Sound Shore

Port Chester’s village board meets tonight with an agenda that includes a discussion on group homes, a proposal for a new baseball field at Lyon Park and next year’s village election. The public session starts at 7.

Group homes: The village has received a plan to build a home for developmentally disabled adults on vacant land next to 51 Betsy Brown Road. The formal notice and hearing have been delayed, but the board set a hearing to talk about the relative number of group homes in Port Chester. Trustee Bart Didden wants the state to set more criteria on the location of such homes.

Baseball field: The Port Chester Youth Baseball League will propose a new T-ball/Rookie League field in Lyon Park.

Elections: Village board elections in March 2013 will put all six trustee seats up for a vote under the new cumulative voting method, and will coincide with the mayoral election. The trustee election system – under a legal agreement with the Department of Justice – includes an unusual provision that allows people to vote at one polling spot the week preceding Election Day. The board will discuss whether to ask the DOJ to allow the same provision for the mayoral race, which was not part of the landmark DOJ lawsuit that yielded the new election system.

Rye city councilwoman Suzanna Keith, who ran unsuccessfully for Westchester County Board of Legislators in November, announced today that she’s moving to Texas this summer. She will leave the council in June.

Keith, a Republican, joined the council two years ago and will leave a year and a half before the end of her term. She is a marketing executive and said her husband’s job transfer is prompting the move.

“She’s been a great colleague and there’s still a lot more work that we have to get done together,” Mayor Doug French said. Keith said the June 13 meeting would be her last on the council. The mayor and council will appoint someone to serve through the end of this year, and a successor will be elected this November to serve through the end of 2013.

Her announcement:

Dear Friends:

I want to thank you for all your support of our team and me. With a heavy heart, I must share with you the news that my family and I will be re-locating this summer to Texas. Andrew, my husband, is being transferred to Houston, which is also home to my parents.

Our family is devastated to be leaving all of our wonderful friends after living in Westchester County for over 15 years, but we wanted to share this news with you as soon as possible.

Since we will be moving at the end of June, a new person will be appointed to the Rye City Council with timing TBD. Since being elected to the Rye City Council, I have worked hard to represent the people of Rye and the Sound Shore area with integrity and collaboration, while trying to bring affordability to the area. With the recent recession having impacted many across the area, I have fought to focus on priorities in order to maintain vital services and to protect taxpayers from rapidly rising taxes. More remains to be done, but we have made some important progress.

Rye City, and all of you, have been truly amazing and supportive. I am grateful and honored to have had the opportunity to serve you in the community and in public service. You will continue to be in my thoughts and I wish the best for all of you.

While I hope to see you in person before the summer, please keep in touch through email (skconcepts@hotmail.com), Facebook or my marketing blog: Revolutionary Marketing Ideas. Always keep me posted on how I can help you and if you make it down to Houston for some bbq and rodeo.

Sincerely,

Suzanna Keith

Mamaroneck town officials are exploring the scenarios that could result from a possible dissolution of the nearby Rye Town—including the adoption of about 7,600 new residents.

The neighborhood known as Rye Neck—about 1.4 square miles—would become an orphan of sorts if Rye town decides to go out of existence. A study is under way to determine whether taxpayers would save money by doing away with Rye town or by merging municipal services in some other way.

Rye town envelops the villages of Port Chester and Rye Brook along with Rye Neck, a separate fragment of land that belongs to Mamaroneck Village.

The Town of Mamaroneck is a bystander in the study, but has a serious stake in the outcome.

“It’s an interesting, but very complicated issue,” Supervisor Nancy Seligson said this week as the town board ventured into a discussion on the matter.

If Rye Neck becomes part of the Town of Mamaroneck, it would still receive most services from the Village of Mamaroneck. But Rye Neck residents would no longer pay a slight premium for town recreation services like Hommocks pool, for one thing. But their town taxes might rise, according to one former study on the question. Under a second scenario,the Village of Mamaroneck would secede from the town, taking Rye Neck with it and becoming its own “town-village.”

Mamaroneck Town Administrator said he report to the town board by April with a look at the potential impact from the two alternatives. Any change in the municipal map would require a referendum.

