News

There will be no Supervisor’s Update today, because there is absolutely no Town news to report. 

Just kidding! April Fool’s! It’s been a very busy week, in spite of the fact that the Board did not meet Tuesday. (For those who don’t know, the Town Board holds Work Sessions on the first and third Tuesdays of the month, and Legislative Sessions on the second and fourth. No meetings are scheduled for fifth Tuesdays, if and when they occur.)

The highlight of the week was Wednesday night’s trail walk in Ryder Park, led by the Environmental Advisory Council (EAC)’s high school representatives, Ella Castrillon and Ben Mahood, with some assistance from Craig Stevens, the Town’s arborist and tree warden. I was in attendance along with Town Board Member Angelo Manicchio, Budget Director Victoria Cafarelli, Town EAC members Sr. Anastasia Lott, John Ladd, Mitzi Elkes, and Donna Sharrett, Village EAC member Kate Schlott, OHS Science Research teacher Angelo Piccirillo, Town Planner Valerie Monastra, Patrick Vipperman, chair of the Ossining Parks Habitat Stewards program and his wife, Celine, and Mitzi’s husband, Stephen. 

Ella and Ben are working on a proposal for a signage project in the trails at Ryder Park to educate members of the public on the trees and other flora and fauna that comprise the habitat in Ryder Park. Last night was a fact-finding mission to learn more about the trail and brainstorm where there should be “stops” along the trail for visitors to learn more with signage and QR codes. We look forward to hearing their proposal, and exploring how the Town can help bring this exciting project to fruition.  

While we were there, we also got to check out the site of a new trail connector that will be constructed this spring by volunteers from the New York-New Jersey Trail Conference, with the help from our Town Parks Department.  The areas of our parks dedicated to “passive recreation” require a bit more care and attention, and we are grateful for the advocacy of our EAC and volunteers for focusing on these areas and helping to get this important work accomplished. 

We are also celebrating some very good news this week. Earlier this month, we had our annual site inspection with our Workers Comp carrier, New York Comp Alliance, and we received some great news – the Town had no workers comp claims in 2021!  Huge thanks to our entire staff for taking the time to exercise caution and be safe in the workplace, and our Department Heads, especially Highway Superintendent Pete Connolly and Parks Foreman Mario Velardo, for enforcing the Town’s safety protocols on a daily basis. This is good news for the Town’s bottom line, but more importantly because it is so important to us that our staff shows up to work every day happy, healthy, and safe. Keep up the great work! We celebrated with a little pizza party today, joined by Town Board members Liz Feldman and Angelo Manicchio. 

April is Earth Month! This year, Sustainable Westchester is marking the occasion by promoting GridRewards and encouraging folks to sign up. We’ll be promoting the program on our social media feeds (@townofossining on Facebook and Instagram) and in the Green Living section of the Update!  

Lastly, we will be discussing our Comprehensive Plan again at next Tuesday’s Work Session. For those who are new to the Update, click here to read more about our Comprehensive Plan, called “Sustainable Ossining.”  Since our last Public Hearing, we received some input from the Westchester County Planning Board that we are incorporating into the updated draft.  We will have some special guests from County Planning joining us on Tuesday evening to discuss their comments, and the Town Board will discuss how we can incorporate their comments into the draft at this stage.  Although we had expected to have a draft for public review before this Work Session, the comments from County Planning are significant and touch on important issues relating to affordable housing that we need to consider before developing potential revisions to the plan.  You can read the comments from County Planning via the Google Drive folder with all the supporting documents associated with Tuesday’s Work Session.   

Our Comprehensive Plan will guide all land use planning and decision-making processes for the next decade.  We are extending the public hearing to the April 12 meeting, and at our April 12 meeting, the Town Board will decide whether or not to continue the public hearing.  We are definitely getting towards the end of this process, so if you want to have a say, now is the time!.  This meeting will be hybrid (Zoom and in person) with Zoom info posted to our website the Friday before.  The public hearings are always at the top of our agenda - right at 7:30pm - so if you would like to speak, please be sure to come on time.  If that timing is challenging for you, you can always provide written comment as part of the public record in between meetings (or in addition to meetings, if you have more to contribute) by emailing the Town Clerk at . We will share the updated draft ASAP, in advance of the April 12 meeting. 

The Comprehensive Plan is quite a document and a lot to take in. Our consultant, Chris Rice from WXY, recommends that if you have 5 minutes…read pages 34-35.  If you have 15 minutes…read pages 1-45.  Or, if you have an hour, read the whole draft!  If you would also prefer to watch and listen instead of read, you should check out our Town Hall meeting from February 15, 2022 on YouTube, Chris gives an excellent presentation on the Comprehensive Plan and we hear from some members of the public as well. 

Ramadan Mubarak! Today is the first day of the spring holiday for many and we wish everyone who celebrates blessings, joy and peace. We will see you soon - stay safe and be well!

--Dana

If your business, non-profit, or community group has an event that you would like to submit to be a part of the Supervisor's Update, please email a flier and brief description to . We are happy to pass along events that provide a benefit to the community and support our local economy. Thank you for helping us to highlight all the best Ossining has to offer!

