To the editor:

Don’t let the media hype get you nervous. Be pro-active rather than reactive this flu season.

Come to this timely and informative workshop, hosted by The Garden Road School on November 9, 2009 at 7:00pm to learn how to protect the whole family with herbal immune system supports. Learn about preventative and treatment methods for the flu and how you can put together a flu prevention package for you and your family.

Andrea Candee, MH, MSC, is a master herbalist with a practice in South Salem, NY. She lectures about taking charge of your health naturally and is an instructor of Botanical Medicine at The New York Botanical Garden. Her book, Gentle Healing for Baby and Child (Simon & Schuster), was awarded The National Parenting Center’s Seal of Approval.

The Garden Road School is an independent school for grades Pre-K (ages 2+) through Fourth Grade. Its mission is to educate children for a purposeful future through a vibrant curriculum that merges academic excellence, creativity and core human values. The Garden Road School is located at 99 Baron de Hirsch Road, Crompond.

Attendance is $15 per person. For more information please visit: www.thegardenroad.org, email info@thegardenroad.org, or call call 914-526-4033.

— Kathryn Corena

The staff at Edward F. Carter Funeral Home are happy to announce a new series of free, public educational seminars. “Planning Ahead For All The Right Reasons” introduces people to the funeral planning process and informs them about what needs to be done to “get your house in order.”

“We strongly believe that no one should walk through the doors of a funeral home, on what could be the worst day of their lives, without at least some basic information and preparation” said Mike Lepore, Manager of the Carter Funeral Homes in Montrose and Croton-on-Hudson.. “We feel it is our obligation to make this kind of information available to the public, whether they choose to use our services or not.”

“We want people to make wise decisions, not emotional ones,” added Family Service Counselor and Funeral Director Michelle Carter. “People will leave armed with information they need to make smart choices and save money.”

The program is less than an hour long, and includes a question and answer period as well as light refreshments. A complimentary copy of our Personal Planning Guide will also be available. Each month will feature a new topic of interest, although questions on any topic can be asked at any time.

“Many people think end-of-life and estate planning are private matters, and so are reluctant to broach the subject with family or friends,” Attorney Kathleen Riedy said. “The fact is, when a person dies, it affects everyone they know. Questions like, ‘Who do I call? What do I need to do? How much will it cost?’ will all have to be answered in a short amount of time.”

The seminars will be held the 3rd Wednesday of every month and begin at 4 pm at the Edward F. Carter Funeral Home, 41 Grand Street in Croton-on-Hudson. All seminars will be presented by licensed funeral directors along with local attorney and estate expert Kaltheen Riedy. Because of space considerations, advance registration is requested.

Upcoming topics include:

• November: Trusts: why you may or may not need one
• December: The Medicaid Spend Down - what you need to know years before seeking long-term care
• January: New Years Resolutions: Do your planning in 2010
• February: How to make sure your wishes are honored
• March: Special considerations for families with a special needs child
• April: Avoiding the Death Tax

“There are few things in life that aren’t made better and easier by planning for them in advance,” Michelle Carter said. “We hope our free seminars will at the very least start a dialogue within families about preparing for the future.”

For more information or to register, please call 914-271-4882.

To the editor,

Croton today is on the brink of making a major decision. The subject at issue is mixed use. And what is mixed use? In Colonial America it was the way of life in towns and villages. It featured a tightly clustered mix of stores, houses, churches, local government buildings, and civic uses within walking distance of one another.

During the 19th century industrialization brought factories and commercial uses that were sources of objectionable noise and odors, and often were hazardous to public health. To protect residential property values, early zoning focused on separating uses and buffering them from each other to minimize nuisances. The movement to return to mixed use in urban areas was sparked by Jane Jacobs in her seminal 1961 work titled The Death and Life of Great American Cities.

