By Carol P. Bartold 

Dec. 2, 2015:  On Tuesday, December 8, Bronxville voters will have the opportunity to elect one commissioner to the Eastchester Board of Fire Commissioners for a five-year term. 

On the ballot this year are incumbent commissioner Dennis J. Winter of Bronxville and challenger Cara M. Piliero of Tuckahoe. 

Voting for all Bronxville residents will take place at village hall on December 8 from 2:00 pm until 9:00 pm. 

Winter has served as a fire commissioner since 2010 and as chairman of the board since 2013. Piliero is the former secretary-treasurer of the Eastchester Fire District. She joined the fire district in 1987 as the assistant secretary to the Eastchester Board of Fire Commissioners and was appointed secretary-treasurer in 1996, a position she held until 2014. 

Piliero did not respond to a request for comments for this article. Statements and information included about her candidacy were taken from videos recorded at the November 9 Tuckahoe Board of Trustees meeting and the November 17 Eastchester Town Board meeting and posted to her Facebook page, "Elect Cara M. Piliero for Eastchester Fire Commissioner." 

Marked by a long history of low voter turnout throughout the fire district, the annual election sends representatives to the Eastchester Board of Fire Commissioners, which holds full authority to levy the taxes needed to fund the fire district's annual budget. The board adopted a $16.5 million dollar budget for 2016, which will not increase the tax levy. The fire district budget is larger than that of the Village of Bronxville. 

According to Winter, the average age of voters in the election is 61. "The people with school-aged children are ignoring a major safety issue that should be important to them," he said. He urges all parents to be familiar with schools' fire safety issues and their evacuation plans. 

Winter points to many board accomplishments during his term as commissioner. After uncovering serious accounting irregularities, the district replaced its independent accounting firm. Internal accounting practices as well as health care billing procedures were restructured. 

Future plans for the district, Winter said, include rebuilding the Chester Heights firehouse, refurbishing the Bronxville firehouse, and looking to replace frontline fire equipment that is anywhere from five to fifteen years old. The district also must hire a treasurer due to the November 8 death of John Malesardi. 

In her recorded statements in Tuckahoe and Eastchester, Piliero stated that the current Eastchester Board of Fire Commissioners "lacks transparency, integrity, honesty, and fairness." 

She criticized the board for holding most of its meetings at Bronxville Village Hall and not posting video recordings of the meetings to YouTube or making them available to the local Tuckahoe and Eastchester cable channels on a consistent basis. Piliero promises, if elected, to bring the meetings to all three municipalities served by the fire district. 

Piliero pointed out that, in the 2016 fire district budget, the line item for legal expenses increased to $330,000 from $46,000 in 2015, "a whopping 614% increase year over year." "Not correct," Winter said. "We combined legal expenses and engineering expenses into one line under professional expenses in the 2016 budget." He explained that the board moved money into engineering fees because it realizes the need to have a master plan. 

"We have better gear, better training, and we have rebuilt a number of firehouses," Winter said. "The board has a very good relationship with the fire department membership and, for the first time in ten years, we held an awards ceremony to recognize our firefighters."

Pictured here:  Waverly Road firehouse in Eastchester.

Photo by A. Warner