We have an upcoming Mayoral election in Irvington and are fortunate to have two serious candidates. Both care deeply about our community. I believe contested elections are good; they inspire residents to get more engaged in discussions about what we want for Irvington. As signs go up on streets and “sides” form up, I’ve found myself reminding a few neighbors that even if we disagree in good faith, we will still remain friends.
My role as a co-founder of Taxpayers for Irvington’s Future (TIF) has been to research and spread the word on local issues in a way that allows citizens to get engaged. I believe voters deserve to make their decisions based on facts.
In that light, I am writing to address mistaken claims about who showed up to help defeat the 2023 Bond proposal versus who actually pushed that failed plan. As the co-founder of TIF, I was very involved in the fight to defeat the 2023 Bond.
(As a reminder, the Bond would have authorized borrowing $32.5 million including interest to fund a new village hall and expanded firehouse, among many other elements.)
The Bond was designed under then-sitting Mayor Brian Smith and former Village Administrator Larry Schopfer, along with former Trustee Larry Lonky and with key Village department heads. This plan was attempting to address a number of issues facing various Village departments. However, it was the largest capital project proposed in Irvington’s history, with ill-planned components such as a police firing range across from our Main Street School, a giant concrete building for village employees in the middle of our historic 1890s Main Street, and a massive jury trial facility for a village that almost never holds jury trials, among many other controversial elements. While some items in the overall proposal seemed worth addressing, such as the need for a new Fire Department and Police facility, it was being pushed through without sufficient community input or understanding, and disconnected from the larger Comprehensive Plan (which had been prepared by a resident-led committee in 2018) to rejuvenate our historic downtown.
Arlene Burgos was critical in helping TIF defeat the Bond. I was there and experienced her help.
At the time, Arlene was a brand new Trustee, one of the two most junior and then newly-elected on the Board. As the Mayor and Village Administrator forged ahead, starting to spend $1.4 million on buying property quietly and hiring a design firm, Arlene grew concerned. She pushed for the Board NOT to pass the $32.5M bond on its own, as proposed, but instead to require a Village ballot referendum. (That referendum was ultimately defeated 84% to 16%.) It is that vote – to require a referendum so that the voters would have a voice in whether to approve the Bond – that some are misleadingly describing as voting “for” the Bond.
In the months leading up to the ballot referendum on the Bond proposal, Arlene helped TIF understand some of its particularly outrageous components, such as the police firing range across from the MSS school and the seizing of a historic home by eminent domain. When TIF needed help, Arlene showed up. For instance, she demanded the end to the illegal (under NY state law) promotion of the Bond on government buildings. Only she spoke up as a Trustee to cite the specific state law being violated. As an Irvington resident and voter, Arlene has stated that she personally voted against the Bond in the referendum, which is consistent with what she told me at the time.
While I like Bob Grados and he may make a fine Mayor, Bob never publicly shared his position on the bond when it was being debated, whether on social media or in a letter to the editor. When TIF organized hundreds of residents to meet, table, poster, pass leaflets, and post online to defeat the Bond, I never once saw Bob at those many meetings or volunteer efforts.
Fast forward to today: Former Mayor Brian Smith and former Trustee Larry Lonky have endorsed Bob. And Bob has chosen to run under the “Irvington First” party, which is Brian Smith’s former party name, which he used for his first run as an Independent after leaving the Republican party.
Let’s call a spade a spade. The people behind the original Bond are behind Bob.
More importantly, Bob has not set out a public platform on the Firehouse, Department of Public Works (DPW), and Police needs. What is his position? Does he agree with the 2018 Comprehensive Plan (designed with community involvement and led by residents) that new facilities should ideally be moved to a better location to free up our beautiful waterfront and Main Street historic district for smartly-planned revitalization? Outside experts have noted that if built today, an emergency services headquarters would be placed on a major artery to respond faster to the village’s expanded residential map, e.g., a location off Broadway (Route 9). In an earlier letter to the River Journal, some of his supporters point out Bob’s experience as a private real estate attorney, which could be valuable. But what we face centers on a policy choice, not a legal matter, and residents deserve to know Bob’s platform.
