In determining the priorities for our town, it is important to recognize that although our town is not perfect, it is a great and uniquely special place to live with much to offer our residents. Accordingly, as we continue to progress, we must not destroy our town's special character, but rather we must build on all the great things our town has. Below is a partial list of – and my views on – what I believe are some of the most important priorities for our town. I look forward to discussing and making progress on these and other important issues you may wish to discuss.
Our town has healthy fund balances and a triple A credit rating. However, they must not be squandered, particularly because decreased demand for office space has been adversely impacting our tax base. We also must be careful not to mortgage our future by saddling ourselves with too much debt, especially because (at a time when interest rates have climbed significantly) the town is undertaking expensive capital projects, such as a new/expanded Town Hall, a new Highway Department garage and renovations to the town pool.
In short, priorities must be carefully considered and the town must improve its focus on how we spend your tax dollars instead of continuing to spend money like there is no tomorrow. The money and employee time recently spent on the park in Quarry Heights – which was done without prior Town Board involvement – while not a very large project, is one example of potentially unnecessary spending since many of the residents there did not even want the work done in the first place. Similarly, the proposed parking district on the west side of Main St., which would improve and reconfigure the parking lot to add 16 parking spaces at a projected cost of $2.5 million (with the town's share being about $1.25 million) also bears closer scrutiny, particularly in light of the apparent cherry picking in deciding who is being included and who is being excluded from the parking district.
Furthermore, when we do spend money, we must do so prudently and cost-effectively and be sure to get the job done right. To accomplish that, we must ensure that the contractors we hire will do a good job (which was not the case with the first contractor hired – and subsequently replaced – for the School St. water main extension). We also must ensure that when we hire contractors, we do so at a good, or at least reasonable, price, which I am not convinced was the case, for example, for the demolition of the building at Lombardi Park pursuant to a change order to the contract for the water main extension. We also have to ensure that we do the job completely and correctly, which was not the case for the roof of the Highway Department repair garage. After an inexplicable multi-year delay in fixing holes in the roof of the repair garage, a resulting problem with mold still has not been corrected even though I advocated for remediating the problem since December.
It is important that we not revert to the past practice of granting unjustified preferential condo tax treatment to new development projects. (When the Town Board grants condo tax treatment, a developer's new homes permanently pay property taxes that essentially are as much as 50% lower than the rates the rest of us pay. That amounts to a subsidy to developers that the rest of us pay for because the lower taxes translate into a higher selling price for the developer's homes and a smaller tax base that results in higher taxes for the rest of us.) See also my discussion of this issue in Accomplishments.
Similarly, to help maximize our tax base (and thereby help avoid tax increases), a Town Board majority should request that our elected state representatives pursue legislation in the NYS legislature that would allow North Castle to have a blanket prohibition against preferential condo treatment for future development. Greenburgh was successful in doing this several years ago, and after meeting with Greenburgh's Assessor, I started pursuing this process. However, the process has stalled because apparently it does not have needed support from our current Supervisor.
The need to be cautious about excess development has taken on heightened importance due to the 370 housing units that have been approved and remain to be built in downtown Armonk or within a five-minute drive. In addition, Greenwich has approved 198 three-bedroom units within the same five-minute drive from downtown Armonk, and those residents are certain to add more congestion to the downtown area.
Furthermore, development on significant parcels is virtually certain to be proposed in the near future. For example, the Swiss Re office campus on King St. has been put up for sale or sold. And more concretely, the March 11, 2026 Town Board agenda included a proposal for a 5,000-seat soccer stadium on the site of the recently-sold Jenny Clarkson campus at the corner of Route 22 and Old Orchard St. This proposal for extensive development, which was withdrawn at the last minute without explanation, would have had numerous adverse impacts on both North White Plains and Armonk. Furthermore, although it was presented as a project that would have desirably generated significant property taxes, I have doubts as to whether that ultimately would have been the case.
The Town Hall and Highway Yard Project. The biggest expense this town is facing – literally tens of millions of dollars – is our Town Hall and Highway Yard project. Give credit where credit is due to the current Supervisor for having brought shortcomings of these facilities to the attention of the public. However, he sowed so much mistrust and bad feelings in the process that there was little tangible progress in more than a year. As a result, a group of residents that are independent and objective volunteered their time to help the town figure out how to best proceed. The Town Board formally recognized this group – the aptly-named Town Hall Advisory Committee – a few months ago, and they have been hard at work. They will be presenting their findings and preliminary recommendations to the town's residents soon. Importantly, they are focusing their efforts on the current ≈ 10-acre Town Hall parcel so that residents can be assured that this parcel will not be developed, which is something I have advocated for since early on.
The town's technology leaves much to be desired. A first step for improving our technology is a top to bottom review of our hardware and software needs and related procurement practices, as well as our IT vendor, to ensure that we have up-to-date cybersecurity and that we are spending our technology dollars wisely. We also must modernize our systems so that our residents can interface efficiently – and without unnecessary frustration – with all aspects of our government, including, for example, the Building Department and the Recreation Department. Moreover, we must ensure that all our employees have the necessary tools and training to do their jobs as efficiently as possible to reduce demoralizing drudgery and to increase productivity and control costs.
Unsurprisingly, many of our residents have sophisticated IT capabilities, and many have expressed their willingness to me to volunteer their time to help the town advance technologically. In fact, several years ago, a Technology Task Force (a group of talented IT volunteers that was capably spearheaded by Saleem Hussain) spent a lot of time analyzing our systems and ways to improve them, but little was done about implementing their recommendations. Accordingly, a good starting point for modernizing our technology would be to dust off that task force's analysis and recommendations.
It is alarming how many seniors have left North Castle. Our seniors are an important part of the fabric of our community, and many contribute significantly to our sense of community by volunteering their time, which are just some of the many reasons we want them to remain residents. Although we can help achieve that by helping seniors remain engaged and stimulated with more varied program offerings, we need more solutions. I believe the first step in determining the necessary solutions is to set up a better mechanism for actively seeking their input as to what additional resources we can provide them with.
Although we have done much to improve the quality of our town-owned roads in recent years, too many of our New York State roads (Routes 22, 120 and 128) – which only New York State has the authority to repair and repave – remain in deplorable condition. Although that work has finally been scheduled to be done in 2027, the town must be vigilant to ensure that the work is done properly. A distressing example of the work not having been done properly in the past is the heavily-potholed portion of Route 22 near the entrance ramp for the Bronx River Parkway. A more recent example is the recently repaved portion of Main St. (Rt. 22) (between the Citibank building in downtown Armonk and School St.), which has undulations throughout.
A strong Ethics Code and a strong, independent Board of Ethics not only help to prevent conflicts of interest, they also help residents to be confident that decisions by their Town Board, town employees and volunteer boards and committees are not improperly influenced and that decision makers are not personally profiting from their positions. To achieve these goals, it is important for the Ethics Code to be periodically updated to address new concerns that come to light. In my opinion, the Town Board fell short in doing this last year, because the current supervisor misused his authority to set the agenda and preside over Town Board meetings to prevent important changes to the Ethics Code that were favored by a Town Board majority from being put to a vote.