Sound Shore

Faspee pulls Riley Brown, 11, on her sled at FE Bellows Elementary in Mamaroneck during the New Years Eve Storm. To see more photos from the snow storm go to Lohud.com And Happy New Year!!

Columnist Phil Reisman looked back on the “Year of Absurdity,” giving a “Golden Typo” Award to Harrison’s Laura Steins, a single mom  who claimed she was struggling to live on $300,000 a year during the recession. Golden Typo winners are bestowed upon “the hapless and ham-handed whose outrageous forays into the local news pages inspired us to apply for New Zealand citizenship, or at least consider moving to Connecticut,” Reisman writes.

Steins was featured in August in a front-page Washington Post story, titled “Squeaking by on $300,000,” which drew outrage and sympathy from locals in Rye and Harrison.

Ted Carroll, a private-equity investor and lifelong Rye resident, said the story wrongly generalized locals as “elitist” and “shallow.”

“I was offended that this stereotype was selected by a national newspaper to represent Rye, N.Y.,” he told The Journal News at the time.

Others were less hesitant to draw conclusions.

“I think it depends on how you choose to live,” said Marie Altmeyer, a retired teacher and 40-year Rye resident. “I can’t feel sorry for her for living on $300,000, but I can’t judge her, either.”

(Washington Post photo by Linda Davidson)

New Rochelle’s fire union voted to defer raises for a year to spare the jobs of six firefighters. The vote was counted today, said union president Byron Gray. The union had to choose between deferring raises or laying off six people, after the City Council cut funding to the department in the 2010 city budget. The deferral means fire fighters will be paid the cash value of the raise upon retirement. Fire fighters have been vocal in protesting the cuts and last week picketed outside a councilman’s store and handed out fliers about the situation.

Another union, Local 663 representing public works employees, held a similar vote this week but went the other way. The union voted to keep the raises and will lose three community service officers.

Westchester County Legislator James Maisano, R-New-Rochelle, will become the minority leader of the Board of Legislators in the new year, the GOP caucus announced this week.

Maisano, a lawyer, represents about half of New Rochelle and all of Pelham. He’ll begin his seventh two year term on the board on Friday.

“The Republican caucus is committed to reforming county government by promoting initiatives to reduce spending, lower taxes and consolidate operations, “ he said in a statement. “We look forward to working in a bipartisan way to improve the quality of life in Westchester.”

There are four GOP members on the 17-member board. Maisano takes over from George Oros, who is becoming Chief of Staff to new county executive Rob Astorino.

Sanitation workers will no longer pick up garbage cans at people’s doorsteps starting January 11, and residents will be required to bring their trash to curb.

The town hopes the change will save thousands of dollars in workers compensation and disability claims from sanitation workers who injure themselves while hauling trash from yards and garages.

The town is also consolidating trash routes and will charging commercial properties for collection.

The merged routes will mean trash may be picked up on different days for some. Garbage will still be picked up twice a week, town officials said.

Read more about this in The Journal News.

(Photo by Carmen Troesser)

Public Works Commissioner and Town Engineer Bob Wasp was one of 19 town employees to take an early retirement package this month.

Wasp, 61, who has been with Harrison for 10 years, says he is proud of projects such as the West Harrison streetscape improvements and the new public pool overlooking Silver Lake.

“It was a very rewarding experience. I learned to grow into this community. It wasn’t my community, but it became that it was,” says Wasp, who lives in Poughquag in Dutchess County.

Wasp will get 6 months salary under the incentive deal.

Deputy commissioners in engineering and public works will take over Wasp’s duties, as part of the town’s 2010 budget to cut employee expenses.

Wasp worked for 27 years in government, including serving as the assistant Westchester County health commissioner in the 1980s.

Wasp said he is headed to Florida to play at a baseball camp and will stay to watch The New York Mets spring training in February.

(Photo from Town/Village Harrison)

Learn how to spot different kinds of trees during a free guided walk through the Bird Homestead this Sunday, Jan. 3.

Guides from the Marshlands Conservancy will help people identify trees by their buds and bark, including the oaks that surround the 1835 homestead. Participants should dress warmly and wear sturdy boots or shoes. Binoculars are encouraged.

Event begins at 1:30 p.m at 600 Milton Road.

Contact Anne Stillman at preservehistory@earthlink.net or 967-0383 with questions.

(Photo by Frank Becerra, Jr.)

I was intrigued by the fact that the Town of Rye is preparing to celebrate its 350th birthday (yes, the subtraction takes you back to 1660) while questioning whether or not the town should exist.

The Rye town supervisor and the mayors of Port Chester and Rye Brook — villages within the town — plan to study whether it would save money to dissolve the now-thin layer of town government. If you’re a taxpayer in either of the two villages, you’ve been paying around $50 to $60 to the town, which mainly exists as a taxing entity and the overseer of two parks. The municipalities will apply for a grant to crunch some numbers.

Town Supervisor Joe Carvin believes the anniversary will appeal to those who live in a place with Rye in the name. That would include — assuming I’ve figured out my Ryes by now — the City of Rye, the neighboring Town of Rye, the village of Rye Brook with in that Town of Rye, and the Rye Neck School District within the Town of Mamaroneck.

You can find more on the story at LoHud.com.

Brian Voekel of Iona Prep slam dunks two points against the Newburgh Free Academy in the Slam Dunk Championship game at the Westchester County Center in White Plains Tuesday night.  Newburgh’s Marcus Henderson sent the game into over-time with a 3-point shot with under 3 seconds left in regulation play. Iona Prep pulled together to win the championship game 71-68 in the first over-time period. Click here to view more photos from the game and to see all the action from the Slam Dunk Tournament.

Ashley Mango, a Blind Brook High School student, was the grand-prize winner in a Bill of Rights Day essay contest run by the New York Civil Liberties Union, Lower Hudson Valley Chapter.

The announcement, and Ashley’s essay, are linked here.

Students were asked to write about a hypothetical situation: A principal pares back the curriculum in favor of SAT test preparation, and a student writes a newsletter outside of school, criticizing the decision. The student is punished, despite her free-speech rights. The scenario was created by Pace University Law Professor Ralph Stein.

Ashley cites case law from the 1969 Tinker v. Des Moines School District in her essay about the hypothetical New Tudor City school:

Students do not shed their freedoms upon entering the schoolyard, and certainly do not shed their freedoms when they leave. Through this situation, and the various case laws in support of students’ rights, it is shown that schools such as New Tudor City High School are overstepping their boundaries and crossing the line between school  discipline and parental discipline. If Justina’s article had been written in a newsletter affiliated with the school, Ms Smith (the principal) would have had the authority to discipline; however, this was not the case.