This is something I hope he will address at the upcoming mayoral debate being held by the League of Women Voters on Zoom on October 14th at 7:00 p.m. Residents should register to watch at this Zoom link.
Let’s also consider what has happened since the Bond vote. Since 2023, Arlene has become more experienced as a Trustee and has further gained my trust.
Arlene was critical in making the Streamlining Committee a reality, a concept that came out of TIF’s post-Bond recommendations to make it easier for residents and local businesses to get a building permit. That Committee has been working now for over eight months and is very close to major recommendations that will make the lives of homeowners in Irvington better. Arlene was the one who pushed the Trustees to move the timing forward when it wasn’t being prioritized due to bandwidth constraints.
Irvington residents all know how byzantine, arbitrary, and maddening it can be to try to get a building permit in our village. The Building Department has been notoriously unfriendly (except to a few chums), and one faces a cumbersome “bounce around” among three different approval boards that each meet a month apart.
In the lead-up to the Streamlining Committee’s formation by the Trustees, Arlene and I spoke often, and she dug into how the Streamlining Committee process should be designed to avoid capture by the status quo. Without Arlene, it might have been administered under the current village employee who oversees the Building Permit process. Instead, Arlene pushed through a budget (which almost did not pass) that Committee members had requested to bring in outside experts from Pace Land Use Law Center and to conduct a confidential citizen survey.
The same was true of the deer management decision. Over 90% of residents in public hearings supported protecting our endangered Woods ecosystem, and all the scientists and the Woods and Green Policy Committees had studied the matter and supported deer population controls. But the process dragged on for months while certain people wanted to wait for a “100% consensus.” In life there is never a 100% consensus. Arlene was critical once more in pushing it to a Board vote, which was 4 to 1 in favor. Now the program has been successful and is starting its second year in the fall.
The same dynamic played out with the long aspiration of residents to allow dogs on leashes in Matthiessen Park, which had been underutilized and had been colonized by geese that dogs might have scared off. Again, there were many delays from the current administration and a proposal for a very limited-hours and limited-days “trial period.” Arlene called that all out as inadequate and spoke up and changed the trajectory to just allow leashed dogs, full stop. That passed, and it has all worked well and improved park liveliness.
Arlene has also spurred a major effort to secure state, county, and federal grants. Irvington has secured $7 million in grants from 2022-2025 while Arlene has been on the Board of Trustees, in contrast to just $1.2 million in grants secured 2018-21 before she joined. This saves every Irvington citizen money and avoids even more growth in our high taxes. Arlene has built close relationships with county, state, and congressional leaders, and those relationships will be critical to leverage on day one as the new Mayor faces millions of dollars in needed infrastructure investment, including on our flood culverts which are undersized for the new storm intensities we face.
In Arlene, we have a candidate who has served as our Deputy Mayor this last term (post-Bond), has built relationships from White Plains to Albany to Washington, DC that we need to continue to bring in more grants and save taxpayers money, and has proven she will do the work.
I am sure either of these candidates could do the job and am prepared to work with either. Bob has served the community admirably, particularly as School Board President almost a decade ago, as founder of IYL, and recently as co-chair of FACE. Yet Arlene is the candidate who is more experienced and familiar with all the post-Bond efforts that are about to bear fruit.
Since the bond defeat, so much has been happening below the surface and is now 100% ready to press “go.” Not just streamlining the building permitting process or protecting the Irvington Woods, but also planning for the future of our village facilities, many of which are at or nearing the end of their lifespans. The Facilities Planning Committee–which Arlene supported creating–has narrowed down a shortlist of potential sites for a new firehouse/police/EMS center and for a relocated DPW. They have selected an engineering and public participation firm to begin site evaluations. The firm will then organize extensive town halls and feedback sessions to build to a decision rooted in community input.
With Arlene, I trust that she is ready to move forward on all of these items on day one if elected, because I’ve seen her make things happen and she’s earned my trust. For this reason, as an individual concerned citizen, I continue to endorse Arlene for Mayor.
Jeffrey Glueck
Irvington, NY
