Eastchester Town Board: Marcoccia Appointed to Board, Police Officer Promoted

The start of the Eastchester Town Board meeting was packed as family, friends and coworkers came out in support of two appointments the Board was set to approve at Tuesday night's session.

The first was the appointment of Luigi Marcoccia to Councilman on the Town Board.

The opening came after former Councilwoman Sheila Marcotte was elected to the Westchester County Board of Legislators in the June 22 special election.

In his comments, Supervisor Colavita said that when the Board was considering who they wanted to replace Marcotte with, their natural inclination was to consider someone from Tuckahoe.

"We felt Mr. Marcoccia would do the best job," he said.

Calling his government experience "invaluable," Colavita noted that Marcoccia had been a trustee in Tuckahoe for close to 8 years and previously served on the Zoning Board.

The appointment will be effective until December 31.  In November, an election will take place to fill Sheila Marcotte's unexpired term.

"I look forward to working with each and every one of the council men and women here tonight," Marcoccia said. He went on to thank various family members in the audience, including his wife, children, parents and cousins.

"I'm looking forward to rolling up my sleeves and starting to work," he continued.

Throughout the meeting, members of the Board and the public thanked Marcotte, who was also in the audience, for her service and welcomed Marcoccia to the Board.

The second appointment approval was for the promotion of Luke Yankowski to the position of sergeant in the Eastchester Police Department.

The appointment is set to go into effect July 23.

Yankowski has been with the EPD since 1999 and is replacing Sgt. Anthony Cesarini, who is retiring in July.

Addressing the Board, Police Chief Timothy Bonci said he would, "strongly recommend this promotion." He went described some of Yankowski's experience, which included working as a D.A.R.E. officer for the past four years.

The Police Department will also likely be hiring three or four new police officers within the next month or so, Supervisor Colavita said.

The appointment approval met with huge cheers and claps from the crowd.

"Thank you for this opportunity," said Yankowski, as he too addressed the Board, "I will not let any of you down."

Other agenda items included:

Eastchester Youth Summer Council presentation

Bunny Rappaport from the Eastchester Youth Council Summer Theatre gave a special presentation about this year's production of "The Music Man."

Three rows of cast members stood up to sing one of the songs from the show—the company's 26^th production—that will take place from August 6 – 8 in the ballroom at Lake Isle.

"All aspects of this challenging production are guided by our very talented staff," said Rappaport, who also introduced various production participants.

One of the cast members, Dana Celestino, a graduating senior from Eastchester High School, was awarded a $1,000 scholarship by the Eastchester Youth Council Board of Directors—an honor the Board has handed out to college-bound seniors since 2001.

Public hearing for retirement incentive program: 

Supervisor Colavita opened the public hearing for the retirement incentive law previously discussed at the June meeting.

The program applies to the town assessor in particular and is set to save the Town money in the long run. The current assessor will retire earlier than previously thought and there will be reductions in the salaries of hired replacements. Colavita estimates this should net the Town about $97,000 over a 5-year period.

After a couple of comments from audience members, the public hearing was closed and the law was approved.