League Hosts Burgos V. Grados Irvington Mayoral Debate

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Independent Robert Grados is challenging Democrat Arlene Burgos to be Irvington's next mayor

October 15, 2025

By Barrett Seaman—

The League of Women Voters of the Rivertowns hosted a candidate forum with Democrat Arlene Burgos and her opponent, Independent Robert Grados responding to more than a dozen questions submitted by Irvington voters. Topics ranged from village facilities, the building approval process, affordable housing, preparing for weather catastrophes and cooperation with ICE. In the end, differences centered around each candidate’s experience and how best to get things done.

A sub-theme of the exchange was political affiliation. One of Bob Grados’s motivation for running was what he perceived as the progressive orthodoxy of the current crop of trustees, including Deputy Mayor Arlene Burgos, that has dictated the candidate selection process and many of the proposals on affordable housing and the environment, among others. One of Burgos’ criticism of Grados is his lack of affiliation and experience in office.

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“I’m a registered Democrat,” said Grados, who allowed that he was once a Republican. “I’m running as Independent. I believe that local politics should not be driven by any one political party agenda.”

Burgos countered that Grados, though registered as a Democrat, did not participate in the local party’s candidate selection process and has not engaged with any of the resident committees addressing issues like reconfiguring village offices or simplifying the construction approval process. “Bob really hasn’t been involved in any of these processes,” she remarked, adding that “I think it’s important to step up and participate.”

In his defense, Grados, who is a lawyer specializing in real estate, touted his experience dealing with developers to include more affordable housing in their projects and his years on the Irvington school board, where he said he led the successful campaign to pass the fields bond issue that had failed twice before. “I’m running for mayor to help ensure that our community delivers on the hopes of all residents without regard to political party politics, he said.

Burgos does have an impressive list of endorsements ranging from George Latimer, Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Ken Jenkins to MaryJane Shimsky and David Imamura—essentially the Westchester County Democratic establishment.

For his part, Grados claims the support of former Mayor Brian Smith, former Deputy Mayor and trustee Larry Lonky, former Trustee Janice Silverberg and a host of former colleagues on the Irvington Board of Education.

As for substantive differences on the issues, the two candidates agreed on several key campaign topics. Both said the upgrading and reconfiguration of village facilities was the number one issue in the race. Where they differed was on hiring outside consultants to advise the citizens’ committee currently exploring solutions. Grados opined that they were redundant and, at $450,000, exorbitant. Burgos observed that it was the absence of an experienced consultant in putting together the $18 million facilities bond issue that contributed to its defeat.

They agreed on the need to streamline the approval process, for which a resident committee has been created. Burgos noted that her opponent has not participate in that committee’s work—or that of any of the other committees, leading Grados to counter, “Having another committee, another meeting, another consultant is not the way to move these things forward.”

Deputy Mayor Arlene Burgos (top) vs. challenger Robert Grados

On money matters, Burgos claimed that fiscal responsibility was what drove her to run for office in the first place and noted that during her time on the board, the village has been awarded $7 million in grants and passed four budgets under the tax cap. Grados flagged his oversight of a school budget, which he said was four times the size of the village’s budget and observed that as part of the budget process, “the first thing we did was look at what other municipalities like us were doing.”

The candidates generally agreed that residents need to be hyper-vigilant about possible weather catastrophes, that the current policy of neither assisting nor resisting ICE operations in the village was the right approach, and that affordable housing is a challenging issue. Grados labeled it as regional in scope and thus difficult for a single village to resolve—but one his real estate experience would serve well in negotiating with developers. Burgos stated that “the problem we have in Irvington is that we’re pretty built up,” leaving little room to find additional space for affordable housing.

They both agreed that a business council would be a good way to attract more businesses to Irvington and that opening Matthiessen Park to the general public was a good thing to have done.

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