The Inside Press

Magazines serving the communities of Northern Westchester

Andrew Vitelli

David Carlucci, Congressional Candidate for the 17th District, Touts Legislative Success

by

Though State Senator David Carlucci is just 39, has already built a lengthy political resume. He has spent the past ten years in the New York State Senate, where he represents most of Rockland County as well as parts of Westchester including Ossining and Briarcliff. He previously served as town clerk in Clarkstown and, prior to that, worked in Congressman Eliot Engel’s office.

Carlucci prides himself on his willingness to reach across the aisle to pass legislation, saying he has passed more legislation than any other lawmaker in the state of New York this past year.

“I call myself a pragmatic progressive and to me what matters most is getting results,” he explains. “In a Democratic majority, I’ll thrive. In a Republican majority, I will work to bring home resources for the district.”

To some, Carlucci’s can be a bridge too far. After taking office in 2011, Carlucci and three other senators formed the Senate’s Independent Democratic Conference, which caucused separately and allied with Republicans. The IDC has riled progressive for years. In 2018, six of eight former IDC Democrats lost to primary challengers, while Carlucci fended off Julie Goldberg in his primary with 54% of the vote.

Carlucci says he understands frustration over his role in the IDC, but that it was necessary to pass important legislation including gun control, a $15 minimum wage and legalization of gay marriage.

Enacting stricter gun control is Carlucci’s top priority if elected, the senator says.

“We’ve done it in New York,” he says, referring to the 2013 NY SAFE Act. “I would like to see that enacted federally so we don’t have to worry about guns crossing state borders and taking the lives of so many people.”

To expand healthcare access, Carlucci calls for a public option allowing taxpayers to buy into a government-run health plan. He would allow Medicare to negotiate the price of prescription drugs and allow attorneys general to fight suspected price gouging.

To raise revenue, Carlucci says he would repeal President Trump’s 2018 tax reform, raising the top tax rate to 39.4% from 37%. For businesses with more than $100 million in profits, he proposes a surtax with no loopholes or exceptions.

Carlucci stresses the need to spur lower- and middle-class investment. He calls for efforts to expand economic literacy and believes in eliminating capital gains tax for earnings below $100,000 to incentivize investment in the stock market. He wants to eliminate the cap on SALT deductions that was included in Trump’s tax reforms.

“We have to make sure we are fortifying the middle class,” he says. “That is the economic engine that drives our nation that has been neglected and forgotten about for way too long.”

Other priorities include battling climate change, confronting racism and anti-Semitism and passing comprehensive immigration reform.  To follow Carlucci’s campaign for Congress, visit: https://davidcarlucci.com/

 

Congressional Candidate Mondaire Jones Describes his Progressive Platform for the 17th District

by

Nyack resident Mondaire Jones, a 33-year-old attorney, calls himself “the only progressive candidate running in this race.”

Mondaire Jones Photo by Laura Brett

Jones, who grew up in Rockland County and graduated from Spring Valley High School, is running on the party’s left flank. He supports a range of progressive initiatives, from single-payer health care and a “Green New Deal” to a wealth tax, $15 minimum wage and student debt forgiveness. His campaign has earned the endorsement of two former presidential candidates, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro.

Jones was born to a single mother, growing up in Spring Valley’s Section 8 housing. He recalls accompanying his grandmother to work cleaning homes because his family could not afford childcare.

“For me, policy is personal,” he says. “You listen to the other candidates, all they talk about is Donald Trump. But even before Donald Trump, this economy was not working for the vast majority of American households.”

Jones sees dealing with the aftermath of the COVID-19 crisis as the top priority facing the next Congress. He proposes payouts of $2,000 a month to each adult and $1,000 a month for children for a six-month period in response to the virus.

“People are going to go hungry and die, or get evicted, and have their illnesses go untreated if they do not get immediate cash assistance,” he says. “So that is a fundamental way in which COVID has changed my priorities.”

Jones sees this cash assistance as a temporary solution, and does not favor a permanent Universal Basic Income, or UBI. But his platform comprises a host of ambitious and costly proposals. He is the only candidate calling for single-payer health care, or Medicare for all, under which the federal government would cover virtually all costs for the $3.6 trillion health care sector. He calls for a one-time forgiveness for all college debt, which totals close to $1.6 trillion, and free public college, which has been pegged at around $2.2 trillion over ten years in similar plans. Universal childcare has been estimated to run another $70 billion per year.

