Sound Shore

Attention fans of Monroe College basketball: The Mustangs’ (men and women) games are now being carried live on AM radio and online. You can catch the broadcasts on AM 1230 WFAS and at www.wfasam.com. For more information, visit the Mustangs’ website.

Harrison High School senior Zoe Stein recently worked with a squad of volunteers and the Harrison Recreation Department to organize a community-wide “I Made a Difference Charity Wellness Festival.”

The festival, which included information about how animals are abused and killed for food in the U.S., raised more than $700 for peta2, PETA’s youth division—and for her efforts, Stein has received a Star Street Teamer Award from the group.

“Zoe Stein has worked hard to make sure that her friends, family, and community all know about the benefits of healthy vegan eating,” peta2 Division Manager Marta Holmberg said in a press release. “The compassion, energy, and dedication it took to organize a community-wide event sets a great example not just for young activists but for anyone who wants to make a difference for animals.”

peta2’s Street Team is a group of young activists dedicated to helping animals through in-person events, online campaigns, and social media. Stein, who also serves on peta2’s Youth Advisory Board, will receive a framed certificate and a letter signed by peta2 staffers.

She said she plans to keep the event going annually.

This just in from the Bronxville Library:

“The Bronxville Public Library announced today that Library Director Laura Eckley has submitted a letter of resignation, effective Feb. 3.  Ms. Eckley is leaving to become director of the Larchmont Public Library.

“Laura has been a true asset to our library, and we appreciate her dedication and expertise,’’ said Kathy Mullen, President of the library’s Board of Trustees.  “While we are sad to see her leave, we wish her all the best in her new endeavors.”

Eckley joined the Bronxville Public Library in 2003 and was named Library Director in 2009.

“It has been both a privilege and a honor to work at the Bronxville Public Library for the past nine years,” said Ms Eckley in a resignation letter sent to the board earlier this week.  “It was a truly rewarding experience to serve the community.”

Details regarding the search for a replacement will be released after the next board meeting scheduled for Feb. 8.”

The press release gives no information on how—if at all—Eckley’s resignation will affect the lawsuit she brought against the library after a raise to $100,000 was rescinded several weeks after it was instituted. The suit also charged that Eckley was the victim of gender discrimination, pointing out that men in positions of similar responsibility made much more than she.

The Children’s Health Fund sent one of its mobile clinics to Temple Israel of New Rochelle on Tuesday. The visit was in recognition of a year-long fundraising effort by Caleb Redlener, a sixth-grader at Albert Leonard Middle School and a student at Temple Israel’s Hebrew School Program, and his classmates. The students donated the money they raised to the organization.

(Pictured, from left to right, are Rabbi Beth Nichols, Karen Redlener, Caleb Redlener and Dr. Irwin Redlener. Photo provided by David Redlener.)

New Rochelle police are investigating a downtown break-in believed to have occurred around 10 a.m. today. Police would not discuss the incident, but two sources told the Journal News in separate accounts that a pair of armed men wearing masks broke into an apartment on Centre Avenue on Wednesday morning, threatened the mother and child who were in the apartment at the time and made off with a number of objects from the home. One source said the intruders took some jewelry but had been looking for documents. More on this story as it develops.

Got this recently from Mamaroneck High School:

Timeflies, featuring 2007 MHS alum Cal Shapiro, will make a special appearance at MHS in the Post Gym at 8 p.m.  Feb. 4, to benefit the Mamaroneck Community Counseling Center.

Timeflies is currently touring the country performing in concert halls and colleges. Their music has generated over 1 million YouTube hits, and their new album, Scotch Tape, has produced a single that has made it to the top of the iTunes charts.

According to a profile recently in Vanity Fair magazine, “the future is looking very bright for the musical masterminds of electro-pop-hip-hop-rap group Timeflies.”

Purchase student tickets the week of the concert at lunchtime in the overpass. Limit is 4 tickets per person. $10 in advance, $15 at the door, $20 for adults.

Tickets will be sold the day of the show beginning at 3 at MHS – Post Road Entrance. Cash only – no checks or credit cards accepted. Admission to the show will only be granted with a ticket. There is no “lost ticket” policy. We expect this to sell out and strongly encourage people to buy their tickets in advance.

