Tim Foley, Candidate for County Legislature, Says Local Government is Where We Can Make Change Happen

Scarsdale's Tim Foley has announced his candidacy to represent us in the Westchester County Legislature. The term of long-time legislator Ben Boykin will expire and Foley will be on the ballot for the position in June 2025. See below for background on Foley and what he hopes to accomplish if elected:

Why did you decide to run for County Legislature?

I am a huge admirer of Ben Boykin who has so ably represented the 5th County Legislative District since he first ran in 2013. I supported Ben from the moment I moved to Scarsdale and was happy to work on many of his re-election campaigns. He’s not only been an extraordinary legislator but was an extraordinarily productive Chair of the Board of Legislators. However, Ben is limited to six two-year terms under the County Charter, and 2025 will see an open race for his seat. The 5th Legislative District includes all of Scarsdale, two electoral districts in West Harrison, and about 2/3 of White Plains.

I have always been interested in public service. My dad was a Boston police officer and my mom was a Boston public school teacher. I was fortunate enough to go to a Catholic high school with a deep commitment to service, and to not only grown in faith and reason but put ones gifts to good use, to “give what you’ve been given.”

At this moment in time, I decided to run for County Legislator because so many of the issues I have spent my career working on – affordable housing, health care and mental health care, infrastructure and climate change, and accountable, responsible, government we can believe in – run through the County. Given the direction we’re headed in as a community, as a region, and as a nation, I firmly believe it’s not just enough to keep the Westchester that County Executive Latimer and Legislator Boykin have built thriving as it is. We have to continue to lead and make progress with our values, with common sense, with a balanced approach to governance, and with creative problem solving to keep us moving forward together.

Tell us about your background and other civic and related work you have done.

Many folks in Scarsdale will likely already be familiar with a lot of my civic and volunteer work in the village. I’m a long-time member of the Scarsdale Forum, serving as President in 2019-2020, when I prompted the creation of the Forum’s ad hoc Committee on Climate Resiliency and advocated for the Village to enter the state’s Climate Smart Communities Program. After serving as President, I chaired the Forum’s County Fiscal Affairs Committee, which issued a report each year analyzing the County Budget, what it meant for Scarsdale residents, and making suggestions for improvements. I’ve been on the Scarsdale Democratic Town Committee since my family and I first moved here and have been First Vice Chair for the last several years. I have also served on the Scarsdale Bowl Committee, the Non-Partisan Procedure Committee, the Citizens Nominating Committee, the Village Planning Board, the Village Advisory Council on Human Relations, and as a basketball coach at Fox Meadow Elementary School.

But many are probably not familiar in my professional background in and out of politics.

I’m currently the CEO of the Building & Realty Institute, a housing and real estate advocacy association for Westchester and the Lower Hudson Valley focused on fixing the housing shortage in Westchester County, and one of the organizing partners of the Welcome Home Westchester campaign.

Prior to that, I served as Communications Director to our own Assemblywoman, Amy Paulin, learning firsthand the round-the-clock work of delivering top-notch constituent services while fighting for progressive policies like curbing gun violence, cracking down on domestic violence and sex trafficking, supporting unionized workers, and helping constituents after increasingly frequent extreme weather events.

I spent a decade working for multiple unions within the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) family, coordinating electoral and issue-based campaigns to expand access to healthcare, increase the minimum wage, ensure that budget shortfalls are not balanced on the backs of state employees and working families, and pass and then defend the Affordable Care Act (also known as the ACA or “Obamacare”). In that role, I helped take on the NRA to treat gun violence as the public health threat that it is, pushed for Paid Sick Leave and Paid Family Leave, and fought for many other policies to help working families.

I was also among the first staffers on the ground in New Hampshire for Barack Obama in 2007 through the first-in-the-nation primary in 2008.

I have organized and fought for union workers and business owners, doctors and patients, and those who struggle to afford the housing and health care they need. Time and again, I have put together multi-stakeholder coalitions and campaigns to ensure all voices are heard, and everyone has a role to win the policies that will benefit us all.

What does a County Legislator do? What is controlled by the County Legislature?

The Board of Legislators is the legislative body of the County. There are 17 members representing roughly equal populations of Westchester residents. It is a co-equal branch of Government with the County Executive.