Paradoxically, Croton’s existing zoning permits mixed use in the form of housing on a single floor above retail stores. Proposed legislation would more than double the amount of residential space available in commercially zoned areas as apartments above retail establishments and in ground-floor space behind them. I have been a vocal opponent of this legislation on many grounds:

(1) The total lack of research into the current retail picture in Croton. It may very well be that Croton needs less retail space rather than more.

(2) The failure of proponents to explore the impact of the legislation on the projected school population.

(3) The inadequacy of parking and the lack of outdoor space for children and pets. Because of higher densities in mixed-use developments and the commercial/office component, parking space requirements always exceed those of residential development.

(4) The total lack of adequate controls to protect the village. This mirrors the 2004 Gateway Law that bans fast-food restaurants without defining what constitutes a fast-food restaurant.

(5) The total lack of architectural standards. The only architectural requirement in the Harmon report was that the third floor within the roofline be designed as “dormers, or gables, or other architecturally pleasing design possibilities.” Even this vague and unsatisfactory requirement is missing from the proposed legislation.

(6) Technically naïve, the proposed legislation also provides for ground floor residential space behind retail space. Yet any first-year architectural student knows that retail and residential ceiling heights vary greatly and mixing them on one floor will impose additional design and construction costs. The large, high-ceilinged ground floor space without supporting columns needed for commercial uses may not be architecturally compatible with the smaller scale of walled residential space above it or behind it.

(7) Construction costs for mixed-use development currently exceed those for single-use buildings of similar size. Unanticipated architectural challenges include fire separations, sound attenuation, ventilation and egress.

(8) Mixed use developments are seen as too risky by many developers and lending institutions because economic success requires that the several different uses all remain in full occupancy. Short-term discounted cash flow has become the standard method of measuring the success of income-producing properties, making single-use properties more attractive for investment.

(9) There has been a total lack of cost analysis and feasibility studies, yet the legislation is touted as an economic panacea for Croton.

With so many issues still unaddressed, I urge all residents of Croton to turn out at the village board meeting on November 2 and demand an answer to the simple question, “Why the hurry and the mindless disregard of citizens’ legitimate concerns?”

— Robert Scott, Croton-on-Hudson

Thank you Mr. Scott for a rational presentation of what our region can offer the rest of the country in terms of both beauty and education.

As noted, Mayor Elliott’s comments were made in 2005. How sad that the Schmidt gang opted for a parochial approach in the four years following, refusing both to market what our village has to offer and to work with neighboring communities to form what could be one of the top attractions in the U.S.

Former Mayor Schmidt not only stated publicly that he didn’t want Croton turning into “another Ossining” but managed to schedule the opening of Croton Landing for a day when the Westchester County Executive was not available to attend, insuring an appearance in the press that his administration alone was responsible for its creation.

Fortunately, Croton’s present elected officials are working to connect with municipalities up and down the Hudson to insure a cohesive presentation of all of our towns have to offer. A variety of sporting opportunities, nature encounters and eyefuls of beauty—it all comes back to a river…and Croton has 2!

As far as our village is concerned, shouldn’t we be able to offer visitors from the states and abroad a place to spend their money on something other than a mani/pedi or a pepperoni slice?

— Lisa Cohen

To the editor:

NOTE: The following is the text of my letter to The Gazette dated Sept. 3, 2009:

Given that tourism is New York State’s second largest industry, I expected the broad plan I described in last week’s letter to receive wide acceptance. As usual, a small coterie of anonymous proponents of the Harmon Plan pooh-poohed it, arguing wildly that it would not work. No respectable newspaper will publish unsigned, irresponsible comments. Initially, the plan only requires integrating Croton more closely with existing organizations to promote the new trend called “heritage tourism.”

I’d like to call a single expert witness in defense of tourism as a solution worth trying. Robert W. Elliott, seven-term mayor of Croton-on-Hudson from 1991 to 2005, and founder and past chairman of Historic River Towns of Westchester, a consortium of thirteen river communities from Yonkers to Peekskill. Under an inter-municipal agreement, this umbrella organization focuses on waterfront development, tourism and main street economics in a bottom-up approach to regional planning.

