The following letter was published in this week’s issue of the Gazette.
To the Editor,
Signs?
Really?
After three or more years of Sturm und Drang, our esteemed village board has made the momentous decision to, OMG, ban all signs from village property. In a split vote yet! And it consumed half of the front page of this publication last week. How much time has the board devoted to this trivial, no, silly, subject?
For the record, I actually like the signs. I think they give our village a small town, Norman Rockwell kind of atmosphere. But our betters have spoken and the signs shall be no more.
Would that the board spend an equivalent amount of time, effort, and debate on issues that really matter. On the rezoning: 68% of survey respondents, 80-90% of speakers at the three public hearings, and, I believe, over 550 signatories to a petition presented to the board, all opposed high density housing on the Katz property. Yet the board continues to pursue it without any sign of internal dissent. This is clearly not nearly as significant as the signs and far less worthy of debate.
“The mayor promotes the supposed virtues of mixed-use development, when brick and mortar retail stores are dying throughout the country and we have already lost numerous businesses in Croton. He rightly claims that we need more affordable housing in our village, but knows full well that no more than 10% of any units constructed on Katz are required to be affordable. And the trustees say not a word. This clearly does not rise to the importance of banning signage in our village.”
The mayor refuses to tell us how the changes made to the original zoning plan will affect that density or to reveal the maximum number of housing units that will be permitted on Katz. “That’s a rhetorical question,” he says. Yeah! Right!
In his letter extolling the virtues of the rezoning, the mayor “appreciate(s) everyone who has taken part in this process,” but totally flouts the overwhelming sentiment against high-density housing. And his colleagues sit silently by as these proposals wend their way to certain adoption. They disagree on signs, but not on an issue that can really change the character of our village.
The mayor promotes the supposed virtues of mixed-use development, when brick and mortar retail stores are dying throughout the country and we have already lost numerous businesses in Croton. He rightly claims that we need more affordable housing in our village, but knows full well that no more than 10% of any units constructed on Katz are required to be affordable. And the trustees say not a word. This clearly does not rise to the importance of banning signage in our village.
The mayor assures us that the village board will work with the planning board to ensure that any proposal for Katz will be “a win for our community.” I would invite the community to come to the Piney Point Avenue/Nordica Drive neighborhood to see what a win was scored for our area with our latest development, made under the watchful eyes of the village board and planning board. And the mayor patently refuses—on advice of counsel—to meet with neighborhood residents to explain what went wrong and what the village has done to ensure it never happens again. Gives one a warm fuzzy feeling for developing Katz, does it not? And still the trustees remain mum. Not as big a deal as signage, for sure.
Nor is there any dissent on the Croton Point Avenue Project, which this board has bungled to a fare-thee-well, or calls for exploration of viable alternatives to the multi-million dollar renovation of the police station which would give our police officers everything they need without breaking the bank, or questions on the yet to be defined costs of what must be done at Gouveia to implement whatever scheme the mayor is hatching there. None of these rise to the importance of preventing Croton organizations from publicizing their events or our neighbors from advertising their garage sales, much less denying anyone the ability to promote a political candidate who opposes our local machine.
Ah, signs! We have now been assured that nothing in Croton is more important, or more worthy of lively debate, than whether we will be allowed to post our signs on village property.
Sincerely,
Joel E. Gingold