The following press release was received by the Gazette and is reprinted here without editing or comment. We will provide space for press releases from all legitimate candidates for local public office.

Tocci Has Failed to Vote In Six Straight School Budget Elections

Albany Record of Absenteeism Extends to Westchester

Press Release

( October 17, 2002 ) Assemblyman Ron Tocci has failed to vote in the last six straight school budget elections. Local school voting records reveal that, beginning in 1997, the Assemblyman has declined to participate in New Rochelle school budget and school board elections, either in person or by absentee ballot.

1997 was the first year in which New Rochelle school budgets were submitted to a direct public vote. Prior to that year, they were approved directly by the Board of Education.

The school budget accounts for approximately 60% of the average property tax bill.

In a WVOX Radio debate on October 4th, Tocci offered the following account of his school budget voting history: “Most of the budgets that would be contested, if I was in town I would vote for . . . if it meant something I would be there.”

Tocci added: “I do what I can with my schedule, allowing and permitting, certainly intend to participate where my vote counts . . . I would do it if I thought it were necessary and proper and I have every intention of being able to vote in person and I would do that if I thought the vote counts.”

The school voting records cast serious doubt on Tocci’s explanation. It appears now that the Assemblyman has NEVER voted on a school budget. Among the votes Tocci skipped were those in 1999, when the school budget was initially defeated and then approved in a second round.

Local education leaders expressed dismay at the Assemblyman’s record. “The vote on the school budget may be the single most important decision residents make about the quality of local education and about local taxation. All the budgets ‘mean something,’” said Emery Schweig, past President of the New Rochelle PTA Council. “The Assemblyman’s failure even to participate in these decisions raises serious questions about his commitment to public education and his interest in the community.”

Former Blind Brook School Board President Joan Feinstein added, “it is very disappointing that a prominent elected official would set such a poor example by repeatedly failing to participate in an important public decision. Elected officials should be held to a higher standard.”

Tocci’s challenger, City Councilman Noam Bramson, is a Board Member of the New Rochelle Fund for Educational Excellence. Bramson has made support for education a centerpiece of his campaign for the Assembly.

The news about Tocci’s school voting record comes in the immediate aftermath of revelations concerning the Assemblyman’s widespread absenteeism in Albany. Assembly records reveal that Tocci has missed more than 1,300 votes in the legislature since 1990 – upwards of 100 per year -- on critical issues such as education, health care, environmental protection, and crime.

In the October 17 edition of the Journal News, Tocci dismissed the charges about his voting record in Albany, calling the claims a “smoke screen” and suggesting that he has made every important vote, missing only those that were unanimous or procedural -- but the Assemblyman’s statements are flatly contradicted by the facts.

Among the votes he missed in Albany were important and contested measures concerning clinic access protection, increasing penalties for bias crimes, prohibiting discrimination in housing and employment, protecting students from harassment, and reporting on lost or stolen firearms.

“Mr. Tocci's pattern of indifference to important public decisions is deeply troubling," said Bramson spokesperson Alisa Kesten. "We call on the Assemblyman to explain his alarming record of absenteeism both in Albany and here in Westchester."

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