Sound Shore

School budgets, nearly all complying with the state tax cap, passed by large margins today in Westchester County. Results from across the region are tallied on this page.

One noteworthy result is in Port Chester, where the board president, Blanca Lopez, was defeated in her bid for a second term. Retired teacher Tom Corbia and 21-year board veteran James Dreves won the two open seats.

Lopez became the first Hispanic elected to any office in Port Chester when she won a spot on the board three years ago, in a mostly Latino school district.

In neighboring Rye, Board President Laura Slack won a third term along with Nancy Pasquale and Chris Repetto. Patrick Cox, the last entrant in the race, ran unsuccessfully. Board member Nancy Barr and Daniel Savitt won in Blind Brook.

Read more election coverage at LoHud.com.

The New Rochelle City Council decided today not to give up hope that it could collect at least some of the $2 million it says the African nation of Cameroon owes in back taxes on a mansion used as a diplomatic residence.

I reported in today’s Journal News and on lohud.com that most council members – all those I could reach yesterday – were not ready to pass a resolution this afternoon that would have wiped More →

Press release from Missy Marchese:

The Garden Education Center of Greenwich

130 Bible Street, Cos Cob, Ct. 06870

Media Contact-  Madeleine Marchese   203-869-2759 missymarchese@me.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Presents

THE ANNUAL GREENWICH GARDEN TOUR

AND

PATRON PARTY

 GRANDIFLORA:  GLAMOUR IN THE GARDEN

Event:           Greenwich Garden Tour Patron Party

Date:              June 6, 2012

Time:            6:30pm to 8:30pm

Location:     Private Greenwich Garden

Cost:              Please go to gecgreenwich.org for ticket information

***************

Date:           June 7, 2012

Time:         10 am to 4pm   Self-guided – Rain or Shine

Cost:           $75 single ticket.  Please go to www.gecgreenwich.org for

additional ticket options

The Garden Education Center of Greenwich is pleased to present

Grandiflora: Glamour in the Garden.  One of the most anticipated events of the season, this self –guided tour features spectacular Greenwich gardens.  Visitors will be enchanted by glorious flowering plants and shrubs, magnificent vistas including waterfalls, terraced gardens and hidden outdoor rooms.

A glamorous patron party will be held the evening before at a private Greenwich home and will set the stage for the next day’s event.

The Garden Education Center is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting horticulture, conservation and the arts through educational outreach activities and special events.

Rye Neck—A resolution awarding the Beach Avenue & Pine Street Drainage Improvement Project was approved by the Board of Trustees Monday night with a 3-2 vote.

The Beach Avenue and Pine Street Municipal Drainage Improvements Project, initiated in September, involves installing a storm pipe under Pine Street to solve a longstanding problem with poor stormwater drainage.

Neighbors have long worried that the project would endanger a centuries-old oak tree, known locally as the Tompkins Farm Oak — named for its location on the former farm of Noah Tompkins, one of the earliest settlers of Rye Neck — which stands at the edge of the roadway.

Many of them are unhappy with the vote, and feel not enough safeguards are in place to ensure the red oak’s protection.

Read more about the story in an upcoming issue of The Journal News.

Clay Art Center in Port Chester is promising “piles of pottery” for sale at bargain prices from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on June 2 to raise money for the center’s  Audrey Greenwald Memorial Fund.

It is also planning an exhibit on a very familiar topic in town: the use of eminent domain.

Details:

Ceramic artists from all over the tri-state area have donated their irregular, overstocked or outdated pieces of artwork to CAC; bowls, cups, mugs, handmade tiles, serving pieces, teapots, sculpture and more. Family-friendly food and activities throughout the day,i ncluding face painting, tile painting, hands-on clay, live music, and more. Families can register for our twenty-three summer camps. All proceeds from this event will go to the Audrey Greenwald Memorial Fund dedicated to updating and upgrading equipment at the Center.

This year’s event will coincide with the opening reception in our gallery for Takings, a new interactive clay and mixed media installation of work by New York clay artist Gail Heidel that promotes an emergent system that self-organizes communities while critiquing the use of eminent domain. The reception will be held on June 2 from 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. while Seconds Sales activities are going on. (The exhibit will run June 2 – July 6, 2012.)

New Rochelle has received proposals from 18 engineering firms vying to design the new city yard at an inland site so that homes, stores and a park can be built along Echo Bay, City Manager Charles Strome III said this morning.

At the same, Strome said he had just signed the new agreement with the developer of the Echo Bay More →

The brighter, airier M-8 train cars now make almost a third of the New Haven Line runs during the week, and about half of them during the weekend, Metro-North Railroad says.

So it makes sense that when I rode to Manhattan yesterday, I boarded one of the railroad’s newest cars in Larchmont, but took one of the old, grimier cars coming home.

The new trains make 31.1 percent of the runs Monday through Thursday, and slightly More →

Greg Gallagher of Iona Prep competes in the pole vault, and later takes second place to a state-record setter, during the final day of the Glenn D. Loucks Memorial Track and Field Games at White Plains High School on May 12, 2012. ( Xavier Mascareñas / The Journal News )

See more photos from the Glenn D. Loucks Memorial Track and Field Games at White Plains High School in a photo gallery, and go to LoHud.com for the story.

All my life, I’ve lived in the New York area – about 20 years in Westchester – and I’d never ridden the Dragon Coaster. Until today.

(I’ve also never been to the Statue of Liberty, but that’s another story.)

So when I was out covering the opening of Playland Amusement Park in Rye today, I gave it a shot.

It wasn’t bad at all.

It rumbled, it clattered, it whipped around curves and dropped. But for fear More →

Briyah Brown of New Rochelle releases the shot-put, eventually taking first and setting records with a throw of 44 feet, 1 3/4” during the Glenn D. Loucks Memorial Track and Field Games at White Plains High School on May 11, 2012. ( Xavier Mascareñas / The Journal News )

See more photos from the Glenn D. Loucks Memorial Track and Field Games at White Plains High School in a photo gallery, and go to LoHud.com for the story.