Happy Friday! Hope you’ve had a great week.
This week’s Town Board meeting took place on Monday to enable me to attend new legislator orientation in Albany. I recently received confirmation that my election to the New York State Assembly has been certified by the Board of Elections. As such, I formally submitted my letter of resignation, effective December 31, to the Town Clerk earlier today. I anticipate the Town Board will accept my resignation at our meeting next Tuesday, and formally appoint Deputy Supervisor Liz Feldman to the remaining year of my unexpired term. The Town Board will be posting for the vacancy on the Town Board in the coming weeks, and residents are encouraged to apply.
It has been an honor and a pleasure to serve the Town of Ossining as Supervisor. We have accomplished so much in the last seven years, and I am confident the Town will just keep getting better and better with the strong foundation we have. I look forward to serving you and the rest of this district in my new capacity, and I will continue to spend my remaining time as Town Supervisor ensuring a smooth transition to the next administration. We still have quite a bit of work to do before the end of the year!
On Tuesday, the Ossining Communities That Care (CTC) coalition, of which the Town is a stakeholder, met for its monthly meeting. We were joined by County Executive George Latimer, who is deliberating on the Board of Legislators’ recently passed legislation banning the sale of flavored cigarettes, including menthol cigarettes. He took lots of input from the coalition on its thoughts. Regardless of the decision the County makes in this regard, it is important for all of us who have young people in our lives to continue having conversations about the dangers of drugs, alcohol and tobacco. The holiday season is also a time when gatherings make alcohol in particular more readily available and prevalent, so this is as good a time as any to have one of those conversations! The CTC’s Grown Ups Show Up campaign provides guidance for this; click here to visit the Grown Ups Show Up website to learn more.
CTC’s Teen Tip Talks series continues next Tuesday, December 13 at 6:30 PM in the Ossining High School library with a presentation called “Ending the Silence,” geared toward helping people identify signs of an emergent mental health condition. Please attend if you can!
On Wednesday, the Town joined the Village and the Centralized Committee of Organized War Veterans for the annual community Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day celebration. Deputy Town Supervisor Liz Feldman and Town Board Member Angelo Manicchio joined Village Mayor Rika Levin to represent the municipal governments at the remembrance. Thanks once again go to Honorable Michael G. O’Connor and the Committee for their efforts to preserve traditions that strengthen our memory of these important events.
Later that day, our deputy supervisor joined the Mayor, Village Trustee Omar Lopez, State Senator Elijah Reichlin-Melnick, Ossining Recreation Superintendent Bill Garrison and members of our parks and recreation staff for a ribbon cutting celebrating the installation of a new, ADA-accessible inclusive playground at Veterans’ Memorial Park. We are grateful to Senator Reichlin-Melnick for securing $150,000 in funding for our recreation department to install the new playground.
In other news, the season of giving continues! Next Saturday, December 17 from 12 - 2 PM, State Senator Pete Harckham and I will be hosting a holiday food drive at the Ossining High School parking lot. If you can, please pull together some non-perishable food items to donate and stop by! Collected items will benefit the Ossining Food Pantry. The most needed items are listed on the flyer below. If you are able to volunteer at the event, please email to let us know.
There are also multiple ongoing drives for holiday gifts, winter clothing, and more. We are hosting a Toys for Tots box here at Town & Village Hall (16 Croton Avenue)!
If you’re in need of generosity as the temperatures continue to drop, help is available for your home heating costs. The New York Public Service Commission expects heating costs to rise by at least 20% this winter, which will undoubtedly be a huge burden for many households. If you are anticipating difficulty with paying your heating costs, check out the New York State Home Energy Assistance Program (HEAP). HEAP can help eligible households with assistance to pay their energy bills this winter. Learn more about this program and other ways to reduce your heating costs by visiting www.ny.gov/heat. If you are low-income and behind on your bills, you can learn more about the Electric and Gas Debt Relief program here. The deadline to enroll is December 31st, 2022.
That’s all for this week. For upcoming events and more, keep scrolling! We will see you soon - till then, be safe and healthy!
--Dana
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