The Yonkers Ledger Candidates Series
The Republican and Democratic Primaries will be held on June 24, 2025, with races for City Council President and certain City Council Districts on the ballot. The Yonkers Ledger sent a five point questionnaire to all seven candidates for City Council President 2025-Lakisha Collins-Bellamy, Tasha Diaz, Mike Khader, Chuck Lesnick, Dean Politopolous, Ron Schutte and Pete Spano. Once the candidates answered the questionnaire (read their responses here), our reporters followed up with an interview. One candidate, Tasha Diaz, did not respond.
Disclaimer: Our reporter, Phil Zisman, conducted four of the six candidate interviews. Phil is a former Inspector General of the City of Yonkers and served in office during Chuck Lesnick’s first term in office from 2006 to 2009. Zisman in his capacity as IG regularly gave formal and informal ethics advice to all city officials — including Mr. Lesnick – and employees who requested it, and when appropriate rendered opinions on specific questions of government ethics. Copies of Zisman’s published opinions are still available on the Yonkers Inspector General webpage on Yonkersny.gov
Introduction
Incumbent Yonkers City Council President Lakisha Collins-Bellamy fervently believes that she deserves to be reelected. In fact, in her closing remarks at the May 13 Beczak candidates forum, she said God told her she is the right candidate. She’s proud that on her watch city taxes stayed within the allowable state tax cap, that our schools are among the best performing of the state’s five largest cities, and that crime is low when compared to other cities of our size. She thinks that the “overall state of the city is good and getting better.” She asserts that Mayor Mike Spano is doing an exceptional job, and that under his watch there’s been a renaissance in the downtown, making Yonkers a destination.
She said she works closely with the mayor and their relationship is built on mutual respect. The mayor jump started her political career when he appointed her to the Board of Education in 2020 and supported her in her campaign to unseat then Council President Mike Khader in 2021.
Collins-Bellamy is also proud of her personal accomplishments: she was raised in public housing, went to law school as a single mother, works as an attorney for the Yonkers Municipal Housing Authority, and, in 2021, was elected the city’s first African American woman Council President.
Collins-Bellamy is endorsed by Mayor Mike Spano and the Yonkers Democratic Party, 32BJ and 1199 of the Service Employees International Union, Yonkers Federation of Teachers, and Westchester County Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association.
On the Issues-Development and Affordable Housing
Collin-Bellamy supports the new development projects in the city but wants developers who receive city approvals for their projects to fund community benefits for the neighborhoods directly affected by the new construction.
She is a strong supporter of creating new affordable housing but also supports the creation of new housing for a “range of incomes.” She cites the creation of 1,674 new affordable housing units as significant. (During the June 4th League of Women Voters zoom forum, she said the number was approximately 1,300.) She said she is open to the Council reviewing the city’s Affordable Housing Ordinance to determine if it is appropriate to mandate a greater percentage of affordable housing units in newly constructed buildings. However, she doesn’t want the affordable housing requirements to negatively impact developers seeking approval of new projects.
She supports MGM’s application for a full casino license but wants to make sure that the surrounding residents are not unduly burdened by negative impacts from anticipated additional traffic, noise and new construction.
Term Limits
Collins-Bellamy is against reimposing term limits. She believes elections serve the same purpose. If the voters are displeased with an elected official’s performance, the voters can turn that person out of office.
Defending Her Record on Questions of Ethics
Collins-Bellamy asserted that she has restored honesty and integrity to her office and claimed that two rival candidates — Council Member Tasha Diaz and former Council President Mike Khader – have leveled baseless, unfair allegations against her. She claimed both Diaz and Khader are themselves ethically compromised.
In the Beczak candidates’ forum, Ms. Diaz insinuated that Collins-Bellamy has a conflict of interests because she works for the Yonkers Municipal Housing Authority as an attorney at the same time as serving as City Council President. Collins-Bellamy provided the Yonkers Ledger, with a copy of a December 21, 2021 opinion letter from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development stating that she could hold both positions provided she recuses herself from all Yonkers Municipal Housing Authority matters.
Collins-Bellamy claimed that Diaz was only running because she is angry about being removed from her position as City Council Majority Leader, after she made violent and profane threats against a fellow Council Member. Collins-Bellamy also accused Diaz of deceiving her fellow Council Members into voting to weaken the city’s noise ordinance. According to Collins-Bellamy, Diaz was acting on behalf of a campaign contributor, which she did not disclose before the vote, and that Diaz lied about the impact of the legislation before the Council voted to approve it.
Collins-Bellamy sees Diaz as a spoiler trying to split the African American vote to hurt her chances of being re-elected.
With respect to former Council Member Khader, Collins-Bellamy vehemently denied his allegation that she traded her vote to overturn the term limits law in 2022 for the appointment of her husband as a Yonkers Police officer. She said her husband took and passed the civil service exam and was properly appointed from the civil service list. She claims to have had no influence in that decision.
According to Collins-Bellamy, it is Mr. Khader who is ethically compromised because “[a]n independent counsel’s report has found that Mike Khader traded a no-bid attorney contract for free rent from that exact attorney.”
With respect to the other two candidates in the primary, Collins-Bellamy said she believes that Peter Spano is exploiting the surname he shares with the mayor even though they are not related. With respect to Chuck Lesnick, she appreciated that he has not attacked her and said his only hope of winning is to sneak in because of a divided electorate.
Analysis
There is very little daylight between the positions of the mayor and Council President Lakisha Bellamy-Collins. Under her leadership, the Council has reliably supported the mayor’s initiatives and his annual budgets. In some ways, this election will be a referendum on the mayor, who is firmly in control of all levels of city government. Collins-Bellamy has the support of the Yonkers Democratic Party, and she is counting on the rank and file Democrats carrying her to victory in the primary.
It is not surprising that ethics and integrity are central issues in this campaign. The Mayor has been criticized for issues surrounding his appointment of family members and supporters to city positions, possible undue influence of his brother’s lobbying firm, and for having a weak Board of Ethics and Inspector General, who are charged with monitoring city government.
One of the central questions for the voters will be to decide whether the Council needs a leader who will provide greater checks and balances on the extraordinary power that the Mayor has accumulated in his 13 years in office, and whether there needs to be greater independent oversight of government administration.
Lakisha Bellamy-Collins believes that despite the criticism she and the Mayor have received, the Yonkers city government is on the right track.
Voter Information
To learn more about the candidates, watch the League of Women Voters 2025 City Council President Democratic Debate here and the League of Women Voters 2025 City Council President Republican Debate here
Early Voting Begins June 14, 2025 and Primary Day is June 24, 2025. Click here for more information on where and how to vote: https://citizenparticipation.westchestergov.com/voting/early-voting-2025
