One current Common Council member lives in an apartment. None of the candidates do. They all live in houses. The only issue for people living in White Plains houses is being able to drive into downtown White Plains and park in ten minutes. Preferably for free, if the candidate is a Republican.
The Democrats brandish their humanitarian credentials by favoring affordable housing but they make sure that they don't have any skin in the game. It's not affordable houses but affordable apartments, which means nowhere near them or their constituents.
None of the candidates view people living in apartments as their constituents. So why should people living in apartments vote for them?
Why aren't people living in apartments involved enough to be candidates? It's because we're dumb and lazy. It would help if the structure of White Plains government were changed to electing Common Council members by geographic districts but that change won't happen. It would take people living in apartments to dominate the voting and electing Common Council members who live in apartments. Once that happens the tyranny would simply change from houses to apartments.
So if you live in an apartment, stop voting against your own self interest. Write in your own name, a neighbor in your apartment building, your board president, ... Just stop voting for people who live in houses.
The condo and co-op board presidents should get off their asses and form a group to counter the Council of Neighborhood Associations (CNA), which has undue influence over White Plains public policy to the detriment of the majority who live in downtown apartments.
Quality of life matters.
