By EDDIE MIKUS

STAFF WRITER

Bob Steves will soon be the only member of the Fordham faculty who can be addressed as “Mr. Mayor.”

Steves, the assistant treasurer, is running unopposed in an election to be held on March 19 for the position of mayor of Scarsdale, a village in Westchester County. He described the town’s electoral process in a telephone interview with The Fordham Ram.

“The governmental process in Scarsdale is a little bit different,” Steves said. “It’s a so-called non-partisan system. So I’m not running as a Republican or a Democrat.”

When asked how his role as mayor would impact his job at Fordham, Steves said that neither job would impact the other and added that other mayors have held private jobs separate from the mayor’s office.

“It’s not like they’re two full-time jobs at all,” Steves said. “The current mayor is a pediatrician and she has a very big practice. She maintains her practice and dedicates her otherwise free time to job as mayor.”

In fact, Steves said that he can attend to his job at Fordham and his mayoral post at different times of the day.

“Most of the work, not all of it, but most of it, gets done at night,” Steves said of the mayor’s responsibilities in Scarsdale. “And I’ve chosen that’s how I will spend my personal time.”

Furthermore, Steves told The Fordham Ram that he did not see any potential conflicts of interest between his job at Fordham and his job as mayor.

“I don’t see any conflicts of interest whatsoever,” Steves said. “I couldn’t serve if there were material conflicts, and I don’t see any conflicts. We’re not regulated by Scarsdale. There’s nothing that I do that could compromise Scarsdale, there’s nothing that Scarsdale would do that would impact Fordham.”

When asked how his superiors at Fordham reacted to his mayoral run, Steves said that they had been supportive.

“Before I made the commitment to be considered for mayor, I talked to my boss,” Steves said. “He was supportive. He understood that I knew how to manage my time. He understood that I knew what my responsibilities were here and that they came first.”

When asked why he had decided to run for mayor, Steves cited a desire to take an active role in community affairs.

“Both my wife and I have been active in the village [of Scarsdale],” Steves said. “Both of us feel strongly that you should commit time and energy to what’s going on in the village. I’ve always enjoyed government. I was on the Scarsdale school board. I’ve always enjoyed government and always thought that I brought something to the process and was glad to be part of it.”

In addition to his involvement on the school board, a Jan. 25 article in The Scarsdale Inquirer listed some of the other community service projects Steves has engaged in. These include serving as president and treasurer of the Scarsdale and Edgemont Family Counseling Service, president of the Greenacres Association, chairman of the Scarsdale Transfer Education Plan, chairman of Immaculate Heart of Mary’s School of Religion and chairman of the Scarsdale Bowl Committee.

The article also stated that Steves has served on Scarsdale’s Board of Trustees since 2009 and is currently its deputy mayor and chairman of the board’s Finance and Municipal Service Committees.

In fact, Steves told The Fordham Ram that the opportunity for community service was the only benefit of being mayor because the office is unpaid.

“I don’t get paid for it. It’s a non-paying job,” Steves said of being mayor. “There’s no salary, no car, no perks, and if you park in the wrong place in the village, you still get a parking ticket. The only benefit is, if you believe in public service and you have an opportunity to carry it out at this level, you either do it or you don’t, and I decided to do it.”

An article on lohud.com, a website connected to a local newspaper that services Westchester, Rockland and Putnam counties, listed several issues currently facing the Scarsdale government. These include dealing in a humane way with geese residing in a pond behind the village’s library, reducing the flood risks in the village and ensuring transparency in decision-making through public meetings. Steves said that he looks to address these issues in his first-term.