Bob Elliott authored the New York Conference of Mayors Sustainable Communities Initiative. He is the former Chair of the Hudson Valley Tourism Development Council and served as the Vice Chair of the New York Main Street Alliance. He has been the Director of Economic Development, as well as head of the Industrial Development Agency for Westchester County. Bob was also President of the Westchester Convention and Visitors Bureau. I’m sure readers will acknowledge his credentials.

On April 4, 2005, while still the mayor of Croton, Bob spoke on the subject of tourism at Buffalo’s Martin House Restoration. A five-building complex designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in his Prairie Style and built from 1903-05, this powerful architectural magnet attracts visitors from all over the country. No transcript exists of Bob’s presentation, but a Buffalo News reporter was there, and his news story captured some of the highlights.

Mayor Elliott described how communities in a picturesque 50-mile stretch along the Hudson River are working together, without being restricted by geographical or organizational divisions, with the objective of offsetting job losses and economic stagnation that have afflicted much of upstate New York. According to him, a major thrust of this “bottom-up approach to regional planning” has been the development of heritage tourism as an economic lifeline.

This makes eminent good sense, Bob pointed out. Tourism is the state’s second largest industry, and local governments (except in Croton) and groups are working together to promote the region’s history to older, middle-class travelers who constitute the primary market for heritage tourism. The special breed of “heritage tourists” stays longer, visits twice as many places and spends twice as much. “They’ve even come to see the Hudson itself as a tourist draw,” he added.

As part of his slideshow, he projected a color slide of the Half Moon on the screen, the brightly colored replica of explorer Henry Hudson’s little ship, under full sail. Above the photo, the caption read: “It’s the river, stupid.” He closed with, “It’s one aspect of regionalism that has been proven to work.”

The defense rests.

— Robert Scott, Croton-on-Hudson

To the editor:

NOTE: The following is the text of my letter to The Gazette of August 27, 2009:

Readers may be interested in the following transcript of a question-and-answer session I recently had with myself:

Q: Okay, Mr. Wise Guy, you’ve been critical of unneeded zoning changes, what’s your solution for Croton’s economic ills?
A: The answer has been right under our noses from the beginning: Old-fashioned tourism. Give people a reason to “Visit Historic Croton-on-Hudson.” and they’ll come in droves.

Q: What’s the first step?
A: We have the nucleus in Van Cortlandt Manor to cover the Dutch colonial period. The Village should acquire and restore the nearby original Harmon sales office. Make it a visitors’ center and a Croton Museum of History with permanent exhibits about Croton’s long history of boat building, railroading, brick making, and construction of the Old Croton Aqueduct and the Croton Dam.

Q: What comes next?
A: Special exhibits can be added, such as one honoring Croton’s African-American heritage. Revolutionary War cannoneer John Peterson, whose unerring aim began the downfall of British spy, Major John André, and playwright Lorraine Hansberry (“A Raisin in the Sun”) are both buried in Bethel Cemetery.

Q: What other attractions could there be?
A: Perhaps Metro North could be induced to establish a railroad (and trolley) museum here. (The Metro Enviro site would be ideal.) Croton should explore the possibility that the colorful replica of Henry Hudson’s ship, the Half Moon, could make Croton its homeport and wintering port.

Q: Isn’t Croton’s rich history already widely recognized?
A: Not at all. Historic sites are unmarked. Would you believe there’s only one marker in the village memorializing its historic past? Most Crotonites cannot name that lone marker. (It’s at the base of the hill on which Bethel Chapel stands.) There are more than a dozen houses in Croton associated with the Bohemian colony of artists and writers that flourished here during and after the First World War. Yet not a single marker identifies any of these houses, which would make a fine subject for a walking tour.

