Photo by A. Warner

By Staff

March 20, 2024: On March 19th, Bronxville Village residents had the opportunity to go to the polls to reelect Village Justice Natasha Nordahl and Village Trustees Mary Taylor Behrens and Helen Knapp.  All of the candidates ran unopposed and were reelected.   

The "unofficial tally of results" reported on the Westchester County Board of Elections website as of 10am on 3/20 are shown below.  There are still absentee ballots to be counted.

Mary Taylor Behrens: 318 votes

Helen Knapp: 226 votes

Natasha Nordahl: 328 votes

Below is more information about the elected candidates.

Natasha Nordahl

Mary Taylor Behrens

Mary Taylor Behrens is a life-long resident of Bronxville. She was voted to the Trustee board in 2020. She has extensive corporate and non-for-profit experience that she brings to the Village community. She is known for her strong leadership and working collaboratively with her colleagues to get things done.

Ms. Taylor Behrens' accomplishments as a Trustee include:

-Village point person for the renovation of Maltby Park into a beautiful new 2.7-acre park on Paxton Avenue which includes a playground, picnic tables, benches, new plantings, and a fence to safely enclose the park

-Supporter of the crosswalk and sidewalks on Rt. 22 at Elm Rock connecting the east and west sides of Bronxville

-Improved communication with residents through the “One Square Mile” monthly newsletter which details the work being done at the Village

-Supporter of environmentally friendly initiatives, including the food scrap recycling program and restricted use of gas-powered leaf blowers

-Integral committee member and planner of the Village’s 125^th Anniversary celebration

-Working on flood mitigation efforts with the Mayor and other Trustees

-Strong supporter and partner of the Village Police Department

-Liaison with NYP Westchester (formerly NYP Lawrence) and Iona University

Ms. Taylor Behrens is active in the Bronxville community. She has served as the Chairwoman of the Bronxville School Foundation, as a Senior Warden at Christ Church of Bronxville, and as a member of the Board of NYP Lawrence Hospital.

She spent 20 years in the finance industry in New York City holding a variety of investment banking positions and was on the Executive Committee at Merrill Lynch & Co. She was the most senior woman running the $360 billion asset management division at Merrill when she retired. Mary then served on three public healthcare company boards, including the compensation, audit, nominating and governance committees.

Ms. Taylor Behrens received a B.A. in Government from Georgetown University where she was a Division 1 track athlete and co-captain of the team her senior year. She graduated from Bronxville High School where was the first recruited woman scholarship athlete. She has remained actively involved with Georgetown as the founding Co-Head of the Women’s Athletic Allegiance and Emeritus member of the Georgetown Board of Regents.

Helen Knapp

Helen Knapp was born in Bronxville and attended the Bronxville School K-12. After graduation, she went on to the University of Virginia and then to The John Hopkins University, where she obtained an MA in International Relations. 

Ms. Knapp spent almost 15 years with Citicorp first working in corporate finance and then in international private wealth management. She then worked for a NY-based global not-for-profit, developing partnerships between private philanthropists, governments and businesses to create long-term solutions to poverty, social inequality in developing countries. 

Ms. Knapp and her husband, Charles, moved to Bronxville in 2002 to raise their family. They have two daughters who attended the Bronxville School and are currently in college.

Ms. Knapp has been involved with the Bronxville School, serving on numerous committees and as President of the Bronxville School PTA. She has also been a member of the Bronxville Non-Partisan Committee. Knapp also served as a Governor of the Bronxville Field Club for six years. She was also an alternate on the Village Planning Board for two years. She currently serves as a guide at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Ms. Knapp had enjoyed "working with the amazing staff at Village Hall, the police force, our DPW and my fellow Trustees to address issues that are important to our residents and to get things done." 

She has also enjoyed working with Bronxville residents who she describes as "incredibly smart, passionate and generous with their time and resources, and their deep involvement on several successful recent and ongoing projects is one of the things that make Bronxville so special."

Ms. Knapp mentioned a few recent examples of successful recent projects including "the incredible transformation of Maltby Park, improvements to the Sagamore Playground and the current outdoor patio expansion project at the Public Library."

She has taken a particular interest in the Bronxville Green Committee which has worked on important initiatives such as "food scraping, the gas-powered leaf blower ban and finding ways to reduce waste and improve energy efficiency" to make our community greener.

She also works closely with the Bronxville Chamber of Commerce "to keep our business district vibrant and growing."  She is particularly impressed with "the new events, services and social media outreach they are promoting to draw shoppers and diners to our downtown."

Going forward, Ms. Knapp's top concerns are "our aging infrastructure, particularly flooding issues, as we have all seen the negative results of recent storm events on our neighborhoods."  The Board is also working on completing "a re-vamp of our outdoor dining program.