Jones acknowledges that taxes would go up for the majority of taxpayers but says that for 95% of Americans the tax hike needed for single-payer healthcare will be more than offset by savings on healthcare costs. On net, he sees single-payer resulting in lower total costs. Experts are split on this – the Urban Institute estimated single-payer would increase total spending by $7 trillion over a decade, while economist Gerald Friedman estimates savings of more than $6 trillion over the same period.

Jones echoes Warren’s call for a wealth tax of 2% on savings over $50 million and 3% on wealth over $1 billion. He also believes capital gains should be taxed at the same rate as ordinary income.

In addition to calling for a Green New Deal, Jones supports legislation to phase out large factory farms.

“The way factory farms are run present safety issues for workers and consumers, and sustainability issues for our environment,” he says.

Finally, to combat police brutality, Jones calls on his website for a range of reforms including an end to qualified immunity for officers.

“We must honor the memories of people killed by the police by listening to the demands of their family members for justice, ensuring that law enforcement officers are held accountable, and moving towards a society where the institution of policing plays less of a role in black and brown communities,” he states on the site. 

For additional information and to follow Mondaire Jones’ campaign, visit: https://mondaireforcongress.com

Browde Among Five Democrats Seeking Assembly Seat

by

PHOTOS BY CAROLYN SIMPSON, DOUBLEVISION PHOTOGRAPHERS

While Kristen Browde has the backing of the New Castle Democratic committee, she is running against a crowded field for David Buchwald’s 93rd Assembly seat.

Bedford Supervisor Chris Burdick and White Plains resident Jeremiah Frei-Pearson, a civil rights attorney who ran in 2012 but dropped out to endorse Buchwald, are two leading candidates. Alex Roithmayr, Buchwald’s chief of staff, and Greater New York Chamber of Commerce President Mark Jaffe are also seeking the nomination.

“White Plains seems to be coalescing around Jeremiah, and they certainly have a lot of votes,” Jane Silverman, co-chair of the New Castle Democratic Committee, says. “Women and the LGBTQ groups are really behind Kristen. So right now, I don’t necessarily think there is a frontrunner.”

In 2017, Browde challenged New Castle Supervisor Rob Greenstein for his seat, lost but still garnered 47% of the vote in the heated race. The contest was closer than some expected, according to Silverman.

Silverman points to Browde’s work for the New Castle Democrats as well as her work on Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Love Makes a Family council to legalize gestational surrogacy and her experience as a trustee for the $2.5 billion AFTRA Pension Fund.

Kristen is a force to be reckoned with,” Silverman says. “When she wants to get something done, she will get it done.”

Tim James, chair of the White Plains Democratic City Committee, says he thinks Frei-Pearson is the favorite. But he acknowledges that without polling there is little information to go by. He touts Frei-Pearson’s service on the city Democratic Committee as well as his law practice.

Burdick, meanwhile, has the support of the Bedford, Mount Kisco, and North Castle Democratic committees. He was elected supervisor in 2013 after serving on the town board.

Browde has thus far trailed in fundraising having raised just under $18,000, according to public records, while Burdick has raised more than $66,500 in the same period. Frei-Pearson’s fundraising totaled more than $163,500 including a $150,000 contribution to his own campaign.

Though the primary is sure to be a battle, the nominee will be favored to win the general election. The seat has been in Democratic hands for all but three years since 1993. The only Republican elected to represent the district over this period was Robert Castelli, who won a special election in 2010 and was re-elected later that year in a Republican wave election. For every registered Republican or Conservative, there are roughly 1.6 Democrats among active voters in the district.

As of press time, North Castle resident Sarmad Khojasteh, a partner at Kasowitz Benson Torres, confirmed that he was being considered as a possible candidate on a Republican ticket. Khojasteh, who serves on the Town of North Castle Assessment Review Board and on the Iranian American Bar Association’s New York Chapter Board of Directors, entered the race for the 37th Senate District in 2018 before dropping out and endorsing GOP nominee Julie Killian.

Just Getting Started: Quakers Field Hockey Team A Section 1 Win Plus Hopes for the Future

by

PHOTO BY Christina Schoonmaker

On November 2, the Horace Greeley field hockey team clinched its first Section 1 championship since 1984 with a 1-0 win over Mamaroneck.

