NORTH CASTLE, N.Y. - North Castle Town Supervisor William Weaver, who leaves office at the end of the year after losing his reelection bid, said affordable housing, the town budget and continued new development are the most important issues Howard Arden will face as the new supervisor in January.
"Affordable housing has to be dealt with," Weaver said, in the aftermath of the suit filed by the federal government against the county, which requires it to put $52 million towards affordable housing and build 750 units over the next seven years.
"North Castle is considering a property on Old Mt. Kisco Road," Weaver said. "After the Cider Mill project was built a few years, the town planned affordable housing units on the Cochrane property. It's gone through developers but hasn't been done yet. We wrote a letter to the county but the Town Board hasn't looked at adopting a model ordinance that would complete the project.
"The town has to address this, it's a big issue," Weaver said.
Another key town problem is money. "The cost of running the government operation is one of the key things I focused on as Supervisor," Weaver said. "We wanted to change the financial status of the town. It wasn't stable a few years ago but the Fund Balance is in good shape now and when we close the books on 2011 we'll have money left over to add to the Fund Balance. We wanted to increase it to the 15 to 20 percent range. We're at 13 percent now which is a little over $2 million. A couple of years ago it was $400,000 so we changed the direction of where the town is going financially.
"Union contracts are coming to a close in 2012 with police and other union contracts to be signed. It's a tough battle which the new Supervisor will have to take care of and keep taxes as low as possible," he said.
Weaver also sees business development as a key issue for the new administration. He said the situation has improved for new businesses with the streamlining of the Planning Board and the Residential Review Task Force. "With Armonk Square and the new assisted living facility the town has shown it's open for business," Weaver said.
Weaver noted that the devleopers of Armonk Square are moving ahead with construction operations even as the lawsuit challenging it proceeds. "The developers feel the lawsuit won't go anywhere, so it's the best thing to continue because as soon as they can get things going the better.
"The petition was filed by a developer (Michael Ferari) who wanted to develop it on his property but when he didn't get it he filed the petition to slow it down and caused havoc. The people of the town are suffering the most because they don't want the development of the new grocery store to be impeded," he said.
After leaving office, Weaver will spend time on his family business, Million Air, an aviation company that handles the fueling, parking and handling of private planes at the Westchester County Airport and he'll work on fund raising for PAL, Patient Airlift Services, which transports sick people for treatment.
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