Village awaits impact of new trustees on board direction

Mayor J. Michael Cindrich, who saw his two running mates defeated last week, could have to chart a new course starting next month.

By MARTIN WILBUR

The make up of the Mount Kisco Village Board will change in a few weeks, but it remains unclear how that might affect the direction of village government.

Last week’s victories by Democrats Heather Bryant and Tammy Brown over Republican and Village Inclusive Party incumbents Theresa Flora and Angie Garcia-Guerra flips the balance on the board since Mayor J. Michael Cindrich had formed a ticket with his now-defeated running mates starting in 2023, when they swept the Democratic ticket. Cindrich was unopposed for another two-year term.

Byrant and Brown will officially be sworn in at the board’s Dec. 1 meeting.

Cindrich said a key reason for the defeats of Flora and Garcia-Guerra was likely people voting along party lines. Another was the board didn’t shy away from addressing challenging issues.

“People do vote according to their party affiliations and that’s difficult to overcome,” said Cindrich, who managed to collect 1,386 votes, about 140 more than Byrant and Brown. “They don’t necessarily vote, they don’t know what’s behind the person, I guess the résumé that the person may have or what they’ve accomplished in their lives or what their thoughts are, so that’s a challenge in and of itself.”

Now with the election over, Bryant and sitting Democratic Trustee Tom Luzio maintained this week that they are prepared to work with Cindrich and Trustee Karen Schleimer to move Mount Kisco forward. 

Bryant said she wasn’t sure if there will be a typical course change when there is board turnover after incumbents are defeated, but it’s each member’s responsibility to understand everyone’s priorities.

“I don’t know if it’s so much as a shift or a balance of power,” Bryant said. “My goal certainly is to work with as many people as possible. I would hope that we can have conversations with the mayor about his priorities in conjunction with the village manager, of course, and the department heads in the village, and then start to decide what our priorities as a group are, what we can accomplish together.”

Bryant said one critical issue the board must address soon is resolving the new police contract with Westchester County. Public safety, particularly at Mount Kisco Elementary School, is something she and Brown campaigned on.

In recent meetings there was apparent friction between Luzio and Cindrich and Flora regarding a variety of matters, most notably what is considered a park and proposed legislation to help the village deal with the costs of the frequent protests. Luzio said some of the differences probably should have been hammered out during a work session but disagreements are to be expected.

The priority for the board on any issue should be communication, consensus and compromise, he said.

“The mayor and I can work together on any number of issues, and we’ll agree on some, we’ll disagree on some, we’ll fine-tune others,” Luzio said. “But while it may have looked like friction between the two of us and there certainly were issues for everyone to see that we disagreed, that doesn’t in any way, shape or form mean that the mayor, myself and I’m sure Tammy and Heather can’t work together to get things accomplished more effectively and with better communication.”

Cindrich said his priorities are to address the village’s stagnant tax base and to help find solutions to the housing affordability challenge. He said two major projects that he would have liked to have seen move forward was a proposed assisted living project near the Saw Mill Parkway during his previous 14-year tenure as mayor and the mixed-use Kirby Commons that was narrowly defeated in 2021 that would have built more than 200 apartments over ground-floor retail in the South Moger and North Moger parking lots.

Cindrich called losing the assisted living project cost the village about $11 million in recurring revenue. 

On both projects, the board did an about-face, rejecting the projects after signaling interest, which could make future developers hesitant to propose major applications in the future, he said.

“The developers don’t want to come into a community where there’s ambivalence or a lack of agreement,” Cindrich said.

The mayor also said he will fight for the protection of the village’s parks and Byram Lake, the source of Mount Kisco’s water supply.