As a Woodbury resident for 20 years, I love living in this community. Shortly after I moved here, I started hearing about the move to form the Village of Woodbury. I starting looking into the reasons for this initiative, and found out they were quite sound. It was to prevent the Balkanization of the Town of Woodbury, which is what unfortunately happened to the Town of Monroe – villages getting incorporated within with their own agendas.
I didn’t want that to happen to Woodbury, and so I supported the formation of a village that occupied the same boundaries as the town, but with an important exception. The Village of Harriman occupies a small portion of the Town of Woodbury, and because villages can’t be formed within others, this meant that under NY State law, we couldn’t have a single, unified town/village of Woodbury government (since the boundaries were not exactly the same).
There are good reasons to have a single, unified Woodbury town/village government. The most obvious one that comes to mind is reducing the overlap in governmental functions and services, which can result in cost savings. Others include: having one governing body can simplify decision-making processes and reduce administrative overhead, clearer representation since the same officials govern both the town and the village, allows the town and village to work towards a unified vision for development, land use, and community goals, and with one governing body, there is often better coordination on planning and economic development projects, which can be beneficial for long-term growth.
I’ve read that there were previous proposals to dissolve the village — bad idea! The Village of Woodbury is stopping any more villages from being created within, which was the original purpose. I also read that back in 2012, in calmer times, both the Town and Village boards voted unanimously to pursue a similar proposal to what Senator Skoufis has advanced.
This was a good idea then, and is a good idea now. We should all support Senator Skoufis’ special legislation to allow a coterminous government for Woodbury.
Jay Caplan
Woodbury