By Mary Marvin, Mayor of Bronxville

Sept. 21, 2023: This week, I continue my discussion of summer changes/improvements undertaken by Village government while many of you were traveling.

Employees Retired

Besides many physical changes, for us quite regrettably on one front, we lost the services of two Village employees who gave collectively 73 years of service to our government, both deserving quiet retirement. However, we have already called them back for part-time duty and they have been so gracious to continue to step up when needed.

Linda Thomas:

So many of you may know her – for some, not in the most joyous ways – as Linda Thomas in the Parking Office. Linda had probably the hottest seat in Village Hall and handled everything with equanimity and fairness. A Mount Vernon native, born and bred, and currently living there with her son, she is now pursuing her passion of ferreting out flea market bargains when we are not bothering her to come help us out!

Joe Scaglione

Joe Scaglione, a 37-year veteran of the Village Parking Enforcement Office, thought he was going to retire to a life of peace – concerts and movies – but last week you saw him at the Meadow Avenue and Pondfield Road intersection expertly directing our students. The “always here to help” attitude of these two valued employees just exemplifies why the staff at Village Hall is so very special.

Employees Added

On the flipside, we have added three new employees to join the Bronxville family. You will see a new DPW gentleman with the highway department filling a much needed vacancy on the dream team. Walden Morey was a former employee of the New York State Department of Transportation and comes with very coveted multiple commercial drivers licenses.

With the desire to positively improve our workflow of inspections, plan review and enforcement in the Building Department, we have added the services of Kevin Doyle as an Assistant Building Inspector. Kevin, who had previously worked for us part-time, has now returned after serving as Assistant Building Inspector and also interim building inspector with the Town of Greenburgh.

Just down the hall, we have added a new police officer, Officer Anthony Franciotti. You might even recognize Officer Franciotti as he worked for out Department of Public Works for six years before entering the Police Academy and then joining the Mount Vernon Police Department for 18 months prior to his return to Bronxville. Anthony lives around the corner in Eastchester and enjoys photography and camping. As Officer Anthony said, he just always wanted to, “come home.”

Speed Limit

As you may remember, the Trustees voted back in late spring to decrease the village wide speed limit to 25 mph, save for school zones which remain 20 mph and Route 22, our only state road. We did a slow rollout to educate the public and give drivers ample warnings without a barrage of ticket enforcement. So far, everything has been received so positively and we thank you all for adjusting accordingly. Our school has been a tremendous help in getting the word out for us.

Flood Mitigation & Bridge Repair

We are very excited to announce that after much lobbying on our part, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation has chosen the Bronx River Corridor to be the focus of their next flood mitigation study. This will most certainly help all of our residents and businesses on Parkway Road and Paxton Avenue.

The Village based flood mitigation initiative has project designs underway for the Hamilton-Sussex Drainage Basin as well as the Crawford/Dusenberry piping system. We will continue to update you on the process but we truly jumped a big hurdle in getting the state to focus on our Corridor.

Just going up the river a bit, the much-anticipated repair of the bridge over the duck pond in the county park is eagerly anticipated. At my last inquiry, I learned there was a minor glitch with a subcontractor and as soon as that is resolved, it should be a speedy repair as I understand the bridge is to be a pre-fabricated structure.

Outdoor Dining, Street Plans & Street Signs

We also hired a consultant to help us fairly and equitably work out a post Covid balance between outdoor dining and our non-food merchants. I hesitate to say post Covid because as I write my grandsons have the new variant.

We engaged the services of Street Plans, who did the beautiful outdoor work at One Vanderbilt and are working with us as a foray into the suburbs. Our goal is to bring our business district into a 2023 world, acknowledging the changing patterns of purchasing both goods and services.

In a corresponding endeavor, we are looking at changing Park Place, our most congested street in the village, to one way with a change in parking alignment as corollary.

Everything will remain status quo until the end of the year as we endeavor to reach a decision to provide all our merchants certainty and parity. As you may know, our neighbors have run the gamut in reviewing outdoor dining from leaving all existing configurations in place in Larchmont to closing them in Rye. Given that these establishments are quite clearly people’s livelihoods and lifetime endeavors while acknowledging the fact that none of the Trustees have any expertise in this area, we sought the help of experts.

The West Side traffic circle plan for permanent pedestrian and vehicular improvement is set to go out to bid and construction in October.

Finally, on the aesthetic front, we have continued our collaboration with The Bronxville Historical Conservancy and will be installing more of the iconic Village wrought iron street signs with the goal of 100% restoration. In addition, all of the commemorative benches have been re-stained and sealed and the trees particularly, in the Kraft Lot and central business district, have been pruned.

And the work goes on…