By Mary C. Marvin, Mayor of Bronxville

Jul. 13, 2016:  No one can deny that summer is finally here, and with it come certain changes and activities in the village. 

Many of you take the opportunity to travel, so homes are left vacant for longer stretches of times.

The following are strategies from Police Chief Satriale to make your home appear occupied:

• Leave lights on when you go out. If you are away for a length of time, connect some lamps to automatic timers to go on during the day as well as at night. 

• Keep the garage door closed and locked and store lawn mowers, snow blowers, barbeques, and bicycles out of plain sight. 

• Arrange for your mail and newspapers to be stopped and the lawn mowed. Have a neighbor pick up the PennySaver papers left on the driveway, which are a giveaway to your absence. 

• Change locks immediately if keys are lost or stolen and always change locks when moving into a new home. 

• To make the exterior of your home secure, always activate your alarm system and provide adequate exterior lighting. A motion-sensitive light is recommended for backyards. 

• Trim trees and shrubs to avoid creating a hiding place or screen for intruders and make sure door hinges are on the inside. 

• If you do return home and find an unexplained open or broken window or door, do not enter your home. The perpetrator could still be inside. Go to a neighbor's home to use a phone or use a cell phone away from the house. Do not touch anything or attempt to clean up until the police have inspected for evidence. 

• Never leave keys under doormats, flower pots, mailboxes, or other secret hiding places. Burglars know where to look for hidden keys. 

• And finally, be a good neighbor. If you notice anything suspicious in your neighborhood, call the police immediately. While you are waiting for their arrival, write down any license plate numbers or descriptions of suspicious persons. 

We ask that you take advantage of our "vacant house list" service. Prior to your vacation departure, contact our police department with your plans and when manpower permits, our officers will make physical checks of your home.

As an added safety measure, go to www.bronxvillepd.com and follow the e-Alert link to add your family to our alert system. You will then be able to receive updates from our chief of police about any criminal activity and close-to-real-time updates on critical incidents affecting the village, including police activities and weather alerts.

Also, lock all cars even when running in and out all day. We actually don't generally have car "break-ins" in the village; people searching to steal simply open unlocked doors and take contents. It is the ultimate crime of opportunity.

Summer is also a good time for home repair, as the streets, contractors, and the village building department staff are all less busy. It's a perfect time to undertake sidewalk repairs. If contemplating a generator installation, one needs not only a generator permit but plumbing and electrical ones as well due to the needed gas connections. The building department urges residents to contact the office with size and location expectations prior to making the actual generator purchase.

As a courtesy, if you plan any summer home improvements while you are away, please remember to alert your neighbors to your work schedule so they can adjust their outdoor plans if necessary. 

Now is also the time to put away gas-powered leaf blowers until the fall.

The village backs up this ban with enforcement, and anyone using this equipment will receive an expensive summons. Kindly alert your gardeners as to the ban, and if you see someone using the gas blowers, report it immediately to our police desk. Our police officers are also alert to this ban while on normal patrol.

Your yard waste and grass clippings will be picked up throughout the summer. We do encourage residents to "grass cycle" by leaving clippings on the lawn. Gardening experts recommend this practice, as the clippings provide nutrients to the soil in a natural way. If you do remove lawn or yard products, we ask that you bag all waste for curbside pickup. The use of brown kraft yard bags allows for more efficient pickup, eliminates the unsightly piles of debris, and protects our storm drains from foreign materials that can clog systems.

Also, due to rapid plant growth in the summer months, please be mindful that trees and bushes must be trimmed to allow safe passage along sidewalks as well as to maintain visibility at intersections.

Various streets throughout the village will also be repaved in the coming weeks. Affected residents will be notified in ample time to relocate cars or change outdoor plans.

The decision as to which streets are repaved is made by our public works department based on the age of the road surface, the amount of traffic, the state of disrepair, and the location in the village. We also try to coordinate our projects with Con Edison so recently paved streets do not end up subsequently being torn up for utility work. Even if your street does not make this year's list for complete resurfacing, all of the potholes will be repaired. Continue to call village hall if you believe your street should be on the list going forward as we catalogue all requests and inspect accordingly.

Before repaving, all of the streets will be "roughed," or milled, with layers of deteriorated asphalt removed. Without this, the roadbeds would grow too high, detrimentally changing water flow and drainage routes.

Our village is particularly beautiful and peaceful in the summer months, so it is an opportune time to enjoy our outdoor restaurants or catch a first-run movie or a summer sale at our village businesses – all while finding a parking space!