Larchmont, Get to Know Your Candidates

Tomorrow is Election Day in the Village of Larchmont, with polls opening at 6 a.m. and closing at 9 p.m. Two current trustees, Josh Mandell and Marlene Kolbert, will be running for mayor and trustee, respectively, and newcomer Jaine Elkind Eney will be running for the trustee seat vacated by Josh Mandell.

The candidates, all Democrats, will be running uncontested. They have held numerous public forums to make up for the debate that would have taken place had there been other candidates in the race.

Below is background information on each of the candidates, along with what they think are the top three issues facing the community (they all agree on flooding and the state of the business district).

JOSH MANDELL (running for mayor)

A native of Gainsville, Fla., Josh Mandell was appointed Village trustee in June of last year after former trustee Jim Millstein stepped down. Prior to arriving in Larchmont, Mandell obtained a B.S. in finance from the University of Florida and has worked in finance since. He is now an independent financial advisor working from his Larchmont home and a volunteer and commissioner at the Larchmont Fire Department, which he joined in 2007. Mandell, his wife Ravit and their three children have lived in Westchester County since 1998.

Three issues:

1) The Business District

The Village has an upcoming plan to improve the sidewalks and add pedestrian lighting on Palmer Avenue, which will be funded by a grant of approximately $680,000, said Mandell. The "Palmer Avenue Streetscape" is set to begin this summer. "That will go a long way toward sprucing up the appearance of Palmer Avenue," he said. 

Mandell also sees the need to establish a direct point of contact between the chamber, potential new merchants and local government to help newcomers understand the necessary steps to opening a new business in Larchmont.

Regarding all the empty storefronts on Palmer Avenue, Mandell's plan is to examine the building codes to determine to what extent the Village can make empty storefronts look better. "If we can do so through code enforcement, that's our obligation," he said.

The chamber and local art galleries have been trying to get art into the empty storefronts to make them look more attractive, but they've faced numerous obstacles when dealing with absentee landlords. "The chamber is making every effort to find landlords who are amenable to such a thing," he said.

2) Flood Mitigation

Tackling the flood mitigation issue in the Village is a big, multi-million dollar project, Mandell said, and the Village will need funding assistance from a number of outside agencies.

"The process of acquiring necessary funds may take quite a while," he said. Once those funds arrive, the Village will need to begin engineering and contractual work, which would probably take more than a year.

So far, the Village has done some work to determine the cost of the project.

3) Affordable Housing

In 2007, the Village received $2.5 million from Westchester County in connection to work done by the administration at Flint Park, all this with the condition that the Village would build 35 units of affordable workforce housing. The Village has yet to fulfill its promise. 

Mandell sees this as a chance to give Village employees an incentive to come work and live in Larchmont, with the added benefit that employees would be able to report to emergency duty "very quickly."

The action plan is something Mandell will need to come up with if he becomes mayor.  "The affordable workforce housing is a commitment made by the current administration to Westchester County and something we'll have to live up to," he said.

MARLENE KOLBERT (running for a 5th term as trustee)

Kolbert's parents fled Nazi Germany when she was only 7 months old. Raised in Flushing Queens, Kolbert received a German degree from Oberlin College, and shortly after got married to her husband Gerald, who's now a retired ophthalmologist. The Kolberts arrived in Larchmont in 1966 and have two children- one writes for The New Yorker, and the other lives in Maine and practices green building through his contracting business.

Kolbert is a strong advocate for the environment and has served on several local groups, including the Larchmont 2020 Task Force, Larchmont-Mamaroneck Center for Continuing Education, Mamaroneck School District Board of Education (of which she was president for four years), Larchmont League of Women Voters and PT Council, among others. She first became a trustee in 2002 and is liaison to the Committee on the Environment, the Larchmont Public Library, the Parks and Trees Committee, the Committee on the Arts, among others.

Three issues:

1) Flooding

Larchmont is a century old, and its unique, quaint character is part of the result of how its been laid out, said Kolbert. But the Village's current infrastructure also means old water pipes and flooding issues that need to be addressed. 

The Pine Brook area, which has "always been impacted by flooding," is a big concern. Kolbert says work has been done over the last 25 years, and the Board is currently looking for more money to tackle the issues. "We've spent almost $100,000 in assessing the Pine Brook and trying to determine what the issues and the fixes are," she said.

Some of the solutions involve partnering with neighbors in New Rochelle and the Town of Mamaroneck, all of which are affected. Once the funds are obtained, "then we need to have a discussion with the people who live there because repairs would cause major disruptions," she said.

2) Services and taxes

A big challenge the Village faces, according to Kolbert, is maintaining the services that residents have come to expect without raising the costs. "In Larchmont, 23 percent of taxes go to the Village. The rest go to the school, the Town of Mamaroneck and the County," she said. "For us, the issue is how wisely we use the money." The Village pays for police, fire and sanitation services.

In the next few years, the Village will have to discuss how to reduce these costs, said Kolbert. But she's not sure Village residents want to see a change in the services they receive.

3) The Business District

Like Mandell, Kolbert says she'd like to see every store in Larchmont rented, and thinks focusing on building a relationship with owners and landlords is an important step. The Historical Society has offered to put up signs on the windows of the empty stores, said Kolbert, but owners were reluctant.

Reviewing the Zoning Code to lessen its impact on the empty stores would be something the Board would continue looking at (i.e. issues such as how big the "For Rent" signs can be, or how much of the window can be covered over).

JAINE ELKIND ENEY (running for trustee)

Elkind Eney, a Westchester native, was raised in White Plains and has lived in Larchmont for 18 years. She received a political science degree from Wellesley College and a law degree from Fordham Law School, graduating with honors from both. She is a real estate attorney with 20 years of professional experience at two firms, one in Manhattan and the other in White Plains.

Elkind Eney started her own real estate law firm in Larchmont approximately 8 year ago, and in September 2009 became co-chair of the Larchmont Democratic Party, which she is leaving to pursue the remaining seat on the Board of Trustees. She will also be leaving her post as chair of the Board of Assessment Review of the Town of Mamaroneck, which she's held since the mid-1990s.

Elkind Eney has two children, a 22-year-old son who's practicing architecture in Manhattan, and a 19-year-old daughter currently attending the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. They both went through the Mamaroneck public school system.

Three issues:

1) The Business District

A vital part of the community and one of the things that is attractive to people in Larchmont is that they can walk to the train station and the shopping district, said Elkind Eney. The Village can't fix the economy or get rid of the threat that box stores and Internet sales pose to local businesses, but it can work on the streetscape, create welcome packages for newcomers to ease the application process and enact storefront maintenance regulations.

There must be a partnership between local government and landlords to make storefronts as attractive as possible, so when people start opening stores again, they pick Larchmont, she said.

2) Flooding

Elkind Eney recalls that during the 2007 flood, at the bottom of her street, which is on a hill, residents were being taken out of their homes in boats. Flooding, which many experienced again this weekend, is one of the things that the Village needs to deal with, she said.The specifics is something she'll learn if and when she becomes trustee.

3) Efficiency

A general issue facing Larchmont, Elkind Eney said, is efficiency: to continue to deliver the services residents appreciate about the community, while keeping taxes down. Having chaired the Board of Assessment Review for years,  Elkind Eney thinks her awareness of the community's tax structure would help her tackle these issues.