Dear fellow Woodbury neighbor, today I write as a Woodbury citizen who has spent many hours listening to neighbors, reading concerns on Facebook, hearing pleas from residents at board meetings, and looking as apolitically as possible at the facts that lie at the foundation of our Town and Village issues — namely a two-decade problem of Village creation with no consolidation of resources and leadership. The cyclical rhetoric of our politicians gets old, and has so far been unproductive. We are at times numb from the back and forth, or else riled up from fears for our community’s future that seems out of our control.
I was in the quiet of my living room when I read Senator Skoufis’ proposal on consolidation, something that has been unattainable for us so far because of incongruent maps. I was immediately reminded of when the Town/Village of Crawford (better known as Pine Bush) looked to consolidate. I read through their Frequently Asked Questions, with thought to our own community and what path it’s future may take.
”8. Isn’t this the same process that happened in Woodbury? Don’t they have issues with overlapping taxes?
”The Village and Town of Woodbury do have issues with overlapping taxes. However, this occurred because the Village and Town only completed the first step in the process — incorporation. The Town of Woodbury never consolidated with the Village of Woodbury. The Petition seeks to avoid the problems created in Woodbury by instead following the consolidation provisions (set forth in the New York Government Reorganization and Citizen Empowerment Act) simultaneously when the new Village of Crawford is created. This is an important distinction to the proposed Petition, as Petitioners are able to overcome Woodbury’s mistakes by creating a combined incorporation and consolidation procedure. The Petition aims to follow Tuxedo’s model, as Tuxedo was successful in overcoming this pitfall and has fully incorporated and consolidated into a town-village.”
This is not the first time I’ve read this type of language to describe Woodbury. However, after reading Senator Skoufis’ offer to the community to write a bill to become law overcoming our non-congruent boundary lines, I began to hope that “finally, we will be a complete municipality, instead of being an example of what not to do.”
We are facing a very real opportunity to effect change in our community, to take a step toward finding solutions to the challenges ahead of us. Instead of remaining in this incomplete state, with factions pulling in separate directions, we owe it to ourselves to explore the Senator’s coterminous proposal when the details have been articulated. Every day we all occupy the same space, and yearn for the same community — this is our opportunity to fine tune and strengthen our community for the generations to come.
Sara Sethna
Woodbury