To the Editor:
My name is Rachelle Gebler and I support Marjorie Hsu for mayor of Sleepy Hollow, and Jairo Triguero, Cory Krall and Jared Rodriguez for trustees in the upcoming November 4 election.
I moved to Sleepy Hollow 21 years ago with my husband and two small boys. My own upbringing was in a military family, which meant moving every year or so. When my husband and I married, we fell into a similar nomadic lifestyle because of his career. When our boys were 4 and 5 years old, we decided we wanted to give them the stability and community we had struggled to find for ourselves. In Sleepy Hollow, we purchased our 6th home together and this is where we decided to finally put down roots. We couldn’t have found a better place to land!
To get to know our new hometown I jumped into volunteering. I helped out in the boys’ classrooms, joined the PTA board, started work with a local foundation, helped start and run a local food pantry, served as a Village Trustee for 6 years, and then joined our Village planning board. With each new volunteer opportunity, I met so many other people looking to make our community a better place for our families and our neighbors. We worked hard to support our children’s teachers, provide food to those in need, keep our village safe and vibrant, and do our best to make a difference on a very local level, abiding by the belief that a rising tide raises all boats.
During my time on the planning board, I had the opportunity to work with Marjorie, who was serving as board chair. Members of the planning board see a variety of applications that range from a homeowner making a minor renovation to the very complicated work happening at Edge-on-Hudson. The chair of the planning board is responsible for making the initial deep dive into each application: meeting with the village planning, engineering, architectural, and legal consultants to make sure the interests of the entire village are the highest priority. It’s a difficult job (especially considering we were all volunteers!), but Marjorie always approached each task with thoughtful consideration and created a collaborative environment that helped us make the best decision for each case we deliberated. Our time working together gave me the chance to appreciate her leadership skills and her commitment to the village.
Creating a strong community involves the hard work of building trust, creating connections, and bringing people together based on shared values. This is what all those wonderful volunteers I met over the years have been selflessly doing every day. Join me in electing Marjorie, Jairo, Cory and Jared to continue the work we started and keep our village moving confidently into the future.
Rachelle Gebler
Sleepy Hollow
