WESTCHESTER COUNTY, N.Y. - Westchester voters will decide the next County Executive in a special election on Tuesday, Feb. 11. Early balloting began on Feb. 1 and will run through Sunday, Feb. 9.
Vying for the position are Democrat Ken Jenkins and Republican Christine Sculti.
Jenkins was appointed as county executive by the Westchester County Board of Legislators in early January after then-County Executive George Latimer headed to Washington to claim his seat as a U.S. representative in New York’s 16th Congressional District.
Sculti, former chief advisor to ex-County Executive Rob Astorino, is a deputy commissioner for the Westchester County Board of Elections. She unsuccessfully challenged Latimer in the 2021 county executive race.
If he wins, Jenkins will be the first African American elected to lead Westchester County. If Sculti wins, she will be the first female to serve as County Executive.
Latimer has endorsed Jenkins, his top deputy, praising him as a vital part of his administration.
The winner of the Feb. 11 contest will serve until Dec. 31, 2025, to fill the remainder of Latimer’s term. In November, there will be another election for a full four-year term.
Halston Media offered the candidates the opportunity to address voters and explain in their own words their qualifications and what they see as the most pressing issues facing Westchester County.
Ken Jenkins
What do you want voters to know about you?
I am the son of a NYC Police Officer and a nurse. I attended Fordham Preparatory School and Iona University, earning a BS in Computer Science and Information Systems. My wife Deborah and I have lived in Yonkers since our marriage in 1982 and we have three adult children. Very soon, I will become a first-time grandfather. I have had a career in telecommunications and technology, holding key positions in several leading companies. I also have expertise in the real estate sector as an owner and broker at ERA Gem Realty. In addition to my service as deputy county executive, I served on the County Board of Legislators, including four years as chairman. I have a long history of public and community involvement, including board service with the Greyston Foundation, United Way, Westchester Crime Stoppers, the Community Planning Council of Yonkers, Westchester District Attorney’s Community Advisory Committee, and as president of the Yonkers Branch of the NAACP. I have served as chairman of the Yonkers Democratic Committee, secretary of the Westchester County Democratic Committee, and treasurer of the NYS Democratic Committee.
Please outline your leadership qualifications.
I have held leadership roles in government and in the private sector. I have been a steadfast advocate for economic development, affordable housing and holding the line on taxes. I have been instrumental in advancing key initiatives that support middle-class families, protect the environment, keep our county safe, safeguard a woman’s right to choose and expand access to affordable housing. We have fully funded our police so they can receive advanced training, and the crime rate has dropped. I have a proven track record in public service.
What do you see as the top priorities in Westchester County?
As a leader in the Latimer administration, I have already put in the work on the important issues: working to make Westchester affordable through smart budgeting and building affordable housing; keeping property taxes low; continuing to protect the environment; addressing flooding brought on by climate change, strengthening our infrastructure and making Westchester a safe place for people to work and live.
Christine Sculti
What do you want voters to know about you?
I’m a lifelong Westchesterite. I love this county. I had a small family business—it was one of the first cruise-only agencies started in the tri-state area, a very unique product portfolio. Expanded that to the World Trade Center. I was in the 1993 bombing, so I've obviously had to deal with a horrific terrorist attack. That, quite frankly, led me to be very interested in public service.
I was recruited to work for state government, and I had a wonderful opportunity to be in economic development with Governor Pataki, and later, in the city of Yonkers, where I oversaw a $1.5 billion downtown waterfront redevelopment, taking that through the approval process, through the State Environmental Quality Review Act. My background is very unique and positions me well to lead the county so that we can bring prosperity back to the families here —and they are hurting. Families are just being crushed by the taxes, by the spending.
This is what drives me. I don't want to see people leaving the county. It's a beautiful county; our communities are very diverse. I want generations of families to be able to live and stay here.
Please outline your leadership qualifications.
I was chief advisor to County Executive Rob Astorino, and the highest-ranking woman in the administration. I was heavily involved in holding the line on spending, and we accomplished that through our departments and our commissioners. It was basically a mandate, and we worked with them to control the costs within each of their departments.
I'm uniquely qualified, having done it already while I was chief advisor over those eight years. If you look at that record, we did hold spending at $1.8 billion and that does take some discipline, and it does take leadership, and it does take individuals who put the taxpayer first. We must be looking for efficiency and streamlining operations to make sure that we’re not burdening the taxpayer.
What do you see as the top priorities in Westchester County?
We have, unfortunately, a landscape where, as legislator, Mr. Jenkins sponsored sanctuary county law and celebrated the passage of it back in March of 2018 which is really been quite destabilizing to public safety. My priority will be on day one to send down legislation to the County Board of Legislators to repeal that law. I will also, on day one, issue an executive order that county departments will immediately start cooperating with the federal authorities to ensure that we are detaining and removing and deporting criminal illegal immigrants from our county. This is critical. This is something that the constituents in the county and families are very concerned about. Business owners are very concerned about the fact that we have, unfortunately, an increase in crime.
My other priority is, unfortunately, County Executive Jenkins is also responsible for out-of-control spending, and it's very unsustainable. The operating budget is up 36%, that is a staggering $655 million. The people of Westchester are already being crushed by inflation, and then on top of incredible hikes to spending. I'm going to immediately get our spending under control. Sales tax; we're going to tackle that. At the end of the day, that’s up. It’s hard to even contemplate these numbers, frankly.
I would have liked to have a full election cycle of 90 days to vet these issues with the voters, but that was not something that County Executive Jenkins was going to allow.
The last prong of my to-do list is a really important one: I would like to establish an Office of Parental Rights because families are very concerned with the direction that our schools are going. They want to be able to control how their children are being taught in school. This office will deal with parents who have concerns about schools. The county, of course, does not have any authority over the schools, but I will use my bully pulpit to speak out on these issues and support parents and support parental rights. This is just fundamental. I think that the schools are way beyond what they should be doing in terms of promoting certain ideologies.
I think it's the things that are paramount in the minds of the voters, and we need to turn the county around.
Carol Reif, Miranda Ferrante, and Tom Walogorsky contributed to this report.
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