The Examiner News' 2023 Endorsement for Joe Bonanno!

Time for a Change in Mount Pleasant? Voters Have a Difficult Choice

Editorial Board | The Examiner News | October 31, 2023

Oftentimes change can be constructive, whether it’s within the private sector, an organization or a local government.

Having the same types of voices year after year can cause stagnation, and new ones can bring a fresh perspective....

The current all-Republican Town Board...has been the subject of some valid criticism on several fronts.

Consider this:

The town fails to publish work session agendas, making it an outlier in the northern half of the county. Why is that important? While the Mount Pleasant work sessions mostly review mundane resolutions for the next week’s regular meeting, there are sometimes highly notable presentations that could give the public a first glimpse of important development. Representatives for Toll Brothers’ 162-unit proposal appeared three times before the Town Board between October 2022 and May 2023, but didn’t appear on an agenda or in front of cameras until June.

The town either didn’t know or didn’t say who the tenant was going to be –Amazon – for the 153,000-square-foot warehouse on Route 9A. It was approved by the Planning Board in July 2020 and is expected to open early next year.

The town appears to approve rezoning or site plans and worries about mitigation later. The Brightview assisted living project on Grasslands Road is on one of the busiest roads in the area and it was approved with the assumption that it won’t make congestion worse. Residents on residential streets near the Amazon site were already overloaded but had no way of knowing a corporate behemoth would move into their backyards.

The board amended zoning for a cluster subdivision on 36 acres by Pocantico Lake before anyone knew what that was about. About two months later the applicant submitted its formal application for a 31-lot clustered project

Then there are the hot-button issues surrounding the Cottage School. The town has rightfully sought answers from operator JCCA for incidents that have taxed the police department. But it has unnecessarily politicized the issue of unaccompanied minor children expected in the near future....

Joe Bonanno has served for eight years as a Valhalla fire commissioner and for 22 years as firefighter. He got his feet wet two years ago when he lost the supervisor’s race to Fulgenzi and has run a much more active campaign for Town Board. He has correctly identified the areas of concern for residents....

Bonanno...has the breadth of knowledge required to serve the town well and to raise important counterpoints to the majority.

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