The Rochester-based Center for Governmental Research is conducting the study for Rye Town and the villages of Port Chester, Rye Brook and Mamaroneck through a state grant. Information about municipal services and videos of the related public forums are online at www.cgr.org.

Jaine Elkind Eney will be sworn in as a Mamaroneck Town Council member Jan. 18 to fill the vacancy created by the election of former councilwoman Nancy Seligson as supervisor.

The council voted 4-0 Jan. 4 to  appoint Elkind Eney, who was serving as village trustee in Larchmont. She is a former chair of the town’s Board of Assessment Review. Seligson, elected to the town’s top post in November, replaces Valerie O’Keefe, who stepped down after serving 12 years as supervisor.

In Larchmont, Peter Fanelli was sworn in as trustee Monday to fill Elkind Eney’s seat on the five-member village board. He was appointed by Mayor Joshua Mandell.

The average citizen could be forgiven for not reading up on the “Study of Governance and Service Options” under way in the Town of Rye. The topic seems as dry as can be, except it’s also kind of interesting—particularly considering that some people don’t realize they live in the Town of Rye and pay taxes to it (about $32 a year on average).

The study, being carried out by the nonprofit Center for Governmental Research, is the latest to look at whether it would save money to eliminate this vestigial layer of local government altogether or rejigger municipal services in some other way. A forum Jan. 12 (click for PDF) will examine the current setup of taxes and services. (The meeting starts at 7 p.m. in the Mamaroneck Village courtroom, 169 Mount Pleasant Ave., Mamaroneck.)

So with the aim of sparking some interest, I present this list of some of the most unusual things about Rye Town.

1. The town of Rye consists of two pieces, which sit on either side of the City of Rye and don’t connect.

One chunk consists of the villages of Rye Brook and Port Chester. The other piece is a slice of Mamaroneck called Rye Neck. The total 7.4 square miles are what’s left after the incorporation of various communities over the years. Rye Town in the 1660s covered a large swath extending from White Plains to Greenwich. Most town residents, 63 percent, live in Port Chester.

2. Rye Town Park, despite the name, is not located in the town. It’s in the City of Rye. It’s governed by representatives from the town, city and three villages.

3. Rye Town’s main responsibility is to assess and collect taxes within its territory. It also runs a court  and oversees the care of two parks and three cemeteries.

4. The town supervisor, a global hedge fund manager, is serving for free, until he brings property taxes to zero as promised. Rye Town relies on property tax for just 10 percent of its budget, and  Supervisor Joseph Carvin’s administration is trying to bring tax bills to zero by relying on other revenue. In Port Chester, your village tax bill on a $500,000 house is about $3,560 and your town taxes are about $30.

5. Rye Neck, the smallest chunk at 1.4 square miles, seems to be the clincher whenever questions come about about eliminating the town.

Says CGR’s baseline study:

As recently as 2007, the Village of Mamaroneck commissioned a Pace University study which considered potential options to address Rye Neck’s uncommon situation. The aim of the project was to look at annexation and consolidation alternatives. Results pointed to a potential 44.7 percent increase (from $85 to $123) in town taxes for Rye Neck residents if their locality were to be taken over entirely by the Town of Mamaroneck.

Intrigued? CGR’s “Baseline Report” is available here in PDF form. The document lists in detail all your local services, who performs them and at what cost.

Rye city officials will gather New Year’s Day to swear in three council members and mark 70 years since Rye became a city.

The swearing-in ceremony begins at 4 p.m. in City Hall, followed by a reception across the green at the Square House Museum (left), an 18th century inn and onetime municipal hall. (Read more about the building at the Rye Historical Society’s website.)

Laura Brett will join the council in 2012, and incumbents Joe Sack and Catherine Parker will begin new terms.

Residents won’t be voting on a school budget until May, but Port Chester is already in campaign mode — starting a conversation about the tax cap, the flattening out of state aid, and the consequences of both. The district held a community forum Monday night to rally voters and inform them about the budget prospects. You can watch the video here.

A preliminary “rollover” budget would call for a $4.4 million (5.58 percent) spending increase next year. That would mean an $4.6 million (8.3 percent) increase in the tax levy, or total amount raised by property tax, to make up for other losses in revenue. And that kind of budget would require an override by 60 percent of voters under the new tax cap. The cap on the tax levy increase is effectively 2.2 percent, or $1.2 million, according to Assistant Superintendent Maura McAward.

