Harckham announces public safety grants

State Sen. Pete Harckham last week announced $2.1 million in state grant money to be shared equally among all the local governments in the 40th Senate District. He is surrounded by officials from some of the municipalities in his district at Mount Kisco Village Hall. OFFICE OF STATE SEN. PETER HARCKHAM

By MARTIN WILBUR

State Sen. Pete Harckham announced last week a state grant of $2.1 million that will be divided equally among the municipalities in his 40th Senate District to help pay for public safety projects.

Surrounded by mayors and supervisors from some of the communities in the district at Mount Kisco Village Hall on July 30, Harckham said local governments can use the funds for a specific expense related to equipment or infrastructure for first responders or pedestrian safety.

He called public safety the top priority for elected officials. His decision to evenly distribute the money to the towns, cities and villages is to avoid having officials compete against one another for money for important projects as they must often do for competitive statewide grants.

“Each municipality in the 40th Senate District will receive $100,000 to work on a capital project of their choosing based on each community’s particular need,” Harckham said. “These public safety grants can be for police, fire, EMS, OEM, radios, vehicles, ambulances, pedestrian safety — and, yes, pedestrian safety is public safety — and so much more.”

Another reason all municipalities will receive the same funding is that public safety is a nonpartisan issue, Harckham said.

Previous rounds of the discretionary funding have helped the Mount Kisco Fire Department to buy an incident command vehicle, which is scheduled to arrive before the end of this year, and the Westchester County Police, which added a hazmat truck to their fleet, he said.

Mount Kisco Mayor J. Michael Cindrich said while the Village Board will collectively decide how the $100,000 will be spent, he will advocate for an all-terrain vehicle to be used in Leonard Park to help patrol areas of the more than 100-acre park where safety concerns have spiraled.

“I think it will benefit the community and put some people at ease that have been concerned with safety,” Cindrich said.

He would also support spending some of the money to expand the Independent Fire Company parking lot, which could then be used for training by fire departments in the village and neighboring towns.

Among the supervisors on hand were Bedford’s Ellen Calves and Tony Gonçalves of Lewisboro. Calves said the money could be used for sidewalk extensions and crosswalks to enhance pedestrian safety in Bedford. Meanwhile, Gonçalves said Lewisboro is in the midst of designing a new police headquarters, and the grant would help offset that expense.

“Specifically, we want to put in a new geothermal system, so we’re looking to use these funds toward a new geothermal that will help us with the police department project,” Gonçalves said.

Harckham explained that the state grants for important projects help keep taxes in check as local officials are constantly under pressure to limit increases for property owners.

“We live in a high-tax county and anything we can do at the state level to help fund important projects at the municipal level, these folks are watching every penny. Believe me they are watching every penny,” Harckham said.

“So, every dollar we can bring back from the state, they are less reliant on the levy.”