NEW YORK STATE SENATE — Westchester County – District 35 — Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D) Westchester

Photo of New York State Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins
Andrea Stewart-Cousins is an American politician and educator from Yonkers, New York. A member of the Democratic Party, Stewart-Cousins represents District 35 in the New York State Senate. She serves as the body’s Majority Leader 

Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D, IP, WP)

Senate Majority Leader
35th Senate District
District 35 Map

Contact Information

Website
Facebook
Twitter @AndreaSCousins

District Office

28 Wells Avenue, Building #3
Yonkers, NY 10701
Phone: (914) 423-4031
Fax: (914) 423-0979

Albany Office

188 State Street Room 907, Legislative Office Building
Albany, NY 12247
Phone: (518) 455-2585
Fax: (518) 426-6811

Committee Membership

Andrea Stewart-Cousins is the first woman in the history of New York State to lead a conference in the New York State Legislature .

Ms. Stewart-Cousins was first elected to the New York State Senate in 2006.

Prior to her Senate service, Stewart-Cousins was a Westchester County Legislator from 1996 to 2006.

After the Democratic Party won an outright Senate majority in the 2018 elections, Stewart-Cousins became Majority Leader in January 2019.

Stewart-