There is no proposed budget yet, so that’s a hypothetical situation for now. Superintendent Edward Kliszus went through the options of non-mandated items that could be eliminated next year to stay within the cap, while proclaiming that in his view, “Nothing here should be cut.” The items include a reduction to half-day kindergarten, an increase in class sizes, and cuts to athletics, AP and foreign-language courses, instrumental music and the new International Baccalaureate program.

Another scenario that prompted parents to speak out was the option to designate full-time teacher assistants, aides and nurses as part-timers, with no benefits. That’s on the table along with an out-of-district alternative high school program.

Budgets adopted by the Port Chester school board have won the endorsement of voters over the last few years, but not by 60 percent. The support was 52 percent the last two years, 59 percent the year before and 56 perent in 2008- 09.

As in other districts, officials advertised the contact information for the governor and state legislators, saying that now is the time to lobby for state aid increases, particularly to poor school districts.

Information about the Port Chester budget is being updated on this district web page. Last night’s presentation is at the top. We’ll have more at LoHud.com.

 

Rye residents rejected a $20 million school bond today by a vote of 1,777 to 1,471, ending a plan to build a new wing of science labs onto the high school and renovate locker rooms, guidance offices and other areas. The plan was designed as an answer to growing enrollment, adding a total of 16 classrooms.

School board President Laura Slack read this statement after the results came in:

Although the Board of Education is disappointed by the results of our bond vote, our space challenges have not changed. The fact remains the middle school and high school buildings are already over capacity, and the enrollment projections indicate this will continue to be the case in future years. And our science labs from the 1960s and ‘70s are another critical area of concern. It is troubling that in a community like ours, a well funded campaign of consistent disinformation, distortions and fabrications was used to undermine our schools….

Slack made reference to last-minute ads and robo-calls overstating the property-tax impact of the bond. According to the district’s estimates, the project would have added $47 onto the average homeowner’s bill for 2012-13 and $300 thereafter over the life of the 20-year bond. She concluded:

Unfortunately those unable to vote, our children, were the true losers today. The vote today will not end this board’s commitment to finding a solution to the enrollment issue. This board will continue our dedication to the education of children in the district.

The referendum appeared to have a very strong turnout. “I haven’t seen a presidential election this crowded,” resident Chip Barnes said after casting a “no” vote at the single polling place in the middle school.

“We just don’t need any more taxes,” he said.

Laura Breckenridge voted “yes.”

“I think we need to think forward about the future of our community,” she said afterward. Both Barnes and Breckenridge have children in the district and specifically at the high school. Breckenridge said the schools were her reason for moving to Rye. “I think it would deter people from this community if it didn’t enhance and show a concern for our school system,” she said.

If you pay taxes in Rye, you might want to know about two different events Wednesday night: A “bond fair” to educate residents about a proposed $20 million expansion/renovation at the high school, and a hearing on the City of Rye’s 2012 budget.

The bond project, up for a referendum Dec. 13, would add 12 science labs and reconfigure existing classrooms for a total of 16 additional rooms, in response to a growing enrollment. The project would cost the average homeowner about $47 during the 2012-13 school year and about $300 annually thereafter. Information about the plan and the 8 p.m. bond fair at the middle school is on the Rye school district website.

The budget hearing is part of the Rye council meeting beginning at 8 p.m. at City Hall. The proposed $44.6 million combined operating budget calls for a tax rate increase of 4.34 percent. It would require an override of the state-imposed tax cap. The plan is available here and the meeting streams live on the city website.

 

Democratic incumbent Catherine Parker has claimed the third open seat on the Rye city council after being in a virtual tie with Rafael Elias-Linero since the Nov. 8 election. She and two candidates from the rival “Best for Rye” ticket, incumbent Joe Sack and newcomer Laura Brett, are the three winners.

Elias-Linero had this statement:

*

Although the margin between us remains a slim 4 votes, in fairness to both the City of Rye and Ms. Parker, I must consider the results of the re canvass on Monday to be decisive. So I congratulate Catherine Parker on her victory and wish her success during the course of her new term on the Rye City Council.