By Mary Marvin, Mayor of Bronxville

Nov. 13, 2024: The fall has become truly the busiest time of year in all aspects of the Village; Village government, schools, our business district and all of our service organizations. Keeping that in mind, the following are snapshots of different ongoing projects to keep you up-to-date as the holiday season fast approaches.

Green Initiatives

This coming Saturday our Green Committee will hold its annual Take Back Day from 10am to 1pm behind Village Hall on Palumbo Place. The county shredder will be there as well in the Elementary School parking lot for shredding needs and Palumbo Place behind Village Hall for all electronics as well as gently used children and adult clothing, shoes, purses and backpacks, curtains, table and bed linens, decorative pillows, towels, blankets (no sheets) and animal carriers and beds as well as books and Halloween pumpkins.

The Giving Garden

Over 300 pounds of fresh vegetables were delivered to our neighbors in Mount Vernon and Tuckahoe as a result of this year‘s growing season. The amount is a bit down because of an invasion of critters and an extremely wet spring. Our wonderful volunteer gardener Dave Phillips sends along a tip that Cayenne pepper paste ended up staving off the proliferation of garden pests. In addition to growing, our garden team has done tours in cooperation with the Reformed Church Nursery School, teaching the children the whole process, including who receives the benefit of the garden efforts.

Book Recycling

Our new green initiative to donate books for recycling has truly taken off. The collection bins are located at the food scrap recycling site behind Village Hall on Palumbo Place. Any books you donate will be further donated to literacy programs or sold online by a third party. All books that are not donated or resold will be properly recycled. All types of books are accepted including hard covers, paperbacks, textbooks and workbooks.

Village Hall and Library Converting HVAC Systems to Natural Gas

On the same green topic, Village Hall and the library are converting their HVAC systems to run on natural gas instead of fuel oil, making the system not only more efficient but more environmentally friendly. The Trustees are also taking steps and researching the possibility of installing a solar array on the roof of our DPW garage behind Village Hall.

Leaf Pickup

Fall is synonymous with our leaf season and again we ask that when you do your own gardening or have a company assist you, please keep the leaves on your side of the curb. It is so important because we have seen so many people swerving around large leaf piles and endangering oncoming traffic and pedestrians and the minute we have even a bit of rain, the leaf piles will end up in our storm drains requiring costly unclogging.

Many of our neighboring communities have gone to a bagging requirement due to the cost and problems associated with street leaf pick up.  We know it is a Village amenity we all enjoy    but we will be unable to continue the service going forward if the leaves continue to be put in the street right of way as the danger and the cost due to their proliferation will make it untenable. We so need your help in directing gardening companies to keep the leaves inside the curb line.

Thanksgiving Food Initiatives

The Junior League is sponsoring its fifth annual “Thanksgiving Sides” drive from November 6^th to November 13^th with donations accepted at Village Hall for distribution in Mount Vernon. Items requested include instant potatoes, canned sweet potatoes, stuffing and cornbread mix and gravy.

Feeding Westchester

This umbrella organization for all of Westchester County is seeking monetary donations to help feed our neighbors as 1 in 10 of our children and 1 in 11 of Westchester adults go hungry daily. Each year Feeding Westchester delivers 16, 471,713 pounds of food to our neighbors facing hunger with 80,000 meals a month going to our children. Donations go a long way as just one dollar can translate into 10 meals due to their network of food bank and recovery partners. The need is constant throughout the year, but acute as the holidays approach. To donate you can click here.

Bronxville Picture House

Keeping in the spirit of giving, our iconic movie theater will be sending out its fall solicitation letter asking the community to keep the nonprofit Picture House ongoing and healthy. With us since 1926, it is now so much more than a movie theater but a center for arts and education and community gathering. As you can imagine, it is a tough go in these times to keep a nonprofit theater operating and we ask that you think generously so that we will all be here to celebrate its 100 birthday.

Walkability

We had long planned to upgrade the curbing, sidewalks and medians at the Pondfield Road intersection adjacent to the train station as part of our program of improving walkability by increasing pedestrian access and safety. Plans were delayed due to the need of Con Edison to replace the gas line in the same vicinity, but we anticipate the curbing arriving this week and the contractor starting other necessary improvements later in the month, hence why you still see the orange barriers at the intersection of Pondfield Road and Kraft Avenue.

Small Business Saturday

Small business Saturday is on Saturday, November 30^th this year and Jon Gordon, the principal at Admiral Real Estate is again paying for free parking on the east side of the Village with the Village offering free parking from noon on in our adjacent lots. As a sidebar, many of you have asked why we don’t offer all day free parking. Tried in the past, we found many folks used it, due to its proximity to the train station, to go into the city for an all day excursion thus occupying a space for 8+ hours negating the space for a local shopper.

Given my passion for the Think Local Shop Local initiative, County Executive George Latimer asked me to speak on the subject at one of his recent press conferences and the following is an extrapolation of some of the comments I made that pertain specifically to our Village.

Shopping local is the biggest bargain you will get in Westchester County as home values and Village taxes are inexorably linked to the success of our downtown business district.

As a stark example, if every resident in Bronxville last year bought almost everything on Amazon or at a big box store, the Trustees and I would’ve had to raise the Village portion of the tax bill by a whopping 12.5% and perhaps cut services. Unlike the Amazons of the world, your local merchants are invested in Bronxville just as much as our residents and they are the ones who donate to every church and school fundraiser with statistics proving they donate 300 times more per capita of sales than any of the big box or purchase by mail stores.

They also decorate our downtown, keep it beautiful and their convenience offers a measure of independence to our children who we can allow to walk to town and interact with friendly and caring shopkeepers.

Studies have also proven the major health and ecological benefit of walking to stores and interacting with your neighbors. So if you want to live longer, stay healthier, protect your environment, maximize the value of your home and enjoy services and amenities not given by big box establishments, shop local. It’s a win on every level.