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Happy Friday! Hope you got to enjoy the lovely weather today!

This afternoon, I participated in a press conference with Senator Elijah Reichlin-Melnick, Assemblywoman Sandy Galef, Briarcliff Mayor Steve Vescio, Briarcliff Manor Trustees Rhea Mallett and Ned Midgley, Ossining Village Trustees Omar Lopez and Dana White, Suzie Ross of Green Ossining, and representatives from County Legislator Catherine Borgia’s office, Riverkeeper, Scenic Hudson, Clearwater Sloop, Sierra Club, Federated Conservationists of Westchester and Save the Pocantico Lake. We gathered to call for increased funding in the state budget for climate resiliency.  Here in Ossining, we are acutely aware of the risks flooding and sea level rise pose for our community.  We were a Climate-adaptive Design host community in fall 2019 (you can learn more about that program online!) and we were recently awarded $125,000 in grant funding to further the student level designs developed in 2019 to more advanced engineering.  We all love our Hudson River waterfronts, but we need to do the work necessary to keep our shorelines sustained for generations to come.  

While Senator Reichlin-Melnick was in town, he left us with a really special gift - a giant check for $150,000 for improvements at Ryder and Cedar Lane Parks!  With this money, we are going to install a new playground at Ryder Park and restore the Ice House at Cedar Lane Park.  Thank you to Senator Reichlin-Melnick for supporting these much needed park improvement projects, we are very grateful for the funding.  We posed with our giant check in front of playground equipment at Louis Engel Park, similar to the equipment we are proposing to install at Ryder Park with this grant funding. 

Speaking of Louis Engel Park, the Town has been doing some DEC-grant funded tree maintenance work there. Trees were reviewed by the Town's Tree Warden and DEC Forester to determine their state of health before work started. Our Parks Department will be back to grind stumps in the coming weeks; they were left high so that they wouldn't be a safety hazard in the interim.  We are gearing up for community tree plantings very soon to keep our community forest healthy and thriving! Also happening at Engel: clean up of the waterfront, final fixes on the kayak racks, and the docks are now in.  More work still to be done but a lot was done this week. 

Lastly, we are approaching the end of our Comprehensive Plan drafting process. For those who are new to the Update, click here to read more about our Comprehensive Plan, called “Sustainable Ossining.” Our Comprehensive Plan will guide all land use planning and decision-making processes for the next decade; if you want to have a say, now is the time! We will be extending the public hearing to the April 12 meeting. This meeting will be hybrid - Zoom and in person with Zoom info posted to our website the Friday before.  The public hearings are always at the top of our agenda - right at 7:30pm - so if you would like to speak, please be sure to come on time.  If that timing is challenging for you, you can always provide written comment as part of the public record in between meetings (or in addition to meetings, if you have more to contribute) by emailing the Town Clerk at . We anticipate having a revised draft of the comp plan by the end of March, in advance of our April 12 meeting.  Stay tuned!

This coming Sunday, March 27, Star of Bethlehem Baptist Church is hosting a blood drive, from 9 AM - 3 PM. During the pandemic, the number of people who would normally donate blood drastically decreased. If you can, please help restore blood supplies to pre-pandemic levels! To sign up, call 1-800-933-2566 or visit www.nybc.org.donate. We post information about events like this in the Nonprofits & Charity section of the Update. 

Finally, last call for vendors who want to be part of the upcoming Earth Day celebration on Saturday, April 23. Though the big day seems far away, the deadline to submit a vendor application is TONIGHT, March 25. Learn more at www.greenossining.org/earth-day-festival! 

We will see you soon - stay safe and be well!

--Dana

If your business, non-profit, or community group has an event that you would like to submit to be a part of the Supervisor's Update, please email a flier and brief description to . We are happy to pass along events that provide a benefit to the community and support our local economy. Thank you for helping us to highlight all the best Ossining has to offer!

Subscribe to our email blast list and receive Town news and updates. 

Happy Friday! Hope you’ve been able to enjoy the lovely temperatures and longer days this week, especially today!

Before getting into the administrative update for this week, I need to acknowledge a disturbing incident that occurred late last week. A hate symbol was found on the Park School playground. The Community Equity Task Force has issued a statement in light of this and other recent incidents that make clear the need for, to quote directly, “proactive and sustained commitment to racial equity work, both in and out of schools.” You can read the full statement here. You are invited to learn more and get involved in the Task Force’s work. Go to the Email Alerts signup page of the Town of Ossining website, enter your name and email address, and then click “Manage Subscriptions” to add yourself to the Community Equity Task Force list.  