Their most important job every year is reviewing, revising, and ultimately passing the $2.5 billion operating budget each year. At the same time, they pass an additional capital projects budget to address critical infrastructure needs, including roads, bridges, parks and green space, parking facilities, the buses and vehicles that make up our local public transportation, and investments in key priorities like affordable housing and EV charging stations. As the last part of this process, they also pass the budgets for the “special districts” that operate and make improvements in our sewer, water, and refuse districts. The County budget uses a mixture of 1.) sales tax, b.) property taxes, of which about two dimes out of every dollar goes to the County, and c.) federal and state grant programs and other federal and state aid, which means the budget passed by the Legislature must set the property tax levy each year.

That’s a lot to balance in a single document, which makes it all the more remarkable that under County Executive Latimer and Legislator Boykin, the County has been able to hold property taxes either flat or with a small decrease while still making the investments in economic development that have kept jobs growing and private investment flowing into Westchester, while also making investments mental health, in child care, in critical services provided local nonprofits, in public safety, Medicaid, climate resiliency, flood mitigation, affordable housing, and efforts to combat anti-Semitism and anti-Asian bias – to name just a handful!

Lastly, the County Legislature also passed legislation in some limited areas where they have jurisdiction, like consumer protection, public safety, and public health, as well as approving appointments made by the County Executive to the many, many boards and commissions that help keep County government running.

And that’s just the official duties! As with any well-connected elected official, often serving your constituents also means being an advocate on their behalf with the state and federal government, with regulatory agencies at all levels, and with outside companies like Con Edison. Sometimes you can cut through a lot of red tape and logjams with some creative problem solving, a “never say quit” attitude, and a lot of vigorous advocacy.

Is County Legislator a full-time position – if elected will you retain your day job?

County Legislator is a paid position, but it is a part-time legislature. Most of the current Legislators have jobs outside of their legislative and political work. In my particular case, I would likely not be allowed to retain my current day job as the organization I run – the Building & Realty Institute – does engage in lobbying and advocacy work before County government. Many BRI members have received and are likely to apply in the future for County funding, creating a conflict. I would have to find something else to supplement my work as a Legislator, but there’s a lot of baseball to be played before I get to that point!

Where do Scarsdale residents see the impact of the legislature’s work?

“See” is an interesting verb choice here, because so much of what the county government provides is the network of infrastructure which allows Westchester residents to function and which also makes Westchester such a terrific community in which to live, work, and play. But well-functioning infrastructure is often invisible.

You probably are not thinking of your county tax dollars at work when you walk, run or ride along the Bronx River Parkway, when you flush your toilet, when refuse and recycling gets regularly picked up from Secor Road and the bins aren’t overflowing when you go to drop off some things from your house, and when violent crime remains relatively low – but you would certainly notice if the County wasn’t doing its job in these areas, and doing it effectively!

As just one of many examples, Medicaid funding comes from the federal government, the state government, and yes, your county tax dollars. Here in Scarsdale, most of us are fortunate enough to have access to private insurance or Medicare, but Medicaid is the underpinning infrastructure that makes our local healthcare delivery system work. Medicaid pays for 15.2% of the admissions of White Plains Hospital, and an even higher percentage at Westchester Medical Center, as well as Federally Qualified Health Centers and specialty clinics all around us. You’re not likely to be thinking of the County when you or a loved one have a medical emergency, but again, local government is providing the support to make our community function.

But the County is also capable of big, critical projects, often working in partnership with municipal governments and school boards, to handle big challenges no city, town, or village could face alone – as anyone who got their first COVID vaccines at the Westchester County Center could attest to in what was a very visible way!

Lastly, the County also has the ability to deliver important protections for its residents. Working with County Executive Latimer, the Board of Legislature ended the practice of gun shows taking place at the Westchester Count Center. They passed the Reproductive Health Care Facilities Access Act to protect patients and health care workers from harassment, including being prevented from entering or existing reproductive health care facilities. The passed paid sick days legislation to require all but the smallest businesses to allow their employees to earn sick time over the year to use for themselves when they’re ill or to care for a loved one. More recently, they established the Immigrant Protection Act to give law enforcement clear guidance that although we will continue to comply fully with federal non-immigration-related criminal investigations and lawful requests related to those investigations, Westchester law enforcement will not profile on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity or national origin or share information on an individual’s immigration status outside of those specific legal, investigative requests from federal agencies.

In times of crisis, it’s particularly important to have legislators who are dedicated problem-solvers, ready to dive into the details, and willing to work together with leaders and residents across our county to protect our friends, our neighbors, our communities and our values.

