David T. Imamura

DISTRICT 12
Ardsley, Dobbs Ferry, Edgemont, Hartsdale, Hastings-on-Hudson, Irvington

David Imamura is a Westchester County Legislator representing District 12, which includes Ardsley, Dobbs Ferry, Edgemont, Hartsdale, Hastings-on-Hudson and Irvington. He is the first Asian American to serve on the County Board of Legislators, and is particularly proud that he helped draft the Westchester County Immigrant Protection Act and was the sponsor of:

Legislation for Westchester County to join the rate case against Con-Ed challenging their increases to utility costs;
a law requiring gun shops in Westchester to post visual warnings about the dangers of guns;
a law requiring that Westchester provide free lock changes for domestic violence victims; and
an overhaul of the County’s consumer protection laws to protect against digital and AI scams.

David served as interim Majority Leader of the County Legislature in 2025 and now serves as Chair of the Litigation Committee.

In March 2024, David and his wife Kathleen were invited by Senator Chuck Schumer to attend President Biden's last State of the Union speech in support of IVF, which they utilized for their own children (Kathleen was nine months pregnant at the time and gave birth 11 days later). Having built their family via IVF, David and Kathleen are ardent supporters of reproductive rights.

Prior to taking office, David served as Chair of the New York State Redistricting Commission and Co-Chair of the Westchester Asian American Advisory Board and is a graduate of Dartmouth College and Columbia Law School. David currently lives 500 yards from his childhood home in Irvington with his wife Kathleen and their five-year-old son and two-year-old daughter.

See additional details on David's work below:

Energy Costs

Legislator Imamura sponsored legislation for Westchester County to join the rate case against Con-Ed challenging double-digit percentage spikes in utility costs, successfully bringing the proposed increases down. Westchester residents should not have to decide between buying food and keeping their lights on, nor should they pay for ConEd executives to receive multimillion dollar salaries. He continues to support efforts on the state level to further rein in utility costs.

Childcare

As a parent himself, Legislator Imamura is committed to reining in the cost of childcare, which should not be the equivalent of a second mortgage for struggling families. He is particularly proud of a million-dollar initiative he helped create alongside the New York Community Trust that provides direct subsidies to childcare worker salaries as an effort to increase the availability of quality childcare.

Affordable Housing

Legislator Imamura believes that the greatest issue facing Westchester is the cost of housing. The median single-family house in the County sold for more than $1.2 million in 2025, an unattainable goal for most working families that underscores the imperative to increasing housing supply. Legislator Imamura has voted in favor of hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies for affordable housing. He also sponsored a law that, upon passage, mandated review of all County-owned property for potential use as affordable housing. Legislator Imamura sponsored another law that passed requiring the consideration of local area median income (AMI) — not merely County-level AMI — when constructing affordable housing.

Putting Money in Your Pocket and Protecting Consumers from Scams

Legislator Imamura is committed to additional, creative approaches to keeping the cost of living down in Westchester County. That has included initiating a program with the New York State Comptroller’s Office to reach out to individuals in Westchester with unclaimed funds. One of his constituents received more than $100,000 as a result of that outreach, $5 million-plus was returned to Westchester residents.

In that same spirit, Legislator Imamura sponsored a bill ultimately passed by the Board of Legislators and signed by County Executive Ken Jenkins that prompted a complete overhaul of Westchester County’s consumer protection laws. The updated policy expanded what behavior was unlawful to include online and AI scams and outlawing abusive and unfair acts. New York State later followed the example of Legislator Imamura’s law and expanded its consumer-protection laws to mirror Westchester’s.

Legislator Imamura has also fought to keep taxes down. In the 2025 budget, when he was Majority Leader of the County Legislature, he joined with his colleagues in voting to reduce the County’s tax increase from 5.27% to 3.7% while restoring funding for childcare, maternal health and childcare.

Immigration

Legislator Imamura is equally proud to have been one of the drafters of the Westchester County Immigrant Protection Act, which went into effect in 2018 and remains one of the strongest laws of its kind in the United States. (Then-Westchester County Executive George Latimer gave David the pen he used to sign the law.) Legislator Imamura has since led the fight against the Trump Administration’s attacks on immigrants, including making sure that municipalities know how to handle potential ICE raids and ensuring that immigrant advocacy organizations have sufficient funding.

Asian American Outreach

As the first Asian American County Legislator in Westchester’s 400-year history, Legislator Imamura is proud to have worked with multiple school districts to implement Asian American history as part of their school curricula. He also launched a first-of-its-kind-in-the-nation initiative to protect nail-salon workers from toxic fumes in their workplace by having every nail salon in Westchester reviewed for compliance with state laws.

Protecting Westchester Residents from Gun Violence

Legislator Imamura sponsored a law requiring warning images for guns at points of sale in Westchester County. The second law of its kind in the country, it mandates that gun stores post images warning potential buyers of the dangers of guns and that those images be distributed to applicants for gun licenses. Legislator Imamura believes that gun violence is a public health issue in America and needs to be addressed as such.

Protecting Domestic-Violence Victims

Legislator Imamura’s first bill in the County Legislature that was signed into law required that the County government provide free lock changes to domestic violence victims. This came after an incident in New Jersey where a woman unsuccessfully asked her landlord multiple times to change her locks after her abusive husband moved out. Her ex-husband used his key to enter the apartment and killed the woman and her new husband. Incidents like these are why Legislator Imamura has been proud to stand with domestic-violence survivors’ organizations and provide them the funding they need to protect women and men subject to abuse.

Protecting a Woman’s Right to Choose

Legislator Imamura is a strong believer in a woman’s right to choose and is proud to have supported the County’s Clinic Access Law and secured funding ensuring that the County’s police forces understand and implement the law. Legislator Imamura and his wife Kathleen were only able to have children via IVF and are strong supporters of protecting the right to choose, whether that means having a baby or not having a baby. Kathleen was invited by Senator Chuck Schumer to attend President Biden’s last State of the Union address as his guest in support of IVF while she was nine months pregnant. After their daughter’s birth, Legislator Imamura and his wife continued to advocate alongside Senator Schumer for a bill in Washington protecting IVF.

Flood Mitigation

Legislator Imamura serves as Chair of the Saw Mill Watershed Advisory Board, for which he coordinates the intermunicipal effort to fight flooding in affected municipalities. In 2024, he organized a tour of major flood sites and secured $1.5 million from the federal government for mitigation in Greenburgh. Overall, he has thus far secured tens of millions of dollars toward safeguarding residents and businesses from flooding-related issues.

Protecting our Environment

Legislator Imamura previously served as Chair of the County’s Environment Energy Committee, during which time he oversaw the passage of multiple bills protecting the environment, including a law requiring monitoring of water-lead levels County parks and a law creating an inventory of the County’s sustainable energy sources. This reflects his commitment to preserving a safe and habitable environment that we can pass on to our children and grandchildren.

In addition to his work with the Legislature, David is a practicing voting-rights lawyer and was the lead attorney on the first two cases ever filed under the New York State Voting Rights Act, successfully joining with the Black and Hispanic communities in the Towns of Mount Pleasant and Newburgh to change their electoral systems so that they could elevate candidates of color.