User:AugustusSforza/Tom Abinanti

Thomas J. Abinanti (born ) is an American politician and current Westchester County legislator and the Democratic majority leader on the Board of Legislators. He is currently running for the New York State Assembly in the 92nd District. The seat is being vacated by Richard Brodsky in his run for New York Attorney General.

Biography
Tom Abinanti has had a career in public service in Westchester for over 30 years. Serving in his tenth term, Abinanit has been a particularly active county legislator, spearheading legislation relating to the environment, gun control, public health, and protecting abortion rights. As the parent of a child with autism, he has also spent considerable time as an activist for people with special needs. Some of his legislative achievements include preserving hundreds of acres for parks/open space and passed landmark clean air and clean water legislation. Abinanti also authored laws to reform Westchester's gun regulations and to clean up the trash industry, which until then had been dominated by organized crime. He was also instrumental in establishing the Westchester Medical Center as an independent public benefit corporation.

Tom Abinanti represents the 12th District on the Board of Legislators, which includes Irvington, Dobbs Ferry, Hastings, Ardsley and most of unincorporated Greenburgh (including East Irvington, Central Greenburgh, Hartsdale and Edgemont).

Since his election to the County Board, Abinanti has held several leadership positions. He presently serves as Majority Leader and chairs the Rules Committee. He previously served as Majority Leader for two terms when the Democrats first assumed the majority on the Board in the mid 1990s - the first time the Democrats held the majority in the history of the Westchester Legislature. He has also served as chair of various committees, including the Committees on Rules, Legislation, Health, Community Affairs, and Environment & Energy.

Previously, Abinanti served two terms as Greenburgh Town Councilman.

Tom Abinanti is a practicing attorney with an office in Greenburgh. He was Legislative Counsel to a member of Congress and staff Counsel to the New York State Assembly Speaker and various Assembly committees. He served as a Prosecuting Attorney for the Villages of Ardsley and Dobbs Ferry. He has also represented the Greenburgh Housing Authority and served as the pro bono attorney for the Westchester Coalition for Legal Abortion.

Abinanti lives in Greenburgh, NY with his wife Janet Longo-Abinanti and his son Justin. His daughter Nicole Abinanti MD, son-in-law Mitchell Kotula, and grandchildren Madeline & Mitchell live in North Carolina.

Legislative Record
In his decades of public service, Abinanti has authored several substantial pieces of legislation on diverse issues. While often characterized as staunch liberal or progressive, Abinanti has also shown a predisposition towards cooperation and seeking bipartisan support for legislation.

Budget
As the senior member of the Budget and Appropriations Committee, Tom Abinanti had the opportunity to craft legislation pertaining to the restructuring of county government. His self stated goal was "to keep County property taxes down while preserving services which are essential to our quality of life."

In December 2009, The Board of Legislators approved a $1.8 billion Budget for 2010 which cut proposed County spending by $1 million and covered anticipated revenue losses with a 2.9% property tax increase. This final budget approved by the Board spent less than the County Executive proposed and cut his proposed tax increase almost in half — this despite anticipated sales, mortgage, and hotel tax shortfalls of $51 million and increased mandated expenses of $70 million.

In its budget trimming and consolidation efforts, the Board planned the merger of two departments, defunded positions now vacant or expected to become vacant, provided no salary increases and eliminated most of the County’s subsidy of the Westchester Medical Center. However, the Board was able to maintain essential county services and continued to share county sales tax revenues with localities and school districts.

The Environment
One of Abinanti's signature issues is environmental protection. While recognizing the need for fiscal responsibility, especially during the late-2000s recession, Abinanti has argued that the environment cannot take a back seat.

Clean Air
As Environment Committee Chair, Abinanti appointed a task force which developed a plan to make Westchester's air cleaner by controlling diesel fuel emissions from local sources. The Environment Committee studied the report and discussed its implications. Abinanti then drafted a package of legislation to implement the report's recommendations.

The Westchester Legislature unanimously approved a two-part package: -requiring that all diesel vehicles used by the county and contractors doing county work use ultra-low sulfur fuel and the best available technology to filter emissions. -limiting idling time for diesel trucks and buses to 3 minutes.

In addition, the Board of Legislators also approved legislation that Abinanti proposed to decrease carbon dioxide and other harmful emissions into the air. The new law prohibits all drivers from idling their vehicles for more than three minutes. The law exempts emergency responders, hybrid vehicles and business vehicles operating auxiliary equipment (i.e. cement trucks, ice cream vendors).

Clean Water
As Environment Committee Chair, Abinanti led the Board of Legislators to support a new law designed to encourage an estimated 7000 property owners in sewer districts who are not connected to sewer lines to reduce contamination that can compromise water quality. The new law gives them a partial tax rebate for the cost of inspections and maintenance.

