The Village of Nyack is rich with assets such as our vibrant downtown, scenic waterfront, diverse residents, strong sense of community, and a wonderful mix of residential, commercial and institutional development. Unfortunately, over the decades the Village has developed a structural deficit, where our tiny, balkanized tax base is unable to sustain our assets.

The Village is “asset rich, cash poor.” Our survival strategy has been to borrow from our infrastructure (roads, sidewalks, buildings, etc.) in the form of deferred maintenance.

Let’s treat this situation as a call to action. We need a Village Board that is willing to work together and tap into our amazing pool of residents to identify problems, find solutions, and implement them. If we are smart and focused we can regain a sustainable budget and build a better community.

As a starting point, I have outlined a Five Point Action Plan to move Nyack forward.

Statement of the Problem

In a nutshell, the Village (tax base) is too small. The $2.7 million in property tax revenues are not sufficient to sustain our regional assets such as the downtown commercial district and Memorial Park. The only way to change the game is to consolidate with South and/or Upper Nyack. We truly are one community; the municipal boundaries are arbitrary. Memorial Park and the downtown are shared by all residents in the three villages.

I have talked with many residents in both South and Upper Nyack and there is strong support for the idea of becoming one Village. There are reservations, most notably concerning taxes and services, but I am hopeful that we can build a collaborative effort to investigate the feasibility of One Nyack. A combined Village would have more than 12,000 residents, and would equal the size of Tarrytown’s tax base, which enjoys a robust economy.

Without a Tarrytown-sized tax base, the Village’s budget can’t provide the resources required to maintain our urban core. We don’t have the bonding power for major investments like a parking garage. We can’t afford staff with any management or development experience.

The way to dig out of this situation is for an experienced and motivated Board to rally equally experienced and motivated residents (of which there are many. We would implement a clear plan to reduce costs/inefficiencies, increase revenues (as little as possible through taxes), and invest in key infrastructure.

A Five Point Action Plan to get us going

1. Deliberative process– The Village Board can only make good decisions with an organized and well-crafted process. The public process can be cumbersome, and if it isn’t careful, the Board can easily waste its precious time on reacting to momentary issues. I will work with the new Mayor to establish a rational, deliberative process so that the Board can properly manage the Village.
   1. Board Roles – Each board member should have specific responsibilities for key management areas such as economic development, budgeting, parks/recreation (see previous post).
   2. The Board agenda should be set by Monday or Tuesday, posted on the Village website. Board members should have all required materials well in advance so they can prepare.
   3. Ministerial actions, including certain permits, should be handled at a staff level (see previous post). Board meetings should spend as much time as possible on the larger, important issues.
   4. Public comment managed with time limits and proper protocol (respectful).
2. Consolidation — Did you know that there is a state-wide initiative to streamline NY’s 4,720 local government entities? The Nyacks should apply for a New York State Local Government Efficiency Grant. Dozens of grants have been given to Villages ranging from $25,000 to $50,000. I would seek a combined application with the Villages of South and Upper Nyack to investigate the feasibility of consolidation. I propose we establish a collaborative committee with representatives from the three villages to write the grant.
   1. Police consolidation – As we are pulling together a grant proposal, we can research other avenues to consolidate. Nyack residents pay about $2 million per year for police protection, whereas, South Nyack residents about $1.2 million. We should investigate the feasibility of using our tax dollars for a more local police force. Consolidation would be beneficial for South Nyack by broadening their base, which places a heavy burden on property owners, representing 43% of their taxes.
3. Openness and transparency – An ambitious and inclusive agenda requires communication channels to the public. There are simple things to be done to give people access to what’s going on including:
   1. Website – Nyack’s website needs to store agendas, minutes, calendars, notices, forms/applications, etc. It needs to be a content management system (CMS) easy enough for staff to maintain. As a web developer, I will volunteer to oversee a small task force to build a new site. I have already started this process.
   2. Television – Many people would like to see meetings without leaving their homes. The Village should record the meetings for distribution through Cablevision and Verizon. Orangetown and many other local governments already do it, and it isn’t difficult.
   3. Mailing – Like the iContact list we established at Nyack First, the Village should have a mailing list to update those who want to be kept up to date.
4. Establish management processes — Managing a $5 million budget and vast capital assets properly requires dedicated managers and a clear process.
   1. General Management — It is challenging to manage with a part time Mayor, no Village Manager, and no department heads with management training. The very first thing to do is to establish weekly management meetings between the Mayor and department heads. A working committee should be established to find alternatives ranging from contracted assistance to a village manager.
   2. Capital Budget – We need to implement a capital budgeting process, where there is a long-term plan establishing a prioritized list for big ticket infrastructure projects. This should include streets, sidewalks, parks and the marina. Re-establishing the 50-50 program, where the Village shares 50% of the cost with a property owner, does not prioritize repairs by need, but rather, by who happens to be aware of the program. A possible alternative would be to conduct a sidewalk audit, prioritize necessary repairs, and establish a village wide contract at a wholesale price.
   3. Board Oversight — A Village Board Committee should be dedicated to oversee Budget and administration(see previous post). We need to take a sober look at the budget, deconstruct it, and create a process so that budget items can be prioritized. Currently, the Board has several public meetings to review the budget once a year, which is commendable in its transparency. Unfortunately, this process results in taking last year’s budget, and marginally increasing or decreasing each line item. What is needed is structural changes that will take a more sustained and deep analysis.
5. Economic Development – We need to increase ratables, add more housing, streamline the development process, and do a better job promoting our downtown.
   1. Streamline development review process – Establish a Review Coordinating Committee made up of an elected official, Building Department Staff, and Chairs of key Boards. It will review and assist large scale projects through the process. Developers don’t mind paying higher “pre-development” costs if there is a predictable path to completion. There is nothing developers hate more than unpredictability.
   2. Downtown marketing Coordinating Committee – There are several organizations that help market Nyack’s downtown, but there is no easy way to coordinate with Village Hall. We should create a standing committee to coordinate all interested organizations. This should include representatives from all relevant organizations like the Chamber of Commerce. This committee would coordinate all Village related planning and activities, and would streamline the permitting process and marketing such as signage, banners and advertising.
   3. Streetscape improvements – Downtown is looking like a 40-year old version of Urban Renewal. It was ugly to begin with, now it is ugly and old. It needs a major investment based on our streetscape improvement plan, which has nice sidewalks, lighting, signage, sitting areas, etc. A beautiful streetscape makes a dramatic difference in creating an appealing place to come and hang out. Fortunately, the streetscape improvement initiative is moving along. When the engineering drawings are complete, the Village needs to expedite the process of defining and implementing the first phase of the project.
   4. Riverspace — The “superblock” is located at the heart of our downtown and underutilized. It is an unfortunate result of an incomplete, urban renewal project. I strongly support the Riverspace concept (an arts center with mixed use redevelopment), and believe it is a priority. The main issue is scale and feasibility. A large and complicated project such as this takes a lot of time and ongoing work and communication, and the Village needs to dedicate both elected officials and staff time to help move the process along.

