The race to succeed retiring 16-year incumbent Lois Bronz (D/Greenburgh) on the Westchester County Board of Legislators in the Eighth District is shaping up to be about two issues: money and taxes.

On November 3, voters will choose between Democrat Alfreda Williams and Republican Thomas Bock, both of whom are concerned about where taxpayers’ money is going and finding ways to use it more efficiently.

Williams, a former town clerk in Greenburgh, survived a hotly contested Democratic primary last month with Sleepy Hollow Trustee Karin Wompa, winning by 290 votes. (Wompa said she was proud of the work of her campaign and thanked her supporters).

If elected to the two-year term, Williams said one of her first initiatives would be to call for updated property assessments on residential and commercial properties “within this district, to make sure the burden of taxes doesn’t fall so heavily on the homeowners.”

Reducing the size of county government is also something Williams would like to explore.

“We have a number of governmental layers in Westchester County we might want to look at eliminating or reducing some of that in terms of our tax burden,” she said, noting she was also in favor of consolidating public services, such as putting out one bid for road repairs.

Bock, a firefighter in Elmsford, stressed property taxes in Westchester County were out of control.

“First off, in all the other counties in New York State you pay roughly six to eight percent of your property taxes to those respective counties. Here in Westchester, this year you’re going to pay over 20% of your taxes.”

Bock feels Playland, which he claimed loses $3 million annually, should be run by a private amusement park company, not the county, and called for major changes in the way the Westchester Medical Center is run.

In terms of police protection, Bock supports local departments taking over patrolling such county facilities as parks. Williams said the hierarchy of local police departments should be consolidated, stressing a police chief and deputy police chief is not needed in every municipality.

Each of the 17 county legislators earns an annual base salary of $49,500.