In this op-ed, Ulster County comptroller-elect March Gallagher acknowledges she was one of the unnamed women in the investigation of county legislator Hector Rodriguez for inappropriate behavior, and that she did not speak out until now because she needed Rodriguez’s vote on the budget for her office. “More than a few of my advisors have cautioned me that I risk my reputation by admitting I traded acquiescence for the comptroller’s budget,” she writes. “That, actually, is the whole point. For too long women have had to make horrible tradeoffs in silence. By speaking out I hope to effect change.”