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Ossining Letter: Support Victoria Gearity For Mayor

OSSINING, N.Y. -- Ossining Daily Voice accepts signed letters to the editor. Please send letters to ossining@dailyvoice.com.

To the editor:

For the past two elections I have voted for Mayor Bill Hanauer but this year I support challenger Victoria Gearity. 

I have lived in Ossining nine years. In that time there has been some change, but sometimes it seems there is half-baked approach to the mayor’s initiatives. 

The mayor believes that adding residential construction to Ossining will create a “critical mass” of residents that will entice businesses downtown. But what about the effects of that “critical mass” on our ballooning student population?

There has been no accounting for the effects on our schools vis a vis the mayor’s residential expansion. Last year in kindergarten, my son would come home with his lunch hardly touched. “I had no time to eat,” he told me.

“Why?” I asked his teacher. Because there were *so many* kids squeezed into the school that they had to limit lunch periods to 20 minutes. For five year olds. I encourage all adults out there to try eating lunch in 20 minutes. I know I can’t. What will happen when we reach “critical mass”? 10 minute lunches? 

And what about compensation for new school staff? Or expansions to accommodate the growing population of our youngest citizens in their schools? How will this push for residential “critical mass” affect our school taxes until the commercial heroes swoop in to reduce the residential tax burden?

As a citizen and mother in Ossining with experience as a village trustee, Victoria Gearity has the first-hand, practical experience and motivation to improve our local government to better serve the people of Ossining.

Victoria is open, engaging and dynamic – leadership qualities we need to move our Village ahead. We should expect more than half-baked policies if we want to see our Village at its best. Excellence in Ossining will only come with a forward-thinking communicator at the helm.

I encourage other Ossining residents to consider voting for Democrat Victoria Gearity this Tuesday.

Your neighbor, Erika Boetsch-d’Arlhac

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