Spring Valley residents taking sides over petition to dissolve local government
SPRING VALLEY, N.Y. -- Residents are taking sides over the future of a village in Rockland County. A petition drive is pushing people to vote on dissolving Spring Valley.
Thursday, CBS2's Tony Aiello spoke with some who are ready to fight to keep their local government.
Spring Valley, New York is home to 35,000 people and a bit of a mystery over a petition to force a referendum on dissolving the village.
"That's the great mystery ... We don't know anything about the origins," said Vivian Street.
Street, a longtime resident, knows she doesn't want to see the village government eliminated with police, DPW and other services taken over by the town of Ramapo.
"We don't want to lose our identity, our police force that we respect and love, our village mayor that we get to vote on, trustees. I believe our votes will be disenfranchised overall if that occurs because this majority minority in this community will be just a speck when we go into a town," Street said.
Spring Valley's significant Haitian and Hispanic populations are being joined by an increasing number of Orthodox Jews, who are building homes and establishing schools.
Some believe village status is an unnecessary layer of expensive government.
"The cost of it and people are fed up with this kind of taxes," said resident Paul Shapiro.
The fact that the petition organizers have not gone public bothers Assemblyman Ken Zebrowski.
"There seems to be a cloak of anonymity here which I think rubs people the wrong way. Who is doing this? Why is it secretive? Normally when you have a petition you know who's behind it," Zebrowski said.
Spring Valley has seen corruption scandals and a county takeover of building inspections.
"However, it's still our village," Street said.
Street and others are gearing up to oppose the petition drive and preserve Spring Valley's village status.