In other news, we are approaching the end of our Comprehensive Plan drafting process! For those who are new to the Update, click here to read more about our Comprehensive Plan, called “Sustainable Ossining.” Our Comprehensive Plan will guide all land use planning and decision-making processes for the next decade; if you want to have a say, now is the time! The public hearing on the draft plan and objectives will be reopened during the March 22 Town Board meeting, as mentioned in a previous Update. It will likely be extended to at least the April 12 meeting. Both of those meetings will be held hybrid - Zoom and in person with Zoom info posted to our website the Friday before.  The public hearings are always at the top of our agenda - right at 7:30pm - so if you would like to speak, please be sure to come on time.  If that timing is challenging for you, you can always provide written comment as part of the public record in between meetings (or in addition to meetings, if you have more to contribute) by emailing the Town Clerk at . We anticipate having a revised draft of the comp plan by the end of March, in advance of our April 12 meeting.

This is the product of over 2 years of work - we started in January 2020! - with virtual and in person engagement, with hundreds of participants in Zoom meetings, surveys, pop-up events, posters, etc.  The draft plan has been available for public review since February 1.  Huge thanks to our Steering Committee – comprised of residents, business owners, and other stakeholders – for their careful review, outreach to the community, and input throughout the process.

In other sustainability news, this week’s Board meeting also featured an update on the Westchester Power Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) Program from Sustainable Westchester. In addition to the environmental benefits of the 100% green option, this program has been particularly beneficial to Town residents in recent months as Con Ed electricity supply rates have skyrocketed, while those who are in the CCA have continued to enjoy fixed rates. 

We also began discussing possible balloon release legislation, to address the problem of balloons and other ceremonial objects being released in our parks and public spaces to commemorate, celebrate, or memorialize. As beautiful as these tributes are, the balloons or lanterns do eventually fall or end up in the water on land as litter,  and can harm living creatures and our ecosystem. Special thanks to Councilwoman Liz Feldman, who has become somewhat of a balloon expert in recent weeks! You can watch the meeting and these discussions here at our YouTube channel.

Congratulations are in order for a number of Ossinauts this week. Read all about it in the Congrats section of the Update! 

Lastly, calling all vendors who will want to be part of the upcoming Earth Day celebration on Saturday, April 23. Though the big day seems far away, the deadline to submit a vendor application is next Friday, March 25. Learn more at www.greenossining.org/earth-day-festival!

We will see you soon - stay safe and be well!

--Dana

If your business, non-profit, or community group has an event that you would like to submit to be a part of the Supervisor's Update, please email a flier and brief description to . We are happy to pass along events that provide a benefit to the community and support our local economy. Thank you for helping us to highlight all the best Ossining has to offer!

Subscribe to our email blast list and receive Town news and updates.

Happy Friday! Hope everyone had a great week. 

This week, we continued to cultivate opportunities for a greener future through grant funding. On Monday, Valerie Monastra, Victoria Cafarelli, and I participated in a meeting with the Village of Ossining regarding Project MOVER, a project that aims to bring e-bikes and supporting infrastructure to the Ossining community.  This project is a finalist for significant funding from NYSERDA to establish a pilot program in the Village of Ossining that will be expanded to the Town of Ossining and other rivertowns, if the project receives the funding from NYSERDA.  We look forward to staying engaged with this exciting opportunity that has the potential to benefit the greater Ossining community.  

NYSERDA has other grant opportunities open right now for municipalities that are on our radar.  Two of these opportunities relate to greater accessibility for building permitting and code enforcement, including assistance for establishing an online permitting system.  We have been exploring online permitting systems for some time now, so to hear that we may be able to receive $75,000 for a project we were already planning to implement is really exciting.  Our Building Inspector will also be learning more about these programs and we hope to throw our hat in the ring soon to bring in some additional grant dollars.

In other sustainability news, we also continued our public engagement on Sustainable Ossining, our Comprehensive Plan draft, by opening the public hearing at this Tuesday’s Board meeting. Thank you to everyone who has submitted feedback thus far in various formats. The public hearing will continue at our March 22 Town Board meeting; please join us if you are able to do so! We will share meeting details next week. 

The Village of Ossining held a public meeting on Tuesday to kick off public engagement for the Downtown Revitalization Initiative (DRI), a very exciting development! Click here to visit the Village’s DRI website to learn more and share your ideas for how this grant funding should be spent. There is an open call for projects; click here to learn more about what types of projects can be funded as part of the program and submit your ideas. We link to this and other valuable news from partnering governments in the Other Government Updates section of the Update. 

I know the last thing we all want to think about is winter weather, but unfortunately, it looks like the weather forecast is going to be a bit dicey tomorrow with heavy rain in the morning, transitioning to snow in the afternoon.  Some events have also been canceled for tomorrow due to the weather, including the Ossining Farmers Market.  Please exercise caution, stay home if you can, and fingers crossed this is the last major winter weather event for the season!  

Lastly, don’t forget to set your clocks forward an hour on Saturday before you go to bed; daylight saving time starts on Sunday morning at 2 AM. Spring ahead!

We will see you soon - stay safe and be well!

--Dana

If your business, non-profit, or community group has an event that you would like to submit to be a part of the Supervisor's Update, please email a flier and brief description to . We are happy to pass along events that provide a benefit to the community and support our local economy. Thank you for helping us to highlight all the best Ossining has to offer!