This week I want to take a few moments and reflect upon my first six months in office. Honestly, I had some trepidation on January 1st about taking office as Mayor during the height of a global pandemic. With six months behind us, what I now know to be true is that when looking at our municipality, we are on a good path and in good hands. We have a Village Board that works hard, collectively, and productively. We have a professional Village staff, a professional police department, and a rigorous and active volunteer fire department, along with 13 volunteer-driven advisory boards and councils, Ossining Volunteer Ambulance Corps, and support from county and state officials that care about our community. I am hopeful that we will soon look at the pandemic in the rear-view mirror while moving forward aggressively and productively on more than a dozen major initiatives which will improve the quality of life for our residents and businesses. I am, by nature, a person who thinks actions speak louder than words, so I am using this week's Mayor's Update for one purpose only: to share with you some key accomplishments, short-horizon projects, and multi-year endeavors that might be of interest to the community and by no means represents all that we are working on.

I have asked that the Board be presented a quarterly review the month following each quarter, and our Village Manager will present her quarterly review and update at the Work Session on July 28^th. 

I am grateful to all in our community who work hard, every day, to make people's lives better.

Comprehensive Plan: At the July 7th Legislative Meeting, the Board of Trustees unanimously adopted the Comprehensive Plan and corresponding zoning text amendments, completing a nearly two-year process of community engagement, research, and analysis. The result is a detailed 10 chapter document that will be used to guide our community planning, projects, and local initiatives for the coming decade. The "Plan" can be found here.

Parking Enforcement: Later this summer, the Village will launch a mobile parking "app" for metered parking spots. While quarters will still be accepted, this system will offer a contact-free way to pay for parking in our Village. We expect this initiative, long in the making, to save on costs and inform us more accurately and quantifiably about meter usage and parking patterns.

DPW Site Development (30 Water Street): If you have been following this project, we are now entering the next phase of this 109 unit, all-affordable, environmentally friendly, waterfront area, mixed-use development. Yes, it's a mouthful but well worth it! We are now creating what's known as a term sheet with the developer; our next steps will be to ensure appropriate state funding as we move forward with brownfield remediation and the site planning process.

Parking Study: Another initiative that has been long in discussion is finally getting some legs thanks to our Village staff in the Managers, Clerks, Finance, Planning, DPW, and Police Departments. The Downtown Mobility & Parking Study has been completed, and the Action Plan for Implementation will be discussed at the July 28th Work Session. This initiative is top of my mind as we transition out of this pandemic, with residents and businesses resuming some of their old habits and adding new ones.

Route 9 Road Diet: The TAC (Technical Advisory Committee) meets monthly, and the study is nearly complete. We look forward to hearing more about how the right-sizing of Route 9 between Cedar Lane and Cedar Place, and the traffic signal changes that come with it, will positively impact pedestrian and driver safety, traffic flow, parking, and economic development in our Village. We believe this will significantly improve a road system that cuts through our Village both physically and psychologically, separating downtown from uptown in the worst of ways.

Urban Forestry Grant: Thanks to a lot of hard work by our Parks Department, 80 native tree species were planted across Nelson Park and Nelson Sitting Park at the end of May. This planting was funded entirely by a DEC grant, locally matched by our staff's time and effort. We are working with the Ossining Village Environmental Advisory Council to produce educational signage for the project, which should be installed in fall 2021. People sometimes laugh at how often I mention trees in my commentary, but the reality is that they are the front line fighters in reducing carbon emissions, they provide areas for rest and comfort for young families and the elderly in our community, and they reduce sound pollution while creating homes and providing nourishment for our birds who pollinate our planet.

Police Reform: While the 75+ page report with 29 initiatives was signed and sent to the Governor on April 1st, our work is still before us. The Board of Trustees has been working with the Police Department and Corporation Counsel to incorporate recommendations into local policies and, eventually, into the Village Code as appropriate. The Board of Trustees received its first update from Chief Sylvester and Corporation Counsel Kahan a few weeks ago, and we are scheduled to receive another update later this summer. Additionally, Trustee Lopez and I have met with various members of the original working committee as well as some interested community members to establish an advisory committee that will work hand in glove to support the police department in implementing the rest of the plan.

Village Seal: Trustee Dana White will present an update at this week's Work Session (7/14).

COVID Memorial: The COVID-19 Remembrance Memorial at Nelson Sitting Park is nearly complete. We planted a scarlet oak on Earth Day, and the Recreation & Parks Department constructed a masonry wall to border the area where the "Empty Chair" feature will soon be installed. The purpose of this memorial is to give people space to honor those in our community and beyond who passed during this terrible time and to serve future generations as a historical touchpoint. It is no accident that we chose a sitting park across from one of our schools!

200 Main Street: For decades, this building has sat vacant. While it is a beautiful building, its location at the entrance of our downtown has made it a challenge to work around. Different administrations have had various points of view about what to do with this building, and we have now agreed that the best path forward is to apply for grants to help us remediate the building so that we can sell it and put it back on the tax roll. Testing and abatement design work will begin at 200 Main Street, or "Bank with a Clock," building this month—we are on track to complete the remediation by the end of 2021.

Marijuana Legislation: After meeting with stakeholders and residents and conducting a Town Hall engagement session in May, the Board of Trustees is considering how it will proceed with the recently enacted NYS Marijuana legislation. As a result of the passage of this legislation, it is now legal to consume marijuana in New York—the question for municipalities will be whether dispensaries or on-site consumption establishments (lounges) will be allowed to do business within our borders, and if so, what restrictions to time, place and manner we wish to put in place. The options facing the Board are to take no action (which will effectively mean "opting in" to dispensaries and lounges) or to pass a local law "opting-out of" either or both. I will be asking my colleagues how they are leaning and how we might pass local zoning laws if we "opt-in" to one or both options over the next few weeks.

Youth Bureau: We are excited to have unanimously approved the establishment of an Ossining Youth Bureau, the first one to open up in Westchester County in over two decades. We have conducted several interviews over the past few weeks for a Youth Bureau Director and will keep the public apprised of the exciting next steps.

I spent some time this week with our staff, consultant, and Deputy Mayor Quezada at the Community Center to begin a path forward to make some infrastructure improvements, security enhancements and rethink the traffic patterns and space usage throughout the building. Stay tuned for more details on this new initiative.