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Four state Assembly members from the Hudson Valley had called on Cuomo in a letter sent Thursday to sign eight bills into law before they would have expired at midnight New Year's Eve.
Several locally sponsored bills were passed before the state legislature recessed in June. Local laws also must be passed to collect the $3 "bed tax" on each $100 spent.
Urging the governor to sign the bill before year's end, in a letter sent Thursday (attached below) were Assemblywoman Amy Paulin, D-Scarsdale; Assemblyman Tom Abinanti, D-Mount Pleasant; Assemblyman David Buchwald, D-White Plains; and Assemblyman James Skoufis, D-Woodbury.
In addition to Woodbury, which is in Orange County, the newly-approved laws allow 3 percent motel/hotel taxes in these 14 Westchester County communities: Ardsley, Dobbs Ferry, Elmsford, Greenburgh, Harrison, Hastings-on-Hudson, Irvington, Mamaroneck, Mount Kisco, North Castle, Port Chester, Sleepy Hollow, Tarrytown and Tuckahoe.
Greenburgh Supervisor Paul Feiner who has been pushing for a hotel/motel tax authorization in his town since 2009, was thrilled in a Sunday email: "Big positive news to start the new year with. Last night, Governor Andrew Cuomo signed legislation into law that will generate about a million dollars a year to unincorporated Greenburgh. This revenue will be used to keep taxes for unincorporated Greenburgh residents lower than they might have been."
Legislation sponsored by Assemblyman Buchwald and Sen. George Latimer, D-Rye, gives the Village of Mount Kisco and the towns of Harrison and North Castle authority to collect the bed taxes at any new or existing hotels/motels.
Yonkers, White Plains, New Rochelle, Rye and Rye Brook previously were granted state approval to collect hotel/motel bed taxes in legislation that requires annual extensions by the state legislature. White Plains collects about $1 million a year in hotel taxes. New Rochelle projects $280,000 from the hotel tax. Rye expects to collect $150,000. Rye Brook, which has two marquee hotels in the Hilton Westchester and Doral Arrowwood, collects about $630,000 in annual occupancy taxes.
Legislation sponsored by Assemblyman Abinanti and Sen. Andrea Stewart-Cousins secured the new bed tax for the Town of Greenburgh and villages of Tarrytown, Elmsford, Sleepy Hollow, Ardsley, Irvington, Dobbs Ferry and Hastings-on-Hudson.
Assemblyman Steve Otis, a Rye Democrat, and Latimer sponsored legislation that allows a motel/hotel tax to be collected in Mamaroneck, Port Chester and New Rochelle. That bill also extended the taxing authority for the City of Rye and Village of Rye Brook.
Assemblywoman Paulin sponsored legislation that allows the motel/hotel tax to be collected in Tuckahoe and extended White Plains' bed tax. And Assemblywoman Shelley Mayer, a Democrat from Yonkers, sponsored the bill that renewed a motel/hotel occupancy tax collected in her hometown.
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