The Town of Mamaroneck will be celebrating its' 350th Birthday this year. We are planning a few commemorative events to mark the occasion. Suggestions are always welcome. It might be a good time to reflect on what we are doing right and what we should be doing differently as far as Town Government is concerned. Realize, of course, that we don't make these decisions strictly on our own. The State plays a major role in what we can and cannot do.

Beside regularly hearing, what we should do, I would like sometime to hear about what we do too much of, or what we can do without. We are always very reluctant to cut or change services.

A feeling has begun growing in my thoughts that perhaps, as an example, we don't need Street Crossing Guards at all the locations we currently have them, especially during Lunch Hours. Many schools don't permit their students to leave the premises for lunch. It costs the Town about $15,000 a year for each guard. I have heard that it would not provide the guards enough work time, for it to be worth their while to work just mornings and when school lets out at 3:00 pm. Can we find something productive for them to do between shifts or look for guards that might be happy to work the reduced hours at a lower per-diem.

Thoughts and comments welcome.

Ernie

Some good, encouraging comments. I need to figure out how best to get them implemented without "upsetting" a procedure that has been in place for several years whereby we don't introduce motions that we have not had a chance to discuss first in a work session. I will be out of Town for our next Town Board meeting currently scheduled for Jan. 26, 2011. (moved from Jan. 19th)

It would be nice if some constituents actually showed up at one or more of our meetings and requested, in person, some of the suggestions made in the recent "anonymous" blog comments. This way my fellow Board Members will realize it's not just me asking to change how we do things and solicit more community "input."

Starting a New Year. One of my "resolutions" is to try and keep my BLOG more up-to-date.

Thought for awhile, last year, that the Blog on The Larchmont Gazette site would be my focus but with them going "off-line" during the year and no one to "bug" me, it has sort of fallen into dis-repair. Thanks to Polly Kreisman the editrix at theloop, who I spoke with at the recent Mamaroneck Chamber of Commerce diner, Jan. 7th, she reminded me that it could be worthwhile to keep current so here goes.

My original purpose was to try and keep our constituents up-to-date on what we were discussing during our Town deliberations and Budget Hearings so we might be able to take advantage of their knowledge and expertise. It is frustrating for me to rarely see anyone at our "work sessions" or Commission Meetings. Then, when it finally comes down to where The Town Board is ready to vote on something, it comes as a surprise. As much as we try to "post" on our Town Website, www.townofmamaroneck.org or send out via e-mails, we get very little if any feedback from our citizens. It seems, with few exceptions, that only when we propose to increase a fee do people take notice. One noticeable recent exception was our proposed Tree law modification in which we are discussing the removal of "Lot Size" as the determining factor for the requirement of any kind of a review process before the "axes fly." We are trying to take into consideration various aspects of the discussion including tree size, location, number of trees involved as well as the "significance" or lack of same relating to a particular species. The next Public Hearing on the subject has been "re-scheduled" for Jan. 26th but that will probably be put off for another date.

We have also been struggling with our attempts to "protect" local homeowners from excessive commuter parking in front of their homes. As we had anticipated, it's like squeezing a long balloon. The air bubble just moves to where there is no "squeeze." We, with the able help of our Town Traffic Committee, are trying to come up with a way to discourage parking within a certain distance from the Larchmont Metro North Station without saturating our streets with many more "No Parking" signs.

"The Loop" and "The Larchmont-Mamaroneck Patch" have been valuable allies in helping our citizenry keep informed, in a timely manner, as to what's going on in The Town.

For those of our Larchmont neighbors that haven't shopped or eaten on Mamaroneck Avenue lately, you're missing a real treat. Something from everywhere is what awaits you.

We are starting the planning process now for our Town's 350th Birthday Celebration. Valerie has asked Christina Battalia, our Town Clerk and Councilwoman Nancy Seligson to start getting a group together to plan the "events" of this year long celebration. Valerie and I made some good initial contacts at The Mamaroneck Chamber diner last week. It should be a fun year and hopefully will involve lots of folks from The Village of Larchmont as well as The Village of Mamaroneck and the residents of The Un-Incorporated portion of The Town of Mamaroneck . We are open to all ideas, suggestions and volunteer participation.

Good thing for a "SNOW" day. Gives one time to "BLOG."