Q: How would you overcome Croton’s handicap of widely separated shopping areas?
A: That’s easy. In keeping with the image of a tourist-friendly village, Croton’s shopping areas could be gradually nudged toward specialization. For example, Grand Street could emulate Cold Spring’s Main Street and feature shops offering antiques and knickknacks. And attract customers to its restaurants.

Q: What about places where tourists can stay?
A: The big hurdle is lack of hotel space. For year-round tourism, a hotel/conference center with a river view could easily be built on a commercial site like the tire warehouse. The railroad’s fast express train service opens up the possibility that Metro North could promote tours to Croton from New York City as package deals.

Q: What should we do about the Gateway Law?
A: Cosmetic changes will do nothing to bring new business. We must stop excluding legitimate businesses. It’s positively un-American to convict a whole class of businesses without a trial. Let’s make Croton a village that genuinely welcomes businesses. We must halt any attempt to urbanize Croton. Don’t expand the Gateway Law. Get rid of it.

Q: What are the chances of such a plan coming to fruition?
A: Good, if Croton will stop bickering and recognize that exploitation of its history can be its salvation.

— Robert Scott, Croton-on-Hudson

To the editor:

The following is the text of my letter to The Gazette of August 20, 2009:

In planning Croton’s future, three indisputable facts cannot be changed:

(1) The Expressway has effectively made Croton a backwater by cutting it off from the flow of north-south automobile traffic, estimated at 40,000 vehicles a day. Each transit by a motorist bypassing our village at 55 mph means one less potential customer for Croton businesses.

(2) Croton lacks a single, centralized shopping area. Over the years, Croton planners allowed five widely separated and non-contiguous shopping areas to evolve, each heavily dependent on the automobile. Pedestrian traffic between the respective shopping areas is nonexistent because of their wide separation.

(3) Croton planners also allowed its downtown to be blighted with three giant supermarkets and their large, unsightly automobile parking areas. These encourage automobile usage and further discourage pedestrian traffic.

This may not be a picture of “the Croton we want.” Nevertheless, it’s the Croton we’ve got, and we must make the best of an unhappy situation. Planners must accept that the above special conditions make Croton different from other villages. I don’t care how many communities with centralized shopping areas our expensive hired consultants may have advised; they cannot overcome Croton’s atypical handicaps. Otherwise, any monies spent will be wasted.

Planners must stop treating Croton as a community with conventional planning problems. They should accept Croton’s unusual situation before plunging ahead with off-the-shelf, standard-issue solutions. Merely giving Harmon a hasty cosmetic makeover that violates common sense is not planning.

I have railed against the flawed 2004 Gateway Law incorporated into the Zoning Code and against the proposed Harmon-inspired changes to it. Its proponents have stubbornly clung to flagrantly erroneous beliefs: (1) that planning efforts should be concentrated on a single shopping area at the expense of the other areas; (2) that there are three magical, mystical “gateways” to Croton; (3) that all motorists who enter Croton are here to shop, so Croton must be made pretty for such shoppers from other communities.

Every community has its delicatessens, pizza parlors, supermarkets, hardware store, branch bank, and post office supplying basic needs of its residents. Croton’s underlying problem is that it lacks a “magnet” store or stores that would attract customers from elsewhere. Briarcliff Manor, for example, has a Radio Shack. When I need an electronic gadget, I travel to Chilmark. After a brief existence here, Croton’s sole magnet store, Blockbuster, is now in the process of closing.

The only businesses that manage to thrive here are those that supply basic needs—“the butcher, baker and candlestick maker.” Ironically, Croton’s Gateway Law specifically bans automobile dealerships and national chain fast food restaurants. Yet each of these categories represents a magnet business with the potential of attracting the very customers from other communities that Croton sorely needs.

