By ABBY LUBY //
In a legislative update presented to the Pound Ridge Town Board at its July 2 meeting, state Sen. Shelley Mayer and state Assemblymember Chris Burdick reported that two bills of particular interest to residents failed to move forward in the recently-ended session in Albany. One of the measures would allow Pound Ridge to opt out of having cannabis dispensaries in the town. The other would raise the salary cap for the town’s 20 part- time staff police force.
During the most recent legislative session, Mayer introduced a bill that would exempt Pound Ridge “from the establishment of retail dispensary licenses and on-site consumption licenses for cannabis.” But by June the bill was still stalled in the Senate Investigations and Government Operations Committee, according to Mayer. It was introduced after the town board adopted a resolution Feb. 6, 2024, asking the state to reinstate the opt-out period for nine months.
“We did put in a bill, Assemblyman Chris Burdick and I, to give a nine-month window for the town of Pound Ridge to opt out,” Mayer explained. “The bill did not move in either house and I think we were very upfront about the fact that there’s going to be real resistance to moving it for one town or for a select group of communities.” Mayer added, “There’s tremendous reluctance to opening up anything in the cannabis space.”
The state deadline to opt out of allowing cannabis retail to open in municipalities was Dec. 31, 2021. Pound Ridge never responded. When the cannabis dispensary Purple Plains opened last year in a former liquor store in Scotts Corners, residents called for a municipal ban on allowing dispensaries in the town even though the state cannabis law does not allow municipalities to adopt local laws to ban cannabis sites after the opt-out deadline.
The local state legislators said that much of the pending legislation that couldn’t get done by the end of the session was held up by the governor’s abrupt suspension of New York City’s congestion pricing program.
Salary cap for part-time police officers Regarding the second stalled bill, the town had previously asked for legislation for funds aimed at raising the salary cap for the town’s 20 part-time staff police force. A salary raise would help maintain the police, many of whom are retired from the New York Police Department but who are migrating to Connecticut for better salaries.
Mayer said a bill was submitted that would change the earnings limitation in certain small communities that are dependent on part-time officers. “The current cap to maintain your full pension is $35,000. There has been an effort to raise that to $50,000 statewide which I think both of us fully support because you can’t get these excellent people like retired NYPD if you’re only going to pay $35,000.”
However, Mayer said the bill didn’t get passed because it would be costly to the state’s overall pension system. “It is a challenging problem to fix and we are going to try to continue to be creative and come up with ways to address the unique problem of Pound Ridge and other small communities that all have part-time officers who are easily poached in one by Connecticut.”
Writing in his weekly email several days later, Supervisor Kevin Hansan expressed disappointment that the legislature failed to pass the bill. “This issue is critical for Pound Ridge, as our police department is entirely composed of part-time officers, many of whom are retired from the NYPD or other municipalities. We will continue to push for this bill next year to prevent losing our part-time officers to Connecticut municipalities,” he said.
Mayer, who is running for reelection in November, said if she wins, all bills that were previously introduced can be reintroduced again in January 2025.
Affordable housing Mayer spoke about Hochul’s comprehensive agenda to strengthen New York’s housing supply with more affordable housing. “The governor tried to impose a housing requirement on our communities. Pound Ridge was very strongly opposed to the requirement,” Mayer said, explaining that the town “doesn’t have the water infrastructure and other circumstances that would make it possible to build additional multifamily housing.”
But Mayer did say the movement to create more affordable housing in Westchester and the suburbs is growing and will eventually impact all communities. “Somewhere along the line we’re going to have to deal with the lack of affordable rental housing and multifamily housing in all of Westchester, including Northern Westchester,” Mayer noted. “And we need creative solutions, including planning within a community to come up with ideas. We did build in some incentives for communities to come up with their own ideas.”
According to Burdick, legislators pushed back to the governor’s proposed cuts to grant funding through the state Department of Environmental Conservation. “We were able to restore the funding so that if, in fact, Pound Ridge is looking for funding, at least there will be a better opportunity for that,” he said.
Burdick also expects the governor to sign the climate-change superfund act passed by the Senate and Assembly. The law would require large major polluters to contribute to a climate action fund.
“If you’re a major polluter and in this case having an impact on our climate, then you need to step up to the plate,” Burdick said. Funding would go toward upgrading infrastructure needs such as coastal wetlands restoration, storm water drainage system upgrades and energy efficient cooling systems.
Sharing some good news, Burdick reported that Children’s Health Insurance Program funds approved for Pound Ridge came to $186,490. The fund provides health care coverage to eligible low-income uninsured children and pregnant women. “We were able to retain CHIP funding at the same level even though we wanted it higher,” said Burdick, who is also seeking reelection in November.
Education funding As chair of the Senate Education Committee, Mayer reported that for four months legislators pushed back against the governor’s efforts to restrict the increase for school districts via the Foundation Aid formula. Mayer said they successfully got more funds for the Katonah-Lewisboro and Bedford school districts.
Going forward, there will be a series of five hearings statewide on the Foundation Aid formula. The formula was created in 2007 and has been a contentious issue for several years. Critics have said the formula is unfair and deprives aid for many school districts. A report will be issued at the end of the hearings.