Do you anticipate that Westchester will be impacted by the change in administration in Washington? If so, how?

I think it’s unavoidable, and as a proud Democrat, it has been a major factor in my wanting to run for this position.

We have to be clear-eyed, based on our experience of the first Trump Administration and on the policies articulated during the national campaign, that when it comes to the big problems we face in Westchester related to affordability for our residents, mitigating the effects of flooding and climate change, expanding access to healthcare and providing better mental health support for schoolchildren and parents who are really struggling post-pandemic – well, the calvary may not be coming from Congress or the White House for years. There is a very real chance that Washington may yield little but chaos, corruption, and economic headwinds. If that’s the case, local government will be the place where we must make change happen.

In simple economic terms, the County funds itself through property taxes, sales taxes, and federal and state government. We already have among the highest property taxes in the nation. Even though the County is only about two dimes out of every dollar of property taxes, any increase will be a burden for families still struggling with affordability and high prices. But economists have warned that an aggressive tariff policy like that promised over and over again by President-elect Trump would exacerbate high prices in a way that could cause families to cut back on purchases, leading to a drop in sales taxes. Whether Westchester continues to receive its fair share of federal aid also is less certain than it should be. Of course, many of our residents in Scarsdale remember all too well the cap on the State and Local Tax (SALT) deduction which was squarely aimed at the people in Democratic-leaning blue states, and the President-elect’s social media feed over the years has been quick to threaten funding to blue states, blue cities, and blue communities that don’t comport with his partisan policy preferences. There is a lot of risk ahead that could undermine much of the work County Executive Latimer and Legislator Boykin did to get our fiscal affairs in order.

In human terms, the fear in some of our Westchester communities is already palpable. Some of this is due to the President-elect’s rhetoric and campaign promises, and some of this is the emboldened threats and hatred coming from the most fringe and extremist parts of our society. Back in November 2016, swastikas, the initials “KKK,” and various racial slurs were found spray-painted on the Bronx River Parkway. Fast forward to this year, and self-professed Neo-Nazis held an unauthorized rally on the steps of White Plains City Hall just last month. Incidents of Anti-Semitic hatred have been on the rise, including right here at the Golden Horseshoe. Immigrant communities in White Plains and across the county are anxious over what the transition may bring, particularly including the many families of mixed immigration status who live, work, and pay taxes in our cities, towns, and villages. As we saw particularly in anti-Asian violence around COVID, when the partisan and divisive rhetoric from national leaders reaches a fever pitch, the worst of us don’t bother to check your immigration status or citizenship before leaping to the conclusion that you’re The Other because of your race or appearance or religion or gender identity and therefore must be intimidated and confronted. At this point, Donald Trump is who he is – and he’s not someone whose instinct is to turn down the rhetoric.

Who knows how much of this comes to pass, but as Shakespeare said, “The readiness is all.” We need our elected leaders to be ready no matter what comes our way over the next few years. I am confident in my ability to rise to these challenges, as I have throughout my career as an advocate and an organizer.

Have any others announced their candidacy?

Two White Plains candidates have already announced that they are also running for the Democratic nomination, setting up the strong likelihood of a Democratic Primary in June of 2025

When is the election? How long is the term?

Primary Day for this race would likely be Tuesday, June 24. We haven’t heard yet if any Republicans or members of a third party are intending to run – I don’t believe one has run in the 5th district since 2013– but if so, their primary would be in June as well, setting up a November 4, 2025 general election.

Normally, Legislators serve a two-year term and are limited to six two-year terms for a total of twelve years. However, through a quirk of circumstance, whether the election of 2025 is for a one-year term or two-year term depends on a case currently pending in state court. The New York State Legislature passed a law written by our own Assemblywoman Amy Paulin to move the date of county elections across the state from odd numbered years to even numbered years, increasing turnout for these races while also saving costs for local boards of elections. That law is being challenged in state court right now. If it’s struck down, this would be a normal two-year term, same as always. If it’s upheld, this would be a special one-year term to implement the new state law, with two-year terms on even years to follow from 2026 onward.

Ask a simple question, get a highly technical answer, right? All of that is beyond my control. If I get the chance to serve as Legislator, my approach wouldn’t change whether it’s 1 year, 2 years, or more – I’d wake up every day ready to roll up my sleeves, dive into the details, and calmly focused on the best way to serve the needs of the residents of Scarsdale, White Plains, and West Harrison.