The truth is Croton planners lack basic knowledge of the community so necessary for intelligent planning. Croton has no inventory of the stores, empty or occupied, in each of Croton’s five shopping areas. We have no idea of their sizes, amenities, and rental terms or even what they offer in the way of goods and services. Hard to believe, but no planner can identify how many delicatessens, restaurants, pizza parlors, or nail salons exist in Croton, nor can they tell me where they are located.

Equally nonexistent is a reliable, controlled census and projections of its school population and expected growth. Croton has no idea of the number of apartments that exist in the village, yet planners are contemplating adding more apartments in crowded human rabbit warrens. School taxes form the major portion of each taxpayer’s tax burden.

That planners in Croton should be actively engaged in planning for this village’s future despite their lack of fundamental knowledge about the nature and state of its current business and residential communities is staggering, to say the least. What Croton needs is more information, not more legislation.

Croton and other communities in Westchester have just been dealt a double whammy. One is the workforce legislation calling for mandatory affordable housing now awaiting the governor’s signature. The other is the agreement recently reached between the county executive and the federal government mandating affordable housing for minorities. The fact that Croton receives no credit for the impressive results achieved by the Croton Housing Network is only one of the many disquieting aspects of the wrenching changes.

Apparently unforeseen by the Village, the two events in quick succession came as a complete surprise. Until the questions they raise are answered, it would be suicidal for Croton’s present administration to push ahead mulishly in its headlong rush to expand the flawed Gateway Law by adding apartments whose need is highly questionable. Its first order of business should be to fill the enormous gap in information about the nature of the ventures that manage to thrive in the village and the future burdens on its school system.

— Robert Scott, Croton-on-Hudson

To the editor:

The Croton Harmon Gridiron Club would like to take this opportunity to apologize to the community at large for scheduling our Grand Stand fundraiser for Saturday, September 19, the same day as the Jewish holiday Rosh Hashanah.

Our intention was to hold an event whereby the Croton community could gather together in support of the Croton Football Team; we made a mistake by scheduling the celebration on the Jewish holiday and we regret our decision and apologize for our insensitivity.

We promise to be more prudent when scheduling our events in the future.

The Gridiron Club will host a pancake breakfast the morning of Homecoming, September 26, at the Croton Harmon High School from 8:30 - 11:30. Please join us then.

Thank you, our apologies again and …. GO TIGERS!

— The Croton Harmon Gridiron Club

To the editor:

The following is the text of my letter to the editor of The Gazette, dated August 13, 2009:

Continuing a detailed study of the flawed Gateway Law to which zoning changes will be added, here are a few of the Law’s flaws that professional planners have already bestowed on us: (References to the Gateway Law hereafter will be to “the Law.”)

Flaw No. 1 is in the fallacious concept that if we “upgrade the image and strengthen the visual identity of the Village,” visitors will automatically come to Croton regardless of the nature of the merchandise or services its shops offer.

Flaw No. 2: In the Harmon area, the Law calls for new buildings to be “designed to enhance the district’s small-scale character.” But the character of the buildings in the vast urban renewal project and associated parking areas envisioned under the proposed zoning changes give the lie to the phrase “small scale.”

Flaw No. 3: The Law next mandates a very questionable scheme. Here’s what it proposes for Harmon: “To reinforce the area’s role as a gateway, the Planning Board shall encourage the design and placement of a distinctive gateway feature such as a clock or sculpture near the corner of Croton Point Avenue and South Riverside Avenue.” Erecting a clock or a sculpture approved by the Planning Board with an incoming business footing the bill? I’m not making any of this up. It’s right there in the Law at 230-20.6-4

Because the avowed function of gateways is to give visitors “a sense of arrival,” why not a small Statue of Liberty with a variation on the Emma Lazarus sentiment carved into the base? “Give me your energized, your wealthy, your eager customers yearning to spend freely.” In other gateway areas, how about an impressive fountain, heroic statue or perhaps a miniature Arc de Triomphe? The sky’s the limit in beautifying Croton for new arrivals.

