by Mayra Kirkendall-Rodríguez
Scarsdale, New York. For the first time in almost twenty years, Scarsdale Village voters will have a choice of a full slate of outstanding candidates for Mayor and Village Trustees on March 21, 2017 to challenge the candidates selected by the Citizens Nominating Committee in its closed-door, secret proceedings.
The Voters Choice Party proudly presents its slate for Scarsdale Mayor and Village Trustees!
Robert J. Berg for Mayor
Brice Kirkendall-Rodríguez for Village Trustee
Carlos Ramírez for Village Trustee
Robert Selvaggio for Village Trustee
We are hard-working and accomplished professionals in the fields of accounting, economics, law, media, information technology and risk management who have been involved actively in civic and community affairs in Scarsdale for many years. We know the Village well. We are raising or have raised our families here, and we are ready to serve all Scarsdale residents!
Why are we running for Village office? We believe that recent Village mayors and trustees have failed to carry out their fiduciary duties to our residents, and unfortunately, have failed to oversee Village operations and staff properly. Confidence in our Village government has eroded seriously, because the mayors and trustees have not acted in the best interests of all our residents.
We, the Voters Choice Party candidates, promise that we will operate transparently, to the fullest extent allowed by law. We want to fix our roads now and improve traffic safety. We will implement fiscally responsible policies to help empty nesters stay in our community. We welcome your active participation in our Village affairs. We want to be accountable to you the voters, and we will act openly in the collective best interests of all our residents.
As candidates of the Voters Choice Party, we are delighted to usher grassroots democracy back to Scarsdale! This year the election will be held at a new polling place in the Scott Room at the Scarsdale Library on March 21, 2017; the polls will be open from 6-9am and 12-9pm.
Who we are:
Robert Berg is the Voters Choice Candidate for Mayor.
Bob has lived in Scarsdale for fourteen years. He has been very active in community organizations since his arrival. Bob is President of his neighborhood association, Berkley-in-Scarsdale (“Crane Berkley”). He has previously served as its President, Vice President, and Director. Bob has spearheaded an innovative, environmentally friendly $600,000 pond and stream-dredging project between the Village and Crane Berkley residents that is nearing successful completion.
Bob has also been very active in the Scarsdale Forum, Scarsdale’s 112-year old civic organization that provides thoughtful and influential reports to our local government and schools and offers the public outstanding programming regarding issues important to the community. Bob served as President of the Forum in 2014-2015, and previously served as Director, Secretary, Vice President, and Executive Committee member. He is presently a Director and Chair of its Assessment Revaluation Committee. Bob is a member of SNAP (“Scarsdale Neighborhood Associations Presidents). Bob is also a volunteer member of the Scarsdale Town Board of Assessment Review, which decides property tax grievances filed by Village property owners.
Bob has been practicing law as a litigator for the past 34 years. He started his career at two large corporate law firms in New York. In 1990, he became a plaintiffs’ class action litigator, representing investors in shareholder actions and consumers in consumer fraud, false advertising, and unfair trade practices litigation. He is presently a partner at Denlea & Carton LLP, a boutique law firm in White Plains. Bob has been a key attorney on many landmark consumer fraud and securities fraud class action cases throughout the nation, and he has achieved class action settlements, which have recovered over one billion dollars for defrauded consumers and shareholders.
Bob received his BA degree cum laude in Economics and Psychology from Amherst College. Bob received his MBA and JD degrees from The University of Chicago.
Bob is married to Jill Krutick, an artist who focuses on abstract oil and acrylic works. Jill’s studio is in Scarsdale, and she exhibits in galleries in New York and South Florida. Before embracing her artistic passions full-time, Jill was a Senior Vice President at Warner Music Corporation and before that, she was an influential stock analyst and Managing Director at Smith Barney and Citigroup. Jill and Bob have a daughter, Zoe, who is a junior at Barnard College, and a son, Wylie, who is a freshman at the University of Miami. Zoe and Wylie attended the Scarsdale Public Schools.
As a teenager and in college, Bob travelled to six continents playing string bass with a youth symphony orchestra. Bob is an avid fisherman and boater and a former International Game Fishing Association world record holder. Bob has been known to distribute freshly caught fish to many lucky Scarsdale residents.
Brice Kirkendall-Rodríguez is a Voters Choice Candidate for Village Trustee.
Brice has lived in Scarsdale for the past five and one-half years, and he is a long-time resident of Westchester. He grew up in New Rochelle and later resided on Garth Road for over a decade. For years as a bike commuter to White Plains, he passed the house he now owns with his wife on Fox Meadow Road.
Brice is the leader of the Tiger Den for Scarsdale Cub Scout Pack 440. He is an active member of the Scarsdale Forum’s Municipal, Education, and Revitalizing Scarsdale Committees. Brice is also a member of a Scarsdale parent created group, “Mandarin in the Middle School Initiative Team,” that advocates for the inclusion of Mandarin in the Scarsdale Middle School. Previously, Brice served as Treasurer on the Board of the Walden Condominium in Harlem for three years, where he helped the condominium avert insolvency. Brice was also the Treasurer of the Board of Northgate Tenants Corporation on Garth Road for thirteen years. Brice spent several years volunteering for Light House International in Manhattan as a reader for the visually impaired.
