We believe residents should never feel in the dark about what their local government is doing. Our team will make communication clear, consistent, and accessible by modernizing how the Village shares information. That means regular updates on new initiatives, priorities and progress shared through timely, widespread email newsletters, a user-friendly website, and active social media accounts. We will also introduce real-time alerts for safety, weather, and traffic so residents have the information they need when it matters most. Our goal is simple: make it easier for every resident to understand, participate in, and trust their local government.

Sleepy Hollow residents deserve budgets that are smart, sustainable and fair - always, and particularly in an uncertain economy. We will protect reliable services while keeping taxes predictable and affordable for working families, small businesses and seniors. That means no reckless borrowing, no short-term fixes that create long-term problems, and no surprise tax hikes caused by poor planning. We’ll close funding gaps by casting a wider net to pursue public grants and private philanthropic sources to fund infrastructure, parks and sustainability projects without burdening taxpayers. We’ll smartly invest one-time payments from developers like at Edge-on-Hudson to reduce ongoing Village operating expenses and ease tax pressures. And throughout, we will communicate openly about financial challenges and opportunities, so residents better understand the “why” behind every decision.

We all want a thriving downtown for residents and visitors alike. It’s time we compete with the other Rivertowns. We will support small businesses looking to fill long-vacant storefronts and revitalize Beekman Avenue. We will work with government and business partners to improve historic building facades, walkability, parking, traffic flow and signage, and visitor services. We can turn seasonal challenges into economic opportunities while also making Sleepy Hollow work well for our residents. We’ll ask our Local Development Corporation to focus as much on our Downtown as they do on redevelopment of the East Parcel and the future DPW building. We’ll achieve these goals and more by launching a village task force dedicated to driving smart, inclusive economic growth and promoting Sleepy Hollow as a Rivertown destination. The Task Force will work with Spanish-speaking business owners to help them boost revenue during tourism season and collaborate within the broader business community. The Task Force will coordinate with the Chamber of Commerce, government, and various Village committees to plan for and implement time-tested solutions that support the local economy.

We will upgrade critical water, sewer, and stormwater infrastructure partnering with County and State agencies to address long-overdue improvements. We’ll secure funding for sustainability projects including green infrastructure and shoreline restoration while protecting and expanding public access to the Hudson River so our waterfront is clean, safe, and welcoming for all. We love our Village parks, from Statue Island to our growing waterfront spaces, so we will create a better maintenance plan to keep these investments thriving for years to come. We will prioritize projects that provide savings to residents including building needed energy efficiency and renewable energy projects, eliminating water and sewer system leaks, and better protecting our citizens’ property from extreme weather. We’ll continue and accelerate hard work on improving our sidewalks, streets and roadways to keep kids safe walking to school and prevent injuries from potholes or dangerous road configurations. We’ll work with experts to find the most advanced infrastructure technologies and approaches that deliver results at reduced cost, ensuring cost efficiency is the basis for the design of any new facilities.

We will launch a Halloween & Tourism Task Force that provides thoughtful, innovative ideas and coordinates with all event organizers and local institutions, and considers how to make our Village a year-round destination. We will also communicate a calendar of events with details to residents well before Halloween gets underway and improve signage and maps for visitors to navigate town safely. Finally, we will aggressively pursue grants, tourism taxes, sponsorships and other outside funding opportunities to provide our Village with new revenue.

Expensive infrastructure projects like a new DPW, a bridge to Edge-on-Hudson, or other major infrastructure work must be phased in a rational way to keep costs low. For example, a new DPW can be broken into several more affordable phases to be implemented over time, which is how major projects are always built. Avoiding borrowing capital funds upfront can save millions of dollars in debt service expenses. Electing village officials with significant project management and construction experience is critically important to keep project costs low. If your officials don’t know what questions to ask at Board meetings about design and construction, it’s more likely they’ll spend more on Village projects than necessary. Phasing projects and strategically borrowing capital funds are just two best practices that ensure the Village can get a bigger bang for its buck. 

