The legend of the Headless Horseman puts the small village of Sleepy Hollow just north of Manhattan on the map for most Americans. Past its idyllic charm and folklore fame, the village doesn’t normally get much attention. Now, it’s the site of Democrats’ efforts to use the New York Voting Rights Act to force the surrounding area to change the way it conducts its elections — and the reasoning outlined in the lawsuit suggests one of the effort’s goals may be bringing in more illegal aliens.
Sleepy Hollow is one of three incorporated villages that exist inside the town of Mount Pleasant, alongside the village of Pleasantville and a small part of Briarcliff Manor. Each village has its own local government, Mount Pleasant Town Supervisor Carl Fulgenzi explained to The Federalist.
Mount Pleasant also has its own government, including a town board, but the legislative body of Mount Pleasant has no bearing on any of the villages, Fulgenzi said. The town board is Mount Pleasant’s legislative body, and the unincorporated area it governs includes the hamlets of Hawthorne, Thornwood, Valhalla, and Pocantico Hills.
Despite Sleepy Hollow having its own legislative body, Democrats are citing a controversial law to try to change the way the town’s elections work, according to Fulgenzi.
Five Hispanic voters from Sleepy Hollow sued the town of Mount Pleasant in January in hopes of forcing the town to abandon its current at-large voting system. The New York Post reported earlier this month that Democrats are deploying similar lawsuits against the towns of Newburgh and Cheetowaga. The Sleepy Hollow plaintiffs allege that the “at-large” voting system violates the state’s 2022 John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act by diluting the voting power of certain residents — in this case, Hispanics, who make up nearly half of Sleepy Hollow but only 19 percent of Mount Pleasant, according to the suit.
“The at-large system is anyone can vote for anyone they want that’s running for office,” Fulgenzi told The Federalist.
If the plaintiffs prevail, one possible replacement for the current system would be dividing the town into wards, where each ward would be based on population and would elect one board member, Fulgenzi explained to The Federalist, adding the town board could then have anywhere between four to six seats. The current Mount Pleasant Town Board is comprised of four Republicans plus Fulgenzi, who acts as chairman of the board.
If wards were created that chose their representatives directly, it would increase the likelihood of a Sleepy Hollow resident winning a seat on the Mount Pleasant town board.
“What doesn’t make sense is that the village of Sleepy Hollow has its own government, and their government has a village board and they’ve had Hispanics on the village board and Hispanics in Sleepy Hollow can vote for them, for whoever they want,” Fulgenzi told The Federalist.
David T. Imamura, one of the attorneys representing the plaintiffs, told The Federalist that there are a “number” of reasons why a Sleepy Hollow resident would want to be on the town board even though the board’s decisions don’t have much effect on the village itself. Imamura and fellow counsel Robert Spolzino are both affiliated with the Westchester County Democratic Committee.
One issue Imamura pointed to was taxation. Pointing to the 2024 Mount Pleasant Town Budget, he said “the town of Mount Pleasant does tax the villages and most recently they just increased the tax rate by around 20 percent” for the entire town, which includes the villages and unincorporated areas. Emily Costanza, the Mount Pleasant Town Clerk, told The Federalist that village and nonvillage residents pay the same base tax but only nonvillage residents pay taxes for police services, recreation and parks programs, highway maintenance, and outside services.
Fulgenzi told The Federalist that the Mount Pleasant town board has “nothing to do with how Sleepy Hollow residents are taxed” besides collecting “school and county tax plus a very small portion for accessor and receivers services.”
“If the State changes the equalization rates on assessments that has nothing to do with the town, it affects all property owners,” he added.
Mount Pleasant Refused to Accept Illegal Migrants
But there appears to be another reason motivating the lawsuit. The Sleepy Hollow plaintiffs hope to change the way elections are run so they have an opportunity to open their fellow town members’ neighborhoods to illegal aliens.
“The Town Board has declared a state of emergency effectively preventing any Hispanic migrants from taking asylum in the Town,” the suit complained.
As town supervisor, Fulgenzi issued an emergency order in October stipulating the town did not have enough resources to “receive and sustain an influx of migrant persons and asylum seekers, whose presence will spike the number of people in need of government services, and stress other services,” after New York City became overwhelmed by illegal immigrants and said it would send them into nearby suburbs.
Because “the Hispanic community in Mount Pleasant would be opposed” to the state of emergency, the lawsuit alleges that the town is “neglect[ing] the interests of the Hispanic community.”
“The town recently implemented a state of emergency vis a vis migrants, so in the town of Mount Pleasant currently you can go to jail if you house a migrant,” Imamura told The Federalist.
The emergency order does not prohibit individuals from privately housing illegal immigrants or anyone else. The order specifically prevents persons from making “contracts … within the Town to transport migrants or asylum seekers to locations in the Town, or to house persons at locations in the Town for any length of time without the express written permission of the Town Supervisor.” Hotels, motels, schools, commercially zoned property, or “owner of a multiple dwelling or any other building in the Town” are not permitted to “contract … with any other municipality … for the purpose of providing housing” to migrants without a license.
Fulgenzi told The Federalist that authorities are not going door-to-door to see whether migrants are being housed in private homes. He also said Sleepy Hollow remains unaffected by the emergency order and can continue to accept illegal aliens who claim to be seeking asylum. Imamura acknowledged that was a “reasonable argument” but insisted Sleepy Hollow residents have a “right to be heard.”
