Tag: smith

It’s Now or Never for Westchester’s Women!

We Need You to Speak Out for Women’s Safety and Privacy!

The Clinic Access Bill is scheduled for a Public Hearing at 7 p.m., Monday, April 30, 2012
Westchester County Office Building
148 Martine Ave, 8th floor
White Plains, NY
Put This on Your Calendar & Show Up, Please!

They Need to Hear from YOU!

The Following Legislators will not promise to support it!!
(Either they voted against furthering the bill to bring it to the floor or failed to vote for it at.)

Call ALL of Them!

Demand that They Stand Up for Women!

We deserve safe access to reproductive health centers!

David Gelfarb            995-2834                                                                                 gelfarb@westchesterlegislators.com

Jim Maisano              995-2826    maisano@westchesterlegislators.com                                                                                                                                                                      Bernice Spreckman  995-2815    spreckman@westchesterlegislators.com                                                                                                                                                                       Sheila Marcotte         995-2817   marcotte@westchesterlegislators.com                                                                                                                                                                           John Testa                 995-2828   testa@westchesterlegislators.com                                                                                                                                                                              Gordon Burrows      995-2830                                                                                                                                                                                       burrows@westchesterlegislators.com

Michael Smith            995-2847                                                                                                                                                                                              smith@westchesterlegislators.com

They need to hear from you.  Last December no one turned out except for a room full of anti-choice extremists, and the bill was never brought up for a vote. We fought hard to bring it back. Now you need to fight.
___________________________________________________________________

More than a decade ago, Senator Andrea Stewart Counsins and Assemblyman Tom Abinanti, then County Legislators, fought to ensure that women had safe access to women’s reproductive health centers. Unfortunately, they were not successful.  It has taken us more ten years to get to this point. We had a shot at it again last December and came up short. Now, after months of discussion, review, and dissection, the Clinic Access Bill—that would ensure women safe access to reproductive health centers—was voted out of Committee and sent to the Westchester County Board of Legislators for a vote.

This bill protects First Amendment Rights and takes a big step toward protecting Westchester’s women.

Come out and show your support for this bill tonight!

We must excerise our right to speak up and be heard.
Please come and speak out.

For the record: 1. The Bill was carefully reviewed to make sure that it was 100% in compliance with First Amendment rights – for all parties involved; and, 2. There is no other law–not state or federal–that presently protects Westchester’s women’s safety as they enter and exit reproductive health centers.

Tell Them: We Elected Them to Protect Women!

Westchester Residents Beware – Astorino’s Version of a Reformer

DISTRICT #3 has elected a truly ETHICALLY-CHALLENGED representative.
His name, and Astorino’s hand picked candidate who he labeled a reformer, is Michael Smith. (Makes you question what kind of reform Astorino is looking for!!)

It is essential that as we move forward voters keep a very sharp eye on Smith.

Yes, Smith opposes abortion even in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the woman.

In addition, Smith has a very questionable history at best. He seems willing to do anything to win. Nothing is off limits. 

To win this election, Smith ran ads about Legislator Nonna that were intentionally misleading–that’s not just our opinion but the findings of the non-partisan Fair Practices Campaign who found him guilty. Smith also apparently ran an equally offensive and untrue recorded phone call to voters on Election Day to scare them into voting for him. And that’s just the beginning.

Smith, as Board President of Valhalla School Board, actively supported and fought for a contract the New York State Controller found to be illegal as did the New York State Supreme Court.

Printed on the Valhalla Voice website, November 2, 2011
“Mike Smith’s record speaks volumes”

“As a taxpayer in the Valhalla school district I am still amused that Mr Smith is running as a tax cutter. He is anything but. In his first 3 years on the Valhalla BOE spending rose 21%. The increase one year before had been 8.8% so where were the cuts?

He is now opposing the $1 a year county lease for the children’s museum, but never opposed Valhalla’s $1 a year Easter Seals lease, the district lost $2.4 million on that deal.

When state auditors shut down the illegal Westhelp scam, Mike Smith voted to sue his own town to restart the illegal payments. He had no problem spending school district money on:

  • Matching Grants to the Valhalla Schools Foundation even though it is illegal to fund private foundations with government money.
  • Two full time salaries for Kensico School Principal
  • Pay his own expense at a private school
  • Donations to Easter Seals, another private foundation.
  • Summer trips to the Grand Canyon
  • Trips to the opera
  • Dinners at trendy NYC restaurants
  • Adult Ice Skating at Rockefeller Center
  • Ocktoberfest at Bear Mountain
  • A moonlight booze cruise on the Hudson 

Despite Mr. Smith’s denials to the contrary, the Booze Cruise was on his watch, in August of 2006
Here are quotes from the 2008 NY State audit of Mike’s Smith’s Valhalla school district finances:

“District officials did not maintain complete and accurate accounting records to facilitate the proper and timely monitoring of the WestHELP Grant. As a result, of the approximately $1.7 million expended for the Grant, approximately $456,000 was not expended in accordance with the Grant agreement, proposals or applicable laws”

“The [Valhalla] Board did not provide sufficient oversight over District financial operations”

“The District overpaid for the Business Administrator’s life insurance premiums by $38,500”

“Internal controls over payroll were not adequate”

“The District did not have adequate controls over the payroll process”

‘District officials did not implement an effective system of internal controls to safeguard computerized data’”

Smith has proudly said that he stands by the contract. That illegal support will now cost Valhalla School District residents over a million dollars. Smith’s willingness to stand by a clearly illegal contract should worry Westchester residents.