It was a late goal by senior captain Isabelle Klein that sealed the win at Nyack High School last Fall. But building a championship team–one that lost two straight sectional final games before breaking through–took years, both for the program and the girls who finally ended the drought.

The upwards trek towards the top of Class A began 11 years ago, when Sukhvindar Singh Sandhu–recently named New York State Coach of the Year–joined the coaching staff. Sandhu, who played pro field hockey in India, found a middling program that posed little threat to Section 1 Class A juggernaut Mamaroneck. Sandhu saw that many of the girls were relatively new to the game, and realized he needed to get a stick in their hands at a younger age.

Building a Hockey Program from the Ground Up

“I talked to a couple of the parents, and we started a youth program,” he recalls. This helped grow the number of players coming out for the team, but it was not enough. “The next step was getting the travel team” established, Sandhu says. “You need the kids playing year-round.”

Sandhu became head coach of the varsity team in 2009 after a year coaching JV.

His first four years at the varsity level produced just one winning record and no playoff wins. In 2013 the Quakers began showing signs of life, making it to the Section 1 quarterfinals. The next year, Greeley reached the semi-finals, followed by three trips to the sectional championship game in four years.

The Quakers fell one game short of a Section 1 title in 2015, 2017 and 2018, losing to Mamaroneck each time. In November, the girls found themselves as the only team standing in the way of a Tigers threepeat.

“Seeing the seniors lose in that final game [the previous two years], I did not want to feel that as a senior,” midfielder Sofia Rutman says. “We just knew that couldn’t be our last game with the underclassmen.”

Klein’s goal, along with a dominant Quaker defense which did not allow a goal throughout the Section 1 playoffs, were enough to finally lift Greeley past the Tigers. Greeley won two more games to make it to the state championship. There, the season ended with a 2-1 loss to Maine-Endwell. “Most of the girls on our team who are juniors now were playing in that youth group with me,” says junior forward Lily Schoonmaker, who started playing the sport in fifth grade and has verbally committed to play for Colgate. “We’ve been going through the New Castle program through modified and now to varsity.”

Team Camaraderie & Coaches: Key Success Factors

Rutnam also pointed to the team chemistry as an important factor in their success. “I’ve been playing with these girls for six or seven years now, and it makes a huge difference just to know them and know their playing styles,” she explains. “We got along off the field really well, and that translated to passing and connections on the field. It let us score a lot of goals.”

Schoonmaker, who led the team with 20 goals, and Rutman, who was named the Quakers’ MVP, both cited Sandhu and assistant coach Brittany Paulus as key to the team’s success. “If you have a foot in the wrong place as you’re approaching somebody with the ball, he knows exactly where you should be and how to fix it,” Rutman says of Sandhu. “He knows every aspect of the game.”

Following their 18-1-4 season, the Quakers will be favored to vie for the championship again next season. The team is graduating nine seniors, including Rutman, who was All State, All League midfielder Talia Belowich and forward Klein, and All League Honorable Mention forward Kristen Graham and midfielder Paige Dalrymple. Defender Mia Warshaw, forwards Tess Fuqua and Sophie Dorst, and midfielder Mia Handler will also graduate.

But three All State players will be returning –Schoonmaker along with defender Caroline Flannery and midfielder Natalie Laskowski. All Section defender Stephanie Kasulka will be back, as will Emma Terjesen, Grace Arrese, Hannah Lane and goaltender Siena Jarrin, who were all named All League or All League Honorable Mention.

With a Section 1 title crossed off the checklist, the next goal is to win one more game and take home the state championship. “We are going to come back strong,” says Schoonmaker. “Now that we’ve been there, we have to do it.”

Chappaqua Resident Aims for Ultimate Goal

by

Rauch at the opening ceremony of the WFDF 2016 World Ultimate Championship in London, England

Robert Rauch was an 18-year-old freshman at Williams College in Massachusetts when he began playing Ultimate Frisbee. Ultimate was just a decade old at the time, and a classmate had discovered the sport at nearby Hampshire.

Rauch, a Chappaqua resident known in the disc community by the nickname ‘Nob,’ spent the next two decades on the Ultimate field and the last three decades advancing the sport on the administrative side. He’s played in the first Ultimate world championship, met his wife on the field, and twice served as president of the World Flying Disc Federation, the position he holds today. His current mission–which he has made a focus of his current term as WFDF president–is to get the sport into the summer Olympics. “That would be a milestone that I could rest my laurels on,” Rauch tells Inside Press.