Flaw No. 4: In the Municipal Place area, the Law stresses the need for increased pedestrian facilities such as sidewalks, despite the fact that the layout and facilities of the area encourage and favor automobile usage. Pedestrian traffic is non-existent here, and it is still worth your life to try to cross Maple Street to get from one part of this gateway area to another on foot.

Flaw No. 5 is the designation of the North End area as a commercial gateway. In this area, a veritable Siberia for commercial development with no access from the Expressway, the Law is ultra-specific about prettification: “New development, landscaping and streetscaping shall be designed to preserve the district’s residential and rural feel from the village boundary line to Warren Road.”

The Law calls for sidewalks to be constructed on Warren Road from the village line south to Warren Road and west to the bridge over the Expressway. Preferential consideration is also given to site plans featuring “stone walls consistent with existing built walls along property lines to screen parking.” Street trees and shrubs should be planted on the east side of Route 9 and the west side of 9A (both are State roads and the designated roadsides are now heavily wooded) “to form a buffer between these roads and the North End gateway properties.”

In the course of human events, the power to write legislation controlling zoning in their immediate neighborhoods is not given to ordinary citizens. Section 20-3-E of the Village Code of Ethics calls for disclosure by public officials of any interest in legislation. It so happens that among the driving forces behind the passage in 2004 of the Gateway Law was an appointed Village official living on Briggs Lane off Warren Road, immediately adjacent to the North End gateway area. Because there was no disclosure, disqualification or recusal, it would seem that “somebody’s gotta lot of splainin’ to do.”

— Robert Scott, Croton-on-Hudson

To the editor:

NOTE: The following is the text of my letter to the Gazette dated August 6, 2009:

The Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution and Croton’s 2004 Gateway law all have one quality in common: Very few people have read them. I urge residents to study the Gateway Law, which plays a fundamental role in proposed Harmon committee changes. It’s available on Croton’s website as part of its Zoning Code.

Let’s consider first how the Gateway Law defines and identifies what it calls its commercial gateways. These are clearly characterized as “the major entry points from surrounding municipalities and roads.” But ask Croton’s residents to list entry points under this definition, and they will invariably name four: the three exits to Croton from the north-south Expressway (Route 9). They will also definitely include Route 129 coming from the east.

Peculiarly, the Gateway Law identifies only three gateways. The first two are the Croton Point Avenue and the Municipal Place exits from the Expressway. The third is a most unusual choice: “the north end of the village along Albany Post Road (Route 9A).”

The reasons for excluding two very significant gateways that meet the Gateway Law’s own definition have never been satisfactorily explained. Unmentioned are the Senasqua Road gateway leading to the remnant Lower Village shopping area, and the similarly overlooked Route 129 gateway from Yorktown leading directly to the Grand Street shopping area.

The reason for including the Albany Post Road at the extreme north end of the village as a gateway into the Village is equally unclear. Few southbound motorists use it, preferring the Expressway. By any definition, the Senasqua Road exit is the first true gateway from the Expressway into the commercial areas of Croton. Yet Gateway Law framers ignored it.

Curiously, planners who claim to have the cure for what ails commerce in Croton have never seen fit to post a sign at the branching of Grand Street from Route 129 (Maple Street and directing motorists to “Business district” or “Shopping area.” Under the Gateway Law, the Grand Street shopping area simply does not exist.

New York State traffic statistics show that Route 129 (Maple Street) funnels two million vehicles through Croton annually. As if to underscore that Croton considers Route 129 a gateway, it has erected a very large sign on Route 129 near Jacoby Street at the entrance to the village.

Does this handsome sign bid welcome to motorists entering our fair village by pointing out Croton’s rich historical heritage? It does not. With the supreme lack of imagination so characteristic of Croton’s planning, it says, “Croton-on-Hudson. Incorporated 1898.” Before any makeover of the so-called Gateway Law is attempted, the glaring omission of two major gateways should be corrected.

— Robert Scott, Croton-on-Hudson