Latimer Bids Farewell

Before heading to Washington to represent Congressional District 16, County Executive George Latimer gave a farewell address to friends and supporters On December 30, 2024. In a late career move, Latimer defeated Congressman Jamaal Bowman who lost the confidence of the Jewish community in the wake of the hostage crisis in Israel. Latimer, who has been in public service for the county and the state will now be a junior Congressman in the minority party and is cognizant of what he will and will not be able to do in his first term.

In his reflective remarks on Monday, he commented on his predecessors, his career trajectory and what he has learned along the way. He provided a lengthy list of his many accomplishments by building consensus with friends and colleagues.

He vowed to use these skills in Washington and rise above "petty angers, identities and rigid ideologies" to work toward solutions of the nation’s problems.

If he makes even half as many friends in Washington as he has in Westchester, he will quickly be sought out to sow agreement among rivals and build consensus among competing factions.

Who will fill his shoes in Westchester until the next election? Watch for an announcement from the Board of Legislators here.

Here is the full text of Latimer’s address:

Good afternoon friends; you have done me a great honor by being here today.

It has been written in prose and in song:
To everything, there is a season; and a time to every purpose under Heaven.
A time to be Born and a time to die
A time to plant and a time to reap
A time to break down and a time to build up
A time to weep and a time to laugh
A time to mourn and a time to dance

This is the human condition, throughout eternity.

A time to begin… and a time to end.

The first time I entered this chamber was 33 years ago, in 1991. At the tender age of 38, I sat in the gallery as a Legislator-elect, trying to understand the workings of this body. Next month, it will be 27 years since I stood at this podium, newly elected the Chair of this legislature. 20 years ago almost to the day, I stood up on the floor of this chamber and said once before “goodbye” - and after 13 years, leaving the County legislature to serve as a freshman State assemblyman. And 7 years ago, I returned to this podium in my first visit as County Executive-elect to ask for permission to bring the Annual State of the County Message to this Chamber. I said that night “The author Thomas Wolfe was wrong; you can go home again. Standing here before you, I am home again”. So I return here, once more home, in my last days in service in the government of this County. I am a lucky man, a blessed man, to have had this opportunity. I have valued each of you in your respective positions for the work you have done, and the work we have done together.

If there were a Mt. Rushmore for County Executives, the spots would have long ago been filled by the sculpted faces of Bleakley and Michaelian, DelBello and O’Rourke.

My tenure here, 7 years, is among the shortest of my predecessors: six of my eight predecessors have served longer than I have. They built the platform on which we stand. Which is why I have asked you to help me honor them with the Andrew O’Rourke Trailway and the Andrew Spano Archives and as we re-dedicated this building, the Edwin Michaelian Office Building.

Yet, we have had our own achievements.

We have fixed Memorial Field, Sprain Ridge Pools, Washington HQ/Miller House, the infrastructure at Playland and the O’Rourke Trailway.
We built the new NR Family Court and placed EV charging stations everywhere
We electrified our buses and made them free over the summer
We fought COVID wisely and save lives.
We invested in affordable housing and the expansion of Regeneron and Morgan
We funded the police to fight crime and funded child care for those who couldn’t afford it
We honored Diwali and Nowruz, Gold Star Mother’s and WWI Veterans, Chinese Lunar New Year and African American Trailblazers and members of the LGBTQ community, and recognized our Hispanic/Latino, Jewish, Italian, Albanian, Armenian, Pakistani, Jordanian. Egyptian and Irish neighbors
We cut taxes and froze taxes, and built up our reserves and raised our bond rating
We built a new relationship with our local governments and school districts and shared revenue with them; we worked closely with our state legislators as colleague and friends
We treated migrants with respect and we treated mothers with maternal health care issues with respect as well
We passed laws to reduce plastic waste and to require truthful disclosure of candidates, and to ensure access to women’s health facilities
We repaved the Airport runway, and repaved Mamaroneck Avenue and countless other county roads and bridges and with those public projects, created good paying union jobs for our men and women who work with their hands in building and repairing this County
We supported our workforce with respect and compensation - Union and non-represented alike
And we did all of this with an attitude of friendship - no pomposity, no arrogance. With the spirit of respect and good Neighborliness. And we have shown that Democrats and Republicans can work together and can find common ground on major issues — further, that when we disagree we can still show respect to each other

We did this - all of us together - I am grateful to have reached this podium which so much good to report.

I suspect I will return to this podium, as a member of Congress, to update all of you on the progress in our nation’s Capitol, when the time is right. And we will continue to see each other across the communities we represent, and on the never-ending campaign trail which is the reality of holding a two-year term of office.

We have had our agreements and our disagreements, and we will again in the future. Democracy assumes debate and competition of ideas and of people - and it is in the hot fire of debate and conflict that the strongest steel is forged. It is true that we compete, for our ideas and for the power to implement them. But it must also be true we are all Americans, tied together by fate and faith, and we cannot succeed or even survive as a house divided as Lincoln once said.

When Lincoln took his leave of Springfield Illinois to go to Washington to assume the Presidency, he never returned — except to be buried. Modern travel and longevity changes that calculus greatly. But the power comes from here that propels you to DC, not the other way around.

Some people feel achieving power will make America great. Some people feel we are close to a crisis equal to 1860 or 1932. Time will tell. I hope what I learned in Rye City Hall, in the NYS Capitol and in this building will best prepare me for what lies ahead.

A number of my friends have remarked to me that I don’t seem especially exuberant to have won this victory, and to head off to the “Big Show” in national government. Perhaps so. I see the clouds at hand: the international threats, the domestic strife. It is very sobering. The moment is not about any personal achievement or electoral victory - the needs of our country comes first.

I’m not worried at all about how nice my DC office is or isn’t, or what perks may be provided. But I’ve always been that way - no name on the signs, no entourage, no pay increase. Tougher Term limits. The personal stuff doesn’t matter much to me.

The challenge ahead does. This land has serious problems to deal with, and I want to stand with the best minds and the best hearts to work through our differences and address those problems. And if we spend too much time dwelling and rehashing the past, we are going to lose the present and we are going to lose the future.

The future. That’s why people put us here.

This nation has risen to every test so far. 1776. 1861. 1933 and 1941. 9-11-2001.

Let us, in this season, again heed the words Dickens gave to the ghost of Jacob Marley when he confronted his partner Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol. When told by Scrooge he was a good man of business, Marley replied

“Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business. Charity, mercy, forbearance and benevolence were all my business”.

It is time for us to rise again, to rise above petty angers, and identity, and rigid ideology, and raw ambition, to show drive and determination in the face of difficulties. So I take my leave from this building. Your challenges continue - the work is never done.

There is no indispensable man. My time here ends, yours continues forward.

But there are indispensable principles.
There is indispensable faith.

And on some Monday soon to come, I will look out the window on the Amtrak train, over the open lands of New Jersey, the skylines of Philadelphia and Baltimore, the backyards of New Brunswick, Bristol, Newark and New-ark. I will never forget what I learned in this building.

And I will still be found on the streets of
Yonkers and Harrison, Tuckahoe and CoOp City, in Hartsdale and Wakefield and Port Chester. Right alongside you, proving in small things everyday that democracy is still the best form of government known to mankind.

Goodbye… for now.