Professionally, Brice is the Director of Quality Assurance at RCS, an iHeart Media subsidiary. He joined RCS in 1993 when it was headquartered in Scarsdale where it was one of the larger local employers. During his 24 years with RCS, Brice has helped launch multiple lines of business, including a highly successful advertising data and analytics startup that led to the company’s acquisition by iHeart Media in 2006. He has led large global teams, overseen the technical details of company acquisitions, directed software development for multiple projects, and was the lead inventor for two patents of tools in data presentation on behalf of his employer. Earlier in his career, Brice was a manager and on air radio personality in Boston, San Diego, and Santa Barbara.
Brice earned a BS degree in Economics and Computer Science from Allegheny College and a Master of Science in Management and Systems from New York University. Brice loves hiking and skiing.
Brice is married to Mayra, an international capital markets and bank regulatory consultant and trainer. Previously, Mayra has held capital markets and investment bank positions at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, JP Morgan, and BT.AlexBrown. Brice and Mayra have two children, Christian and Delfina, who attend Fox Meadow elementary school.
Carlos Ramirez is a Voters Choice Candidate for Village Trustee. Carlos has lived in Scarsdale for over twelve years and was born in Lima, Peru.
Carlos is a member of the Village of Scarsdale’s Advisory Council on Technology. The Advisory Council on Technology advises the Board of Trustees on the use of technology to improve the quality of community life and the efficiency and effectiveness of Village government.
Carlos serves as a Director of the Scarsdale Forum, and he is a member of the Forum’s Education, Assessment Revaluation, County Fiscal Affairs, Fiscal Affairs Scarsdale, Intergovernmental Relations, Membership, and Nominating Committees. Carlos also serves on the Board of Directors of the Greenacres Neighborhood Association, and he has been actively involved in its beautification and safety projects as well as in its social activities.
Carlos is an Account Manager and Manager of Smart Schools Bond Implementation at the Lower Hudson Regional Information Center. He is responsible for financial management, which entails accounting applications, enterprise resource planning, information technology, and data management. His responsibilities also include project requests, e-rate questions, quality assurance, contract/billing issues, new service inquiries, technology overviews, district advocacy, marketing services, acting as a single point of contact with leadership of public schools in the Lower Hudson Region, and communications liaison. Previously, Carlos served as Coordinator of Technology Policy for the New York State Education Department in Albany.
Carlos earned his Master of Science in Educational Leadership from the College of Saint Rose. Carlos also earned a Master of Science degree in Internet Business Systems and a Bachelor of Science in General Accounting, with a specialization in Computers and Information Systems from Mercy College. He is also working on his Master in Educational Leadership and Administration at Pace University, and is pursuing a PhD degree in Educational Leadership and Administration at Concordia University. Carlos is also an accountant.
Carlos and his wife, Betty, are bilingual in English and Spanish and have conversational fluency in Portuguese. Their son, Ryan, is a freshman in college who attended the Scarsdale schools. Betty studied accounting and runs her own firm, Scarsdale Financial Group.
Robert Selvaggio is a Voters Choice Candidate for Village Trustee.
Bob has resided in Scarsdale for the past 23 years. Bob serves on the Board of Directors of the Pelham Community Rowing Association and has been teaching Tae Kwon Do to teenagers and adults in Westchester for over 15 years. Bob was a volunteer basketball and little league coach throughout his kids’ years in elementary and middle schools. Bob was a board member of the Scarsdale Teen center for two years. In Manhattan, he was head of the Finance Committee of St. Catherine of Siena Roman Catholic Church, where he was a key player in the successful sale of the Priory and the former school property to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, providing the Church a stipend that ensures its viability in perpetuity.
Bob is Co-Owner and Head of Analytics at Rutter Associates based in midtown Manhattan. Rutter Associates provides advisory services in the areas of market risk management, credit risk and credit portfolio management, economic capital and risk adjusted performance measurement, valuation and model review of exotic derivatives and hard-to-value assets and liabilities, investment portfolio management, and litigation support. Bob has long worked in financial economics and public and housing finance. He is also a part-time instructor of Advanced Financial Risk Management at NYU.
Bob earned a BA in Mathematics and Economics from the University of Pennsylvania and a PhD in Economics from Brown University.
Bob and his wife, Lisa Sammaritano, have three adult children, Chris, Joe, and Liz, who attended Scarsdale schools. Lisa is a rheumatologist at Hospital for Special Surgery and Burke Rehabilitation Hospital, and she is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College.
Media Contact:
Mayra Kirkendall-Rodríguez, Voters Choice Party Spokesperson
Email address: ScarsdaleMayra@Yahoo.com