New York state Sen. George Latimer will challenge for the top executive seat in Westchester County in November.
“It probably wasn’t the best held secret,” Latimer, a Rye Democrat, said in confirming his plans to run for county executive this week. “It sort of evolved as certain people reached out to me in January and February and asked me to consider it.”
Fresh off a 2016 re-election to the state Senate, Latimer will now set his sights on Westchester’s highest elected office, and incumbent Republican Rob Astorino. Having spent the last 30 years in some form of elected office, he will bank on having never lost an election in 17 tries, to date.
Photo/Andrew Dapolite
Latimer, 63, refuted rumors that he was asked to run by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat. Cuomo defeated Astorino in a gubernatorial race in 2014, but the two could lock horns again in 2018 with Cuomo up for re-election and Astorino said to be once again eyeing the seat.
Latimer said he was approached about running by local officials such as Mamaroneck Town Councilman Tom Murphy and county Legislator Catherine Parker, both Democrats.
If he receives the Democratic nomination to move forward in the race for county executive, Latimer would face a tough challenge in Astorino, who has been elected twice, after first running unsuccessfully in 2005, and has held the line on property taxes, keeping them flat for the last six years.
But the senator said the county budget tells a different story, pointing to the county’s increase in borrowing, depleted reserves and frequently overestimated sales tax under Astorino’s watch. He pointed to the Westchester County Airport privatization deal as a microcosm of what he said were short-sighted budgetary practices. The 40-year agreement would likely give the county a large payment up front, with diminishing returns each subsequent year.
Latimer would also have to face Astorino’s financial war chest, which was measured at $2.5 million as of the last campaign filing in January. Latimer said he estimated that Astorino would outpace him and have $4 million in the bank by November, but said he has faced that challenge before.
In his first race for Senate in 2012, Latimer successfully battled Republican Bob Cohen, of New Rochelle, in a race that set the mark, at the time, in New York state politics for campaign expenditures eclipsing the $4.5 million mark.
In that race, Latimer was outspent by Cohen 4-to-1.
Still, Latimer concedes that a race against Astorino would be the most difficult race of his political career. “Every time you move up in weight class, you have a tougher race than before,” he said.
In November, Latimer was re-elected to a third two-year state Senate term. Prior to his Senate stint, he had served for eight years in the state Assembly, 13 years on the Westchester County Board of Legislators including four as chairman, and four years on the Rye City Council. But in that time he has never held an executive position.
But he added that his experience at various legislative levels has given him experience in cooperating with lawmakers at all levels and across party lines. “If you’re going to do things that have long-term impacts, you need to have cooperation to do it,” he said, adding that he doesn’t see that degree of bipartisan cooperation from the current county executive.
Latimer added that he would bring that level of cooperation to intermunicpal agreements, pointing to the county-owned Playland—an amusement park adjacent to his Rye home—as an example. “If I’m county executive, Rye has a seat at the table,” he said.
The senator added that while he represents about one-third of Westchester as a state legislator covering the 37th Senate District, he’s been working over the last few months to expand his understanding of issues concerning the rest of the county, including the approaching shutdown of the Indian Point power plant in Buchanan and the financial strain on his hometown of Mount Vernon.
Before Latimer gets to Astorino, he’ll have to receive his party’s nomination over at least one other Democrat who has already announced his candidacy, county Legislator Ken Jenkins, of Yonkers. Latimer told the Review that if he doesn’t receive the nomination at the convention on May 10, he will endorse whoever is nominated.
“If there’s a primary, it’s not going to be because I’ve created it,” he said.
Bill O’Reilly, a spokesman for Astorino’s campaign, said the county executive is prepared to take on whichever Democrat is picked to run against him. “The county executive looks forward to robust debate with whomever emerges from the Democratic primary in the fall,” he said.
Astorino has held the county’s top office despite a decided voter registration disadvantage, with Democrats outweighing Republicans in the county by nearly a 2-to-1 margin.
Given the national attention to politics following the 2016 presidential election, however, Latimer said, voters this year will pay more attention to policy than to personality.
In 2009, then-County Executive Andy Spano, a Democrat, was the first county executive to lose re-election while still in office. He lost that race handily to Astorino.
The county executive is elected to serve a four-year term with a $160,760 annual salary.
Jenkins could not be reached for comment as of press time.