Abinanti also led the Board of Legislators to approve a new plan to upgrade two sewage treatment plants that discharge into Long Island Sound. Environmental groups praised the new plan designed to reduce nitrogen discharges in waste water which contribute to a “dead zone” in the Sound. The NYS Department of Environmental Conservation mandated the upgrade to comply with the Federal Clean Water Act. The largest capital project in Westchester history, estimated at $235 million — at least $100 million less than a 2004 plan — will be paid for by Sound shore residents.

Preserving Open Space
Abinanti has fought to preserve open space in Westchester and limit the unbridled development that threatens such space.

Pointing to Westchester's (and particularly southern Westchester's) need for more open space, Abinanti pushed the County to participate in the purchase and preservation of numerous environmentally sensitive parcels, including:


 * Taxter Ridge (200 acres in East Irvington)
 * Westwood (30 acres in Irvington)
 * Hillside Woods (Hastings-on-Hudson)
 * Hartsbrook Park (130 acres of Hartsdale woodlands, formerly the Gaisman Estate)
 * 39 acres on the Hudson, between Lyndhurst and Sunnyside (Irvington/Tarrytown), for a County passive recreation park (formerly owned by the Unification Church)
 * a large part of Glenville Woods (on Tarrytown Road, across from the Marriotin Greenburgh)

Abinanti has voted for every open-space acquisition/preservation measure to come before the Westchester Legislature. Facing down the housing industry, Abinanti continued to fight to preserve Rory O'Moore (Yonkers). Because of the surge in school-age population, the residential building boom, and the increasing popularity of soccer outdoor athletic fields in Westchester these facilities have been significantly overcrowded. Town Supervisor Paul Feiner and Tom Abinanti are working together to identify suitable sites and to forge a County-local partnership to convert them to regional playing fields.

Pesticide Use
The Board of Legislators has enacted a new County law to require that everyone gets adequate warning about any nearby use of pesticides. All commercial pesticide applicators must now give at least a 48-hour warning to neighbors before spraying pesticides near their homes. Another new law now mandates phasing out the use of pesticides on County-owned property.

Tom Abinanti strongly objected when the County sprayed pesticide — first by air and then by truck — as part of what he predicted would be a futile attempt to kill mosquitoes carrying the West Nile virus. The County is now using the preventative approach that Tom called for almost 2 years ago — applying larvicides and helping the most susceptible to avoid contact with the contaminated mosquitoes.

Protecting Our Environment
Tom Abinanti successfully opposed widening Interstate 287. While others promoted HOV-lanes or avoided a public opinion, Abinanti used his position as Chair of the Board's Community Affairs Committee to fast-track a resolution against expanding I-287 - despite the county executive's opposition — and it was passed unanimously by the Westchester Legislature.

Abinanti has also been outspoken in his opposition to the addition of another Tappan Zee Bridge.

He has also sponsored the County's Household Hazard Waste Notification law. He voted to initiate Countywide recycling, and for the historic Watershed Agreement to safeguard drinking water.

Further, Tom Abinanti is one of only three legislators who voted to require a full Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed GE Hangar at Westchester County Airport.

Education
Abinanti joined with his fellow Legislators to adopt the necessary legislation to continue sharing 1% of the County's sales tax revenues with school districts and municipalities that don't have the power to impose sales taxes.

Each year municipalities receive over $42 million, and school districts receive over $14 million from this County sales tax. This program has helped enhance education and stabilize local and school property taxes.

Garbage Industry
After the U.S. Attorney indicted garbage industry leaders, Tom Abinanti led a Task Force investigating how organized crime stifles competition and artificially raises Westchester garbage rates.

The Task Force held hearings which highlighted organized crime's control of the County's carting industry and the "mob tax" that the county had been paying. Notable testimony was heard, including an FBI agent recounting how the current County trash/recycling contract was originally secured by a bribe several years ago. Abinanti's Task Force issued its Report and proposed reform. The Westchester Legislature unanimously passed the Task Force's proposed legislation to clean up Westchester's garbage industry, stimulate competition and bring costs down.

Gun Law Reform
In 1997, the State Legislature passed, and the Governor signed, a new State law enacting Tom Abinanti's proposals to require that:
 * Handgun licenses in Westchester County expire, and must be renewed, after 6 year. (These licenses used to last forever).
 * All prospective handgun owners must take a gun safety course.
 * The County Executive heeded Tom's call to ban gun shows on County property.

Saving Kids from Gun Violence
Abinanti has emphatically stated that "Guns are not toys." He has said that "we have to break the dangerous combination of children and guns that results in more than 10,000 accidental shootings each year." Abinanti drafted legislation, adopted by the Westchester Legislature in 2000, to make gun owners responsible for their weapons, and to ensure that legal guns are not used illegally.

