Village Projects Update From Mayor: Bronxville

Written by Mayor Mary Marvin:

BRONXVILLE, NY — As the year hurries to a close, I thought it an appropriate time to give you a Village final/project update. Our fiscal year runs June 1 to May 31, but we are halfway there, so projections can be made.

I am pleased to report that revenues are on track to meet or exceed as budgeted.

Despite the county waiver on gasoline tax and home heating oil, sales tax revenue remains strong, which is a major budget driver.

As example, our first quarterly payment was $90,000 more than the $346,388 we received last year.

Again, this is directly related to shopping very local, but also shopping within county as opposed to online.

Everyone seems to be working on home improvement projects, another positive sign that COVID is coming to a blessed end. As a result, our building permit revenues to date already exceed the amount budgeted for the entire fiscal year.

Other important revenues that have returned to pre-COVID levels include on-street parking meter revenue, which is year to date slightly ahead of budget at $485,000 with the numbers exactly equal to the same period in 2019, so this bodes very well. We may be back!

Court fines, including parking tickets, are also in line with the budget and within 2 percent of the same period in 2019.

Unfortunately, parking lot meter revenues continue to underperform and lag pre-pandemic levels by approximately 10 percent. The reduced levels are largely attributable to the Village’s largest resident lot — the Kraft Lot — where resident commuter traffic is significantly down. Resident buyout sales are also down although our new flex permit, allowing options other than a straight five-day plan only, and non-resident sales have helped offset some of the additional losses.

On the expense side, we are largely on track with the exception of storm sewer maintenance, which is over budget by $75,000. Going forward, we realize we will need to budget substantially more to account for more frequent high intensity storms and the need to use private contractors who have the appropriate trucks to vacuum out the catch basins and water lines.

We have made significant improvements this past year to address flood prone areas, but clearly much more work remains to be done.

In other news, affecting the Village’s bottom line, we have been in a truly unprecedented situation of being down three people in both the Police Department, and the Department of Public Works due to unforeseen injuries. When your departments are just slightly over 20, the loss of three is significant. This has affected some special details we had wanted to do in terms of police monitoring, as well as affecting the speed with which we were able to pick up the fall leaves.

At the December Board of Trustees meeting, the Trustees approved the appointments of two police officers, and we continue canvassing for the additional open slot. The officers are expected to start in January. As for the Department of Public Works, we are awaiting medical reports on our staff. The Trustees are also considering a resolution to lower the speed limit to 25 mph throughout the Village, except for Route 22, which is a New York State controlled road that would remain at 30 mph. Many of our neighbors, including Scarsdale and White Plains, are also considering the reduction as the accident data in both frequency, but most important severity, supports this change.

We continue our very aggressive program of sanitary sewer lining. That project continues as we concentrate on different neighborhoods throughout the Village with the whole goal of upgrading our 100+-year-old conveyance system to improve water flow.

Under the aegis of our walkability theme of this year, you will notice that we are in the process of upgrading the intersection of Midland and Pondfield Roads by narrowing the crosswalks, brightening the paint, and ultimately improving the signalization to make it more pedestrian friendly. We are still caught in some supply chain delays as we tried to finish this project so our students, in particular, can walk to school more comfortably in the spring. We continue to work on tweaking our W. Side Circle improvements for safe passage of both pedestrian and cars and we ask anyone to reach out to us with their suggestions or issues they have encountered with our temporary plan. What we have demarked near the circle was on the advice of a traffic engineer, and now we await resident input to refine walkways, distances, striping and signage. Please be a part of this, so we do the best job possible on the West Side.

In a wonderful partnership with our colleagues in Tuckahoe, we will be extending the Village’s sidewalk on the west side of Midland Avenue towards Tuckahoe 90 feet, essentially from Avon Road to the Tuckahoe line. Tuckahoe is working on their adjacent sidewalk and we decided to combine efforts to make easier walking passage from one Village to another.

On other important topics, which also affect walkability as they add to the streetscape and beauty of the Village, the Trustees continue to refine a proposed tree ordinance as we tried to balance the preservation efforts with private property owners concerns, as we to develop a statute that is cogent and easy to understand and enforce . We will most likely have a special work session on this issue as we drill down on specific terms and conditions.

We have also engaged the assistance of an outdoor dining consultant to help us with a forward thinking plan, balancing the beauty and cleanliness of the Village with the viability of our restaurant owners. The Trustees and I have not been pleased with the conditions of every outside establishment. However, knowing that we are not professionals in this area, we have sought the assistance of experts as many people’s livelihoods are at stake. In a preview of some of the ideas that will be discussed are stringent permit requirements with certain safety and aesthetic requirements that must be met before such a privilege is granted. The bottom line is, we want our business district to be vibrant and our merchants successful while not sacrificing any of the beauty of the streetscape.

Currently, all of our merchants pay full price for the parking spaces they occupy as revenue to the Village, but we know the space constraints affect our other merchants who have been incredibly patient and kind towards their fellow small business owners. All of this deserves a professional and measured evaluation.

The Trustees and I enter the New Year energized and ready to tackle all of the above to improve our treasured Village.