Harckham doles out $2.1M in grants for public spaces

State Sen. Pete Harckham announced that each municipality in his district will receive $100,000 to make improvements. He was surrounded by more than a dozen supervisors and mayors in Somers on Monday. (Office of Pete Harckham photo )

By MARTIN WILBUR

Municipalities in the 40th state Senate District will share more than $2 million in state grants to help pay for projects such as sidewalks and parks and recreation improvements that each community has identified as a priority.

State Sen. Pete Harckham announced Monday he is bringing $2.1 million in grant funding from the Community Resiliency, Economic Sustainability, and Technology program that focuses on improving public spaces. Each of the municipalities in Harckham’s district along with Putnam County will receive $100,000 to help defray the cost of a project of their choosing.

Harckham said local officials are ofchallenged with choosing which programs and services they support because there is a finite amount of money available. The grants that are divided equally for each community are provided to bring equity regardless of the size of the town.

“The state is a vital cog in that partnership,” Harckham said. “And yes, there are many grants available, but often the ones that come through the agencies and through the executive chamber are competitive grants, and usually it’s the folks that have the biggest grant writing departments end up getting the grants, and many other folks are left out of the queue.”

Many of the leaders from throughout Harckham’s Senate District gathered Monday outside the Elephant Hotel in Somers to reveal some of the projects they hope to undertake, including Bedford and Lewisboro town supervisors Ellen Calves and Tony Gonçalves, respectively, and Mount Kisco Mayor J. Michael Cindrich.

Calves said Bedford’s $100,000 will go toward installing sidewalks in the Bedford Hills hamlet, a key initiative that will help toward making the business centers more pedestrian friendly. Last year, in a survey connected with the town’s Comprehensive Plan, walkability was the most important priority to residents to connect the hamlets to the neighborhoods in that area, she said.

“Walkability, by far, blew all the other concepts away,” Calves said. “It’s such an important factor in and around our hamlets, and so sidewalks are also what we will be submitting our CREST funding to help connect Bedford Hills, where we have a lot of vitality going on.”

Meanwhile, Gonçalves said the Lewisboro Town Board is strongly considering converting a barn at Onatru Farm Park to be used primarily as a senior center.

“This is a project that will create a multi-use space for our community including a meeting space for our seniors,” he said.

In Mount Kisco, the money will be split between helping to cover any cost overruns for the refurbishment of the Tea House at Leonard Park, which was damaged by fire earlier this year, and for improvements to Flewellyn Park, Cindrich said. If there is money left over, it could be used toward creating another ballfield.

The Tea House was built by Reader’s Digest owners Lila and DeWitt Wallace in 1965 while the land at Flewellyn Park was donated to the village.

“In saying all of this, a lot of these projects would not have been undertaken if it weren’t for the help of Sen. Pete Harckham,” Cindrich said, “so I thank him, I’ve enjoyed working with him for decades and I hope we can continue to do so.”

Since he began serving in the Senate in 2019, Harckham said he has secured about $30 million in capital grants for the district’s municipalities, which includes $15.1 million for local governments and more than $10 million to help local police, fire departments, EMTs, ambulance corps and other first responders. The balance of the money has gone to nonprofit organizations in the community to support their missions.

“These grants will make a real difference for these municipalities while also helping to ease the property tax burdens as well,” Harckham said.