Because of the law, Westchester was one of the first places in the country to require that gun owners safely lock away their guns when not in their immediate possession or control — either with a gun lock, in a safe, or in a gun box. Leaving a gun accessible to someone who should not have it is a misdemeanor.

Recently, Abinanti stated that more protection is needed. He proposes that the law should also require:
 * Tracing all guns found in the hands of a minor.
 * A waiting period and a complete background check before the purchase of any firearm.

Keeping Kids from Smoking
Tom Abinanti was among the first public officials to urge New York State to sue the tobacco companies to stop their marketing to kids. He successfully pushed for Westchester County to join the lawsuit separately - ensuring Westchester's fair share of the settlement monies.

The law passed in 2003, which Tom sponsored, banning smoking in all workplaces is proving effective. While the law was designed to protect workers from second hand smoke, all residents have benefited from the increase in air quality. Subsequently, New York State adopted a workplace ban similar to that of Westchester's.

Abinanti sponsored, and passed, Westchester's legislation - the first in the country - to ban the sale of herbal (non-tobacco) cigarettes to minors.

As Chair of the Board's Health Committee, Abinanti worked to strengthen the ban on the sale of tobacco products to minors, and to prohibit advertising from where it is most likely to be seen by kids. In Westchester, new cigarette machines must be equipped with lock-out devices and self-serve sales of tobacco products is banned.

Abinanti also succeeded in changing County policies so that smoking is now banned in Kiddyland and on all lines at Playland. He believed that adult smoking sets a bad example for our children, endangering their health.

Protecting Public Health
When he served as the Board's Health Committee Chair, Tom Abinanti fast-tracked vital legislation to address a number of critical public health issues.

When a sewage spill went unpublicized, he successfully sponsored a new law requiring health officials to alert all local officials to any incident threatening public health in their communities. This immediate notification law gives officials and citizens as much time as possible to respond and minimizes health risks.

In 1998, Abinanti guided to passage a law to establish the Westchester Medical Center as an independent state-charted public benefit corporation - separate from the County - to ensure that it would continue to provide world-class medical care while saving taxpayers millions.

Recently, based on the recommendations of a task force that Abinanti led, the Board of Legislators unanimously approved a new agreement with the Westchester Medical Center. The new ten-year pact replaces the previous contract negotiated when the hospital became independent. Updating the county-hospital financial relationship, it further insulates the county’s taxpayers from financial liability for the facility. The new document also ensures the Medical Center’s continuation as the heart of a superb medical network and as a billion-dollar economic engine for the region.

Abinanti conducted a hearing of a local nursing home to determine whether their residents are receiving proper care and whether millions of taxpayer dollars are being appropriately spent.

Lowering Medical Center Parking Rates
After 7 years, Tom Abinanti's efforts paid off - parking rates at the Westchester Medical Center went down several years ago.

He was one of only 4 legislators to vote against giving control of the Medical Center Parking Garage to a private company. At that time, he accurately forewarned that parking rates would skyrocket and that the taxpayers would eventually have to buy the garage back - at a significant cost. This is exactly what happened.

The new independent Westchester Medical Center Board, which now runs the hospital, saw how these high parking rates were driving patients elsewhere and they decided to purchase the garage from the private owner - with a little help from the County's taxpayers. But at least the rates decreased and should remain affordable.

NACo Steering Committee
Tom Abinanti serves as a member of the National Association of Counties' (NACo) Health Steering Committee which makes recommendations on national health policies and goals.

The committee focuses on many issues related to health care delivery and financing, including: indigent care, health care for the uninsured, Medicaid, Medicare, long-term care, local public health programs, mental health, substance abuse, mental retardation and developmental disabilities.

Ultimately, the measures this committee supports will be lobbied for in Congress and the White House. NACo is the only national organization that represents our county government in this manner.

Right to Choose
Tom Abinanti has always been pro-choice. He served as pro-bono attorney for the Westchester Coalition for Legal Abortion for 18 years.

Before the State passed similar legislation, Tom had drafted legislation, for consideration by the Westchester County Board, to protect those who use health care facilities from harassment and intimidation. Some credit his legislation push as the stimulus for the State to pass statewide protections.

Senior Citizens
At Tom Abinanti's urging, the income eligibility standards were broadened so more seniors could benefit by a tax exemption from County property taxes. Westchester County residents aged 65 or older whose income is less than $27,900.00 (excluding Veteran's and Disability Compensation) are eligible.

Civil Rights
Tom Abinanti joined with a majority of his colleagues to take an important step toward promoting tolerance and insuring fairness in our diverse community. They enacted a broad-based Westchester Human Rights Law, and set up a Commission to help Westchester County residents who can't even get in the door of the woefully backlogged State Commission.