Ken Jenkins is taking a third run at Westchester County executive

Ken Jenkins is Westchester County’s deputy executive and has worked closely with Rep.-elect George Latimer of the 16th Congressional District for years during his time as Westchester County executive.

Jenkins recently announced that he’s running to replace Latimer as county executive, and this isn’t his first run for the role. Jenkins and Latimer were opponents for the role in the 2017 Democratic Party primary, which Latimer won 63%-37%, and Jenkins also unsuccessfully ran in 2013. Now that Latimer is moving to Congress, he has endorsed Jenkins to take over the seat. City & State spoke with Jenkins about running for county executive, Latimer’s endorsement and Donald Trump’s win. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Can you tell me about your childhood? You used to work in information technology, but why did you switch to politics?

Growing up my mom was a nurse and my dad was a cop. My dad showed up to all of my sports games, whether it was basketball, flag football, softball growing up, but on the other end I made sure that I didn’t stray too far, because as a cop he could roll up on me anytime. My degree is in computer science and information systems. I worked in telecommunications first in Mount Vernon, starting out in directory assistance and becoming a manager. Then I moved into IT, so programming and teaching computers and continuing to be a consultant. At the local Yonkers NAACP, I went from being a member to being the president of the branch when we were implementing the housing stipulation agreement which tied education and housing together. 

What makes you the right candidate for county executive?

I was a county legislator, and in 2017, George (Latimer) and I competed for the role and lost to George in one of his 19 wins, but we didn’t chomp each other’s legs off, and we think we set a standard for competing and trying to make the best case possible to do this work. I’ve been working in this role with George for seven years, and there is not a question that I understand how the county government works. It’s rare that you have the county executive and the deputy county executive both be former chairs of the Board of Legislators and both had the opportunity to do the redistricting plans. I was chair 10 years after George was chair, and I understand every nook and cranny of the county as well as how to make the levers of government work to make people’s lives better. That’s why I got engaged in the NAACP and continued my service in the Democratic Party as an executive committee member on the county level. I think the experience that I’ve had in these last seven years and the years on the Board of Legislators and as the chair of the Board of Legislators gives me the unique experience in understanding how this county government works and how we work with our local partners at the city, town and village levels and how we work up with our state legislators and our state federal legislators.

How much do you think George Latimer’s endorsement will help you in your race?

George is extremely well liked in Westchester County, but I think that the work that we’ve been able to do together has been the hallmark. That is part of George’s style, making sure we have this tremendous team that has been extremely successful since we walked in the door in 2018 and navigated through some challenging times, and we’re getting ready to enter another chapter of that. When George got elected and we came into office, Donald Trump was president and right after that came the pandemic. We were able to navigate through all of those scenarios and challenging times as a team together, and created the kind of hallmark where we talk with everyone and we have pragmatic solutions to the problems that face Westchester County. I think all of those things together will equip me best to navigate through what’s going to be another challenging time. You know, it’s going to be President Trump 2.0, and we certainly have seen that it’s going to be a lot more intense. We’ve done it before, we were able to meet with every municipality, and we’re going to continue to have those kinds of conversations. We’re sibling governments, we’re not a superior government. We’re working together to solve problems, and we can pick up the phone and talk to every level of government through all of our intermediaries that we have great relationships with.

What does Trump’s win mean for Westchester?

We’ve been through this, right? That’s the first thing that we start with from a county perspective, that not only we’re going to continue to protect all of our families because we’re going to follow the law. And that law means whether or not we have protected classes in Westchester and our human rights law, we’re stronger than the states. We can do things faster, and we can add in things, we have protections in our law that the state did not have until recently, and we continue to be ahead in some other places. We’re going to continue to work and utilize every resource that we have to make sure that every Westchester resident, no matter their sexual orientation, their ethnicity, their gender, it does not matter for us. We’re going to continue to do that work. And again, we came into office without the Community Development Block Grant funds program, and we worked with our local municipalities to reinstate that under the Trump administration. It wasn’t under the Biden administration. He did that in the Trump administration. And we worked with municipalities to do different things and protect and build fair and affordable housing through Westchester County. And then we worked with our folks from the police reform and reinvention world and had our Project Alliance, which is our mental health diversion program, where we work with professionals with the police department to be able to take those cases that the police are being asked to handle, which they shouldn’t be. That’s not their job, that’s not their profession. They’re not mental health professionals. They’re police professionals or law enforcement, and we get those to the health folks that need it. We’re going to keep working as hard as we can to protect everyone’s rights. We're going to keep working as hard as we can to help build affordable housing in conjunction with a local municipality providing the support and incentives that we can do at our county level as we go through what is certain to be uncertain times. And that’s the challenge we’re having right now as a Board of Legislators is going through the proposed 2025 budget. We don’t know what’s going to happen at the federal level. We kind of have some things that we think and we tell our folks that we’re continuing to talk with everyone on how we have our Immigrant Protection Act, which says we’re not a sanctuary county, but it says we follow the law and we believe in the rule of law and says, don’t ask us to do your job.