Recent statements on social media by Sam Pirozzolo promoting Staten Island secession rely heavily on a fiscal analysis conducted more than 30 years ago. That choice is not just questionable; it fundamentally undermines the argument being made.
Public policy decisions should be grounded in current conditions, not selectively curated history. Staten Island today is not Staten Island in the early 1990s. Labor costs, healthcare expenses, pension obligations, infrastructure needs, debt levels, and service expectations have all changed dramatically. Ignoring those changes does not make them disappear.
What makes this especially troubling is that there is a modern, independent analysis available. The New York City Independent Budget Office recently examined Staten Island secession under today’s fiscal realities and reached a clear conclusion: maintaining current service levels would require higher local taxes, reduced services, or both. That finding directly contradicts the affordability narrative being promoted. Rather than engage with it, Assemblyman Pirozzolo simply ignores it here.
That omission is not accidental. The modern study breaks the argument. Relying on a 30-year-old feasibility review to reassure voters today is not just irresponsible, it is misleading.
To use an analogy Assemblyman Pirozzolo himself should appreciate as an optician:
Imagine walking into his shop complaining that your vision has become blurry. Instead of testing your eyesight, updating your prescription, or examining your current lenses, he pulls out your chart from 30 years ago and says everything looks fine based on an old exam and prescription.
No patient would accept that. And no community should accept policy advice based on the same logic.
The old secession studies did not say taxes would be lower. They did not say services would improve. They did not model modern costs. They explicitly left the hardest questions unanswered, including transition costs, labor agreements, pensions, transit funding, and debt allocation. They showed that secession was theoretically feasible under past conditions, not that it was affordable or prudent today.
The IBO study answers the question voters actually care about now: what would this cost us, in real dollars, under current conditions? That is the analysis being avoided because it produces an inconvenient answer.
If the case for secession is really about values, identity, or political autonomy, then advocates should say so honestly. But presenting outdated studies as fiscal reassurance while ignoring modern evidence is not leadership. It is wishful thinking.
Staten Islanders deserve current facts, not recycled comfort. Serious decisions require serious analysis grounded in today’s reality, not nostalgia for a version of the city that no longer exists.
(Dr. Joseph Frusci is a Great Kills resident.)