Larchmont Trustee Will Serve Town of Mamaroneck Now

As former Larchmont Trustee Jaine Elkind Eney (D) prepares to take office on the Town of Mamaroneck (TOM) board in the next few days, her focus will shift from the issues of a the small village where she currently resides to a town where she is already a familiar presence, having served as chair of the Board of Assessment Review (BAR) for nearly two decades.

Although Elkind Eney had been approached several times about running for the town board during her years on the BAR, the timing was never right.  As a single mother of two children, “I felt like my plate was always full,” she said.

But, with both children currently attending college, Elkind Eney felt the time was right to “step up my involvement in the community.” Right after the November elections, she began to seriously consider the possibility of filling Town Supervisor Nancy Seligson’s empty seat in 2012. 

“I was really flattered and honored that she chose me,” said Elkind Eney about Seligson’s proposal that she fill the seat.

Elkind Eney formally tendered her resignation from the board at a trustees’ meeting on Jan. 9 and will be sworn in as councilwoman on the soon to be all-Democratic board in the TOM on Jan. 18. To fill her place, Mayor Josh Mandell appointed Peter Fanelli, a Larchmont resident who previously ran for the trustee seat on the Republican ticket in 2006.  The board adopted the decision unanimously and Fanelli was sworn in to fill the position on a short-term basis until elections in March, when he plans to formally run for trustee.

"Bubba Panelli is an excellent choice," she said, referring to Fanelli by his nickname.

With the five-member town board looking to fill the vacant seat as soon as possible to allow for majority votes on town issues, Elkind Eney was compelled to vacate her seat on the Larchmont board with a little over two months left on her term.

“They really needed a full board to hit the ground running,” she explained.

In the upcoming year, Elkind Eney hopes to tackle some of the issues that have been echoed by other board members in the wake of a down economy.

“Preserving the quality of life that residents enjoy while assuring it’s an affordable place to live for everyone,” she said.

To best achieve a solution to this problem, she advocates going through the budget line by line to see what services are important to residents versus what could be streamlined as well as taking the initiative to meet with residents who don’t necessarily show up for board meetings.

“The board should meet with as many residents as possible to hear what’s important to them—it’s a continuing process,” she said.

Other solutions include sharing services with other communities on a regional basis for flooding, tapping into the skills of community members as well as reducing energy use by the town.

Of her time working in Larchmont, she will miss working directly with village employees who “provide the best quality of life for the village.”

Elkind Eney was also the liaison from the Village of Larchmont for the town’s 350^th Anniversary Committee and was a member of the Human Rights Committee that put on the Martin Luther King Assembly at Hommocks Middle School on Jan. 11.

The Town of Mamaroneck Board will meet on Wednesday, Jan. 18 at 8 p.m. in the courtroom.

Editor's Note: A previous version of this article stated that Elkind Eney was on the Board of Architectural Review; it was actually the Board of Assessment Review.   The article has been corrected to reflect the change.