If I am elected as Trustee, I plan on rolling up my sleeves and get some work done. My background as a professional urban planner gives me a unique ability to help the Village achieve a sustainable budget and a solid, long range plan for our future.

Doug Foster is a candidate for trustee in the Village of Nyack.

Nyack needs to change. We have no business playing the game of partisan politics. There is just too much work to do.

We live in a Village with crumbling sidewalks and not enough tax revenue, with empty storefronts and an underutilized waterfront.

There are pockets everywhere of people who feel unheard and disenfranchised, from developers with ideas for responsible expansion of both our real estate options and our coffers, to out of town visitors who’ve heard we have parking problems and don’t want to come anymore.

The merchants fear for their livelihoods and African American families have been asking for a community center for twenty years and no one has even lifted a finger to assess whether it’s something we need or can do. The elderly and the mothers fear crime. The elderly, that they will be victims, the mothers that their children will end up following that path. Five hundred and eighteen Republican voters feel they have no voice in the local government and many citizens worry that their taxes will skyrocket and they won’t be able to afford to raise their children or grow old in the place they love.

It was with excitement, about nine months ago, that I decided to run for Nyack Village Trustee. I had dipped my toes into this kind of community service heading up the Nyack Park Conservancy and working on the Park Commission but running for office seemed like the next logical step in working with others to implement change.

The process of getting elected has been shocking, a bit upsetting and more difficult than I might have imagined. From the moment I decided to run as a Democrat I have been pressured to endorse people whose viewpoints I don’t share, simply because we are Democrats. By the same token, some Republicans who I like and admire and with whom I share beliefs have refused to sit down at a table and discuss issues like sidewalks and development because, simply, I am a Democrat.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

So here’s a crazy idea. What if our Village rejected partisanship and replaced it with practicality. Instead of labels like Democrat, Republican, Working Families, Independence, Green and other national level parties we form our own party. Let’s call it The Practical Party.

It will be a non-partisan party whose goal is to get things done rather than wallow in the “us versus them” politics that paralyzes our nation with vitriol, insider politics and criticism.

The Practical Party approach would match daunting problems with creative solutions to implement effective change. Here’s one example of how that might work to increase revenue for the Village, add more administrative expertise and improve efficiency.

Based on the work the Parks Conservancy has done raising funds for the waterfront, I know that there are lots of places to go besides taxpayer pockets for infrastructure improvements and programming for the lower income members of our community.

