that its a Special Election and not the General Election, but that’s water under the bridge and with a joint effort we can get the word out and the vote out.
Deborah Munitz
on behalf of the Residents of Ramapo for a Ward System