The Port Chester-Rye Brook library will showcase its recent renovations with a grand re-opening on Feb. 4. The changes, as detailed by Leah Rae in a recent article, include a new elevator, new layout, new children’s program room and young adult room, and new furniture.

The events kick off at 2 p.m. with a children’s puppet show. At 2:30 p.m. there will be a multimedia presentation titled, “The War Comes to Westchester! Local Revolutionary War Battles.” And at 3:15 p.m. there will be an origami workshop. All programs are free and open to the public. The library is at 1 Haseco Ave. in Port Chester.

A host of students from across the area have been named candidates for this year’s crop of Presidential Scholars, the U.S. Department of Education announced this week. Here’s a description of the honor they will now compete for:

“The U.S. Presidential Scholars Program was established in 1964, by executive order of the President, to recognize and honor some of our nation’s most distinguished graduating high school seniors. In 1979, the program was extended to recognize students who demonstrate exceptional talent in the visual, creative and performing arts. Each year, up to 141 students are named as Presidential Scholars, one of the nation’s highest honors for high school students.”

The Westchester and Putnam candidates are:
• Timothy J. Genovese, Cold Spring Harbor High School
• Emma R. Adler, Harrison High School
• Julia C. Canning, Irvington High School
• Joseph Hanley, Somers High School
• Elizabeth A. Syso, Somers High School
• Vittorio Loprinzo, Carmel High School
• Andrew P. Mollerus, Larchmont, Rye Country Day School
• Gautam A. Narasimhan, Horace Greeley High School
• Davis W. Wertheimer, Horace Greeley High School
• Colleen M. Benson, New Rochelle, Convent of the Sacred Heart
• Rebecca L. Deubler, Purchase, Greenwich Academy
• Marc P. Byrnes, Rye, Hackley School
• Molly Jordan, Rye High School
• Alexander H. Mun, Rye High School
• Samuel A. Bauman, Scarsdale, Horace Mann School
• Eugene K. Kim, Edgemont High School
• Ashish Shrestha, Edgemont High School
• Julian Z. Guy, Valhalla High School
• Adam M. Jaffe, White Plains High School
• Jens G. Sannerud, White Plains High School
• Michael A. Beechert, Yorktown High School

The Committee to Save the Bird Homestead will hold a presentation about the man who owned the homestead – Roland T. Bird – in a presentation at 3 p.m. Saturday at the Meeting House in Rye.

(That’s Bird at left on a dinosaur fossil excavation in Wyoming in the 1930s. Photo courtesty of the Estate of John Erikson.)

The talk by Paleontologist Lowell Dingus of the American Museum of Natural History is titled
“Barnum Brown and R.T. Bird: Two Decades of Amazing Fossil Discoveries.” Barnum Brown, considered the greatest dinosaur collector of all time, discovered Tyrannosaurus rex.

Carl Mehling, collections manager for the AMNH Division of Paleontology, will also answer questions.

The logistics:

Saturday, Jan. 28, at 3 pm at the Meeting House, 624 Milton Road.  Suitable for adults and students in 4th grade and up.  Admission is $5 per person.  Seating is limited, and reservations are recommended. To reserve seats, please contact admin@birdhomestead-meetinghouse.org or call 914-967-0383.

Read on for the full press release.

Stephen Mayo, who ran unsuccessfully for a seat on the New Rochelle City Council in the last election, has filed an article 78 lawsuit claiming the city’s new garbage collection fee is unfair and illegal.

Mayo plans to hold a press conference Tuesday morning in front of City Hall. In an interview Monday evening he said revenue from the annual fee, which was increased from $66 to $223 per dwelling at the start of the year, will be used for purposes other than collecting garbage; some of the money will go into the city’s general fund. That, he said, isn’t the way it’s supposed to work.

He said council members approved the steep fee hike in order to allow them to claim they’d held taxes below the state-imposed 2-percent cap on property tax when they passed the 2012 budget.

“Instead of going with an honest budget, they decided to get tricky about it,” he said.

The refuse fee was a sticking point during budget workshop sessions at the end of last year, but most members of council saw the increase as a necessity.

Mayor Noam Bramson said Monday evening he could not comment on an ongoing case against the city. He did say the fee was calibrated to equal the total cost of the service of picking up trash throughout the city.