THE CROTON CHRONICLE--COMMENTARY: CAN "IF IT AIN'T BROKE, DON'T FIX IT" SOMETIMES BE GOOD GOVERNANCE?

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THE CROTON CHRONICLE--MICHAEL BALTER

Commentary: Can "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" sometimes be good governance?

At last evening's public hearing on transferring our tax assessment operations to Cortlandt, what seemed at first to be strong arguments started falling a bit flat.

A funny thing happened to us during last evening’s public hearing on the proposal to end Croton’s status as a tax assessment unit and hand over those functions to the town of Cortlandt. We started out thinking that Mayor Brian Pugh and Village Manager Bryan Healy had a pretty good case, and that all of the trustees would go along with it in the end. We were assured by a number of long-time Crotonites that this was a “done deal” and little could be done to stop it.

The arguments in favor of the plan were pretty standard. The village had been talking about it for a long time, most of the other villages were doing it, and a consultant had told us that we would save about $32,000 once the change went into effect (projected for 2026), and another $5000 annually in costs related to defending the assessments if residents challenged them.

But the plan had already become controversial last fall, when we learned that there would be “winners and losers” under the new scheme. READ AND SEE MORE AT Commentary: Can "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" sometimes be good governance?