Are Secret CNC Deliberations Undemocratic?

Here is a letter to the Editor from Harry Reynolds of Bradley Road: Dear Editor: In August, I filed objections to the proposed amendment of the Non-Partisan Resolution because the amendment (a) deemed secret the identities of persons seeking the system’s nominations and (b) deemed secret what those applicants said, or failed to say, when they appeared before the Nominating Committee, and what the members of that Committee said to them.

Some in the Village were taken aback by those secrecy provisions which seemed unjustified because of the lack of any supervening cause that would sanction them for the public good. Indeed, there is no electoral system in the free world that provides for them.

The Procedural Committee killed the secrecy provisions, leaving it to its chairperson to inform the Inquirer last week that “We decided to table the confidentiality amendment until next year”. The attempt to encase secrecy in the proposed amendment was simply swept out of the public view. Secrecy provisions for which the Procedural Committee had eagerly sought the public’s favor were left by that Committee without any explanation for its decision to table the proposed secrecy amendment until “next year”, notwithstanding that a formal renunciation of that secrecy by the committee would affect the conduct of the system’s business in the intervening year.

Is it possible that the Procedural Committee could not decide whether the secrecy provisions, repellant on their face in a democracy, were not condemnable out of hand?

Put another way, what would our voters, to say nothing of our high school and middle school students, think of our Non-Partisan System’s belief that political parties should not be part of our village’s electoral system and, therefore, Scarsdale voters should not be told the identity of applicants for electoral office and should not be told what those applicants know, believe, plan, or desire concerning the public office that they seek? Would they not say that the necessary price of avoiding the rancor of political parties is not, and must not be, the creation of a village of politically ignorant voters?

It may be argued that the Procedural Committee’s tabling of the secrecy issue to next year was so unreasonable as to raise a question of the trustworthiness of the judgment of the Non-Partisan system. However, there is no reason to question the good faith of the Committee and the tabling of the issue suggests that there is support for the objections that have been raised against the secrecy provisions. Accordingly, it has been decided that the running of an opposition candidate in order to place the issue before the voters will await the Committee’s decision.

Harry Reynolds
Bradley Road