Rauch began his career on the Ultimate field in 1976. He had played high school soccer in Connecticut and was looking for a new field sport to try out. With Ultimate, everything clicked; it involved even more running than his former pastime with the added intensity of non-stop action. At the same time, the sport retained a measure of mellow “zaniness,” with referees unnecessary and players making their own calls.

“It is not ‘win at all costs,’” he explains. “You need to respect your opponent. You need to excel within the rules of the game.”

Rauch spent the rest of his college years playing for a club team. After graduating from college, he moved to Chicago for work and played for Windy City, a local team there. In 1982, he played in his first U.S. National Championship.

And then, this: Rauch helped bring Windy City back to the National Championship the following year, this time winning the title. The win qualified the team for the first WFDF World Ultimate Championship Tournaments, held in Gothenburg, Sweden, where Windy City became the tournament’s inaugural world champions.

Rauch went on to win four more world championships and five more national titles, also playing for teams in Boston and New York. In 1994, he won the title as a member of the U.S. All-Star team.

Rauch’s contributions on the administrative side have left a mark on the sport–and in 2006, they earned him induction into the Ultimate Hall of Fame. By the mid-1980s, Rauch believed Ultimate and other disc sports were growing rapidly but the bodies governing the sport had failed to keep up. Rauch, who earned his Master’s degree in finance and international business from Northwestern University and is now partner at $6 billion investment firm Gramercy Financial Group, felt a “sense of duty.”

“The people who were involved were very well-meaning but really didn’t have any business acumen,” Rauch recalls. “I felt that if the organization was going to keep up with the level of competition, it really needed to up its game.”

Rauch was elected as the national director of the Ultimate Players Association in 1987, serving in that position until 1990. He also took over as chair of the Ultimate committee for the World Flying Disc Federation, then as the federation’s president in 1992.

Rauch focused on beefing up the sport’s organizational makeup.

He raised dues at the UPA (now called USA Ultimate), leading revenues to nearly triple. He took a number of additional steps to increase the sport’s legitimacy–he set up an 800 number, for example, and established an insurance program.

“It was was bringing in more enthusiastic people within the infrastructure of the organization,” Rauch says. “It was getting financial resources.”

Already working long hours for his day job, Rauch’s disc-related activities–done without pay–amounted nearly to having a second full-time commitment. After his first of three children was born in 1994, Rauch–whose playing days were largely behind him due to a knee injury–took a break from the sport to focus on his career and his family. In 1995 he moved with his wife–Katie Shields Rauch, whom he first met at the 1989 World Championships–and 1-year-old daughter to Chappaqua.

All In The Family

All three of Rauch’s children graduated from Horace Greeley High School. His oldest daughter, Kristen, graduated from Greeley in 2012 and played Ultimate at the University of Delaware, where she graduated in 2016. Her sister, Gwen, is now the captain of her club team at Penn State after graduating from Greeley in 2015. Rauch’s son and youngest child, Erik, graduated from Greeley last fall and is considering taking up Ultimate at Northeastern.

Olympic Dreams

During his first term as WFDF president, Rauch submitted disc sports as candidates to the International World Games Association. Rauch calls IWGA the ‘minor leagues’ of the Olympics–sports that are popular across the globe but not featured in the Olympics take part in their own quadrennial exhibition. World Games sports range from billiards to lacrosse and sport climbing. In 2001, flying disc was introduced as a World Games sport.

Rauch ran again for president of WFDF in 2011 and has served in the position since. In his current term, he has focused largely on paving the way for disc to become an Olympic sport. In May 2013, the International Olympic Committee provisionally recognized disc as a sport, with the full recognition coming two years later. Disc is now one of 37 sports recognized by the IOC but not featured in the Olympic games.

Until recently, the path to the Olympics was significantly more difficult.

Every summer games featured 28 sports, so in order for a new sport to make it, an established pastime had to get the ax. But starting in 2020, the games will include several “floating” sports, in which new sports will be eligible each year based in part on the host city. “Our view is that our best path is probably through this host city designation,” says Rauch.

With disc sports popular in more than 100 countries from Canada to the Middle East, and Ultimate now featured on ESPN networks, Rauch believes inclusion in the Olympics would be a natural final step in his decades-long quest to bring the sport to the world stage.

“I’m trying to finish the job I started,” he acknowledges.