The Nyack Treasurer, who has run an enormous chunk of the Village on a day to day basis, is talking about retiring after serving us well. Let’s use this unique timing as an opportunity to explore hiring a part time, non-staff Treasurer and a Village Administrator to take his place. The new administrator could focus on grant writing and bringing in new business, on economic development and serving as a liason to the community of merchants.

At the same time, let’s use this as an opportunity to demand more of Orangetown and the county from the taxes we pay. Let’s also look at restructuring our Village government and reach out to South Nyack and Upper Nyack to find places where we can join forces to increase revenues, improve services, lower infrastructure costs and give the Nyacks’ a worthy downtown and waterfront.

The Practical Party will work hard to promote smart growth and encourage healthy, reasonable development projects that will add some land to our tax rolls. Let’s make Memorial Park and the rest of the waterfront a destination instead of an afterthought.

These are just a couple of big thoughts. But we have to start somewhere. We are a community rich with talent and yet, somehow, not much gets done. Let’s be bold and inspire all of our smart citizens with interesting ideas or thoughts to step up and join the fight. Let’s toss out local partisanship so that Republicans and Democrats can sit down with the Independents and the Green Partiers so everyone can talk about making our Village a better place. Let our Village Board meetings be full because people know that their presence matters and their ideas might help and their voices count. Let’s commit to making Nyack the place we all know it can be.

Oh, wait. Instead of the Practical Party, how about if we call it “Nyack First.”

The Village should restructure the way it holds meetings. Currently it is too easy to slip into a mode where very small decisions take too much of board members valuable time (and the public who attend the meetings), and HUGE decisions never get on the agenda or if they do, they are rushed. In the end, the Village Board spends all its time tending to the trees in front of its face and forgets about managing the forest.

Thursday’s meeting, which included two critical resolutions (2009/10 budget, “superblock” redevelopment) was a painful example where more time was spent on a single event in Memorial Park than on moving ahead with Nyack’s biggest redevelopment initiative since urban renewal. For the first hour the Board had a lengthy and incredibly detailed conversation about two events and a proposal that the downtown businesses would pay for parking three hours on Fridays for two months (doing the math, that’s 24 hours in total).

The Board discussed what should be staff level discussions and decisions, such as insurance and if a project needs to go to the Architectural Review Board. The Village has a Building Commissioner. It is his job to make ministerial decisions like that. And, for the record, putting covers over the Munimeters 8 times for three hours is most definitely a “temporary” sign, so should not be subjected to the ARB. It wastes a lot of peoples time (which is money) and adds to the perception that its hard to get anything done in Nyack.

I suggest the following way to restructure the meetings so that the Board can actually spend time planning and managing:

The problem is that there are only 5 board members, not enough to break up into committees. Commonly the local government legislature will have committees such as Budget/Administration and Planning/Development. The committee meetings are working meetings where no formal resolutions are passed. The time is spent to dig deeper into issues and development them for a full board discussion and formal vote. This is more efficient because many of the smaller issues are worked out ahead of time before it gets to the full board. Also, the committees are responsible for key long term issues.

Currently the Board has two meetings a month. I suggest that one of the meetings is a “Meeting of the Committees”, where no formal resolutions are passed. There should be two committees: Budget/Administration and Planning/Development. Each committee should have a Trustee as chair person who is responsible for the agenda and actually runs that part of the meeting.

At these meetings each committee can investigate the two main areas that need a lot of attention. The Budget/Administration discussion can be used to investigate how departments can be run more efficiently, and how the Village can fix its seemingly structural deficit. The Planning/Development committee can discuss land use issues like the superblock redevelopment, the zoning changes, parks development, the comprehensive plan, etc.

The Mayor’s task force on the superblock, which I was on, submitted a white paper 5 weeks ago to the board, and nothing has been done. The first thing the white paper said was the board had to decide if the redevelopment was a priority. The board had to make that decision, otherwise we stay in the holding pattern we’ve been in for the last two years, where nothing happens. The board hasn’t done anything to figure out how it would make that decision, and it took a virtual revolution by Riverspace to get it on the Mayor’s report at a Board meeting to get the ball rolling.

In the scenario I suggest, the chair of the planning/development committee would be the point person for such an issue, and it would be on the board’s agenda. The planning process would be institutionalized, so that the board would naturally take a recommendation like that and figure out how it would make such a decision if the redevelopment is a priority.

And one other important point about the meetings. There needs to be limits on how long people talk. Amazingly Josh Goldberg was the only one the entire evening to get cut off by the Board, while at the beginning of the evening there were others that talked much longer about a single issue. Setting a boundary on time would force people to be more efficient in their discussion.

The problem is that the board gets lost in the minutia of individual events and requests and never gets around to the big issues, the issues that take time to work on and develop. Everything gets turned upside down and little items get a lot of attention and huge items get ignored or rushed.

This simple change in process would help get our priorities straight.