Breaking News: The War on Women Hits Westchester!

Right to Life County Executive
Cuts Funding for Contraception for Teens, Well-Baby Care and Sex Education

This is outrageous! Less than three months after the Department of Health and Human Services announced that contraception is so important that it is being designated preventive care, in accordance with the recommendations of the Institute of Medicine, and joining the list of key services such as mammograms, cervical cancer screenings, prenatal care, well-woman visits, and gestational diabetes screenings, Astorino puts his right-to-life, anti-birth-control, far-right mentality into action, attacking our teenagers’ health and rights.

Nothing seems more like preventive care than contraception!

Why is Astorino doing this? This is clearly not about reducing our taxes or about jobs.

Just like the tea baggers in Congress who are seizing every opportunity to attack women’s reproductive rights, Astorino has chosen this moment, when Westchester has sky rocketing unemployment and depleted tax revenues to put his personal anti-choice tea party stamp on our county.

Simply not funding contraceptives and not teaching sex ed does not make sex go away. Instead, it will most likely lead to a dramatic increase in teen pregnancies.

When these babies are then born there will be no well-baby care available because Astorino has cut that too.

Astorino is the true embodiment of the right-to-life philosophy: care about the fetus, but when it’s born, throw it and its mother under the bus.

Who is most effected by Astorino’s actions? Anyone who  utilizes any one of Westchester County’s community health centers—teenagers, the unemployed, the working poor, those without health insurance.

Who won’t it affect? Astorino and his financially secure friends.

On Election Day
Astorino Wants Your Help In This Attack

Astorino has hand-picked candidates to challenge incumbents. The Astorino gang have all sworn their allegiance to him as attested to at the press conference held on October 7th. On the steps of the County office building and in their own press releases, these candidates have said they will be a [guaranteed] vote for the Astorino agenda and that they share his [governing] philosophy more than 99% of the time.

That means they too believe in outsourcing jobs including the Community Health Centers, as well as cutting funding for contraceptives for teens, well-baby care and sex ed.

Astorino and his gang are committed to creating a sick Westchester, not a healthy one!

Where Does Newly Elected Rep. Hayworth (R) 19th NY-CD Stand on Redefining Rape and the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortions Act?

When running Nan Hayworth claimed to be—what was it again—on yea, pro-choice but now she doesn’t want to take a position. Now, she seems, shall we say, conflicted: Vote Party line (and platform) or support women?

FYI:
1. Hayworth has defended the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortions Act in letters to constituents.
2. Hayworth has failed to take a stand on redefining rape; and
3. Hayworth justifies tax penalties for abortion.
4. Nan Hayworth is Anti-Choice!

Ask Nan Hayworth Where She Stands!
Let’s remind Nan we’re watching.
Click Here
or Contact her at
In D.C.:
1440 Longworth HOB
Washington, DC 20515
Phone: (202) 225-5441
Fax: (202) 225-3289
In Goshen:
255 Main St., Suite 3232G
Goshen, NY 10924
Phone: (845) 291-4100
Fax: (845) 291-4164

ALERT: Anti-Choice Extremists Work to Change Definition of Rape

Anti-choice crazy extremists in Congress—mostly Republicans but with some Democrats thrown into the mix—are fighting to redefine rape so as to limit any form of funding for victims (in this instance that’s definitely we women.)

They want to redefine it as “forcible rape.” One would think the definition of rape is forced sex, but not to these zealots. They want it to only constitute rape when the victim is pulverized.

Forget the rape where the victim is given a drug, passes out and  becomes an unconscious target. Forget about incest where a child is scared of her attacker. Forget about the wife who is raped by her husband and forced to succumb. Forget about the rape that occurs with a knife to your throat.

Why are they doing this? Because they believe in their perverted hearts that if they successfully change this definition and then apply it to the Hyde Amendment, they will eliminate the funding of abortions that are now permitted.

The Hyde Amendment, which is enshrined in federal law targeting poor women, prohibits the use of federal funds for abortion except in a very few specific cases, two of which are rape and incest.

Today’s Congressional crazies think that this rape and incest exception is too broad. If that child was not beaten when her father raped her, to them, it doesn’t count! My suggestion is let’s see how these zealots each fare after being raped. The men won’t end up pregnant but at least they’ll experienced forced intercourse—anal, with an object, or otherwise! Then, they can come forward, putting their entire lives on the line, testify and be told it wasn’t rape because they weren’t beaten.

They want to include this new definition in their No Taxpayer Funding for Abortions Act. Trust me and those in Congress who fight for our cause, there is NO funding for abortion in the Obama Health Care Law now. This is simply a vehicle to further destroy our right to choose. Passing No Taxpayer Funding for Abortions Act is a top priority of these anti-choice crazies.