We’ll explore every way possible for Sleepy Hollow to collaborate with neighbors, like Briarcliff Manor and Tarrytown, to reduce ongoing expenses and capital needs. We will advance early conversations about sharing DPW facilities with Tarrytown to potentially reduce both Village’s costs of replacing existing facilities - both facilities need replacement now. We will negotiate with Briarcliff Manor and other sister Villages to share drinking water pumphouse facilities in order to cut costs. We can share transportation costs of waste disposal by combining our trips to Peekskill with our neighbors. And we can work together to cut down on our waste by implementing joint composting programs with the other Rivertowns. Let’s work together to find ways to reduce ever increasing costs and serve our residents in the best way possible.

We’re proud of our new and future parks in Sleepy Hollow. We have unmatched public spaces and greenspace that must remain beautiful and thriving. First and foremost, we’ll hire more seasonal parks workers to support an army of volunteers (thank you all!) to stay on top of the weed epidemic, which is choking out native plants worth millions of dollars. We’ll finally launch the ‘Friends of Sleepy Hollow,’ a new non-profit dedicated to helping raise philanthropic support to keep our parks and public spaces beautiful affordably. We’ll continue to advocate for improved access to Rockefeller State Park and the Old Croton Aqueduct. We won’t undertake new projects that cannot be maintained in the long-term. Our waterfront and parks should be the envy of all the Rivertowns.

Everyone expects village government to use its power to solve this long-standing problem. This January, we will be hard at work with our partners in the New York State Legislature to ensure home rule legislation passes allowing residential parking permits Downtown and in other neighborhoods that want them. We’ll make sure recently acquired properties at 64-68 Beekman Avenue can provide interim and permanent public parking spaces as the site is redeveloped. We will advance concepts to provide interim public parking at 193 Beekman Avenue and at other Village owned parcels. We can solve parking shortages for residents who struggle to park at the end of a long work day. We commit to work with private parking lot owners to open up overnight spaces to visitors and residents, especially at those parking lots within proximity to Downtown. We’ll look for all opportunities to provide more overnight and visitor parking where possible without burdening taxpayers. We look forward to hearing the results of neighborhood parking surveys, and we will support the proposals that emerge from them.  

We’ll build off Sleepy Hollow’s Complete Streets progress and accelerate problematic intersection redesigns. We can deploy several solutions to eliminate speeding and poor driver behavior. Improved crosswalks, curb extensions with cobblestone, and iron safety bollards can be beautiful additions to Sleepy Hollow while protecting our residents - especially our kids and older residents - from bad driver behavior.

We’ve all been stuck at endless red lights in Sleepy Hollow. As the Village grows, we must change our current traffic control systems. We’ll press the New York State DOT to accelerate plans for a smoother ride along Route 9 using short-term highway work permits and interim solutions until funding for wholesale reconstruction can be secured. We’ll go as far as eliminating traffic signals and replacing them with stop signs on Village streets where we know they cause speeding, traffic and major backups. Some intersections might warrant a new signal. We’ll explore whatever it takes to get Sleepy Hollow moving.

We all want our Downtown business district to thrive. Vacant storefronts drag all local businesses down. For years, we’ve had a party in power that doesn’t believe they have a responsibility to improve the local economy and revitalize downtown. We need to turn this ship around through tried and true economic development measures. We’ll follow other Villages’ success and implement rules that prevent landlords from speculating on property markets and keeping ground floor retail spaces empty. Key buildings like The Strand and the Van Tassel can be major contributors to our local economy if they were full of small businesses. We will work with brokers and landlords to renovate and fill empty spaces as quickly as possible and cut red tape to make it easier to open a business downtown. We’ll use NYS grant funds to assist with storefront and facade improvements to help these new local businesses to succeed.

Keeping residents safe from extreme weather is a major priority for our team. We’ll embrace the work of volunteers at Sustainable Sleepy Hollow and begin implementing the recommendations found in the Village’s Climate Action Plan. And if the Plan has not been formally adopted before the end of 2025, we will immediately move to adopt it. The Plan contains extensive recommendations regarding energy, infrastructure and threat mitigation measures needed to ensure Sleepy Hollow can withstand the impacts of climate change. Our team has the professional expertise to understand and advance this crucial work, to seek critical grant funds and ensure infrastructure projects are implemented affordably. We are already working closely with agencies like DEC and NYSERDA to secure resources for these efforts. Investing in energy and storm defenses is not only wise but can also be a major boost to our economy making our village more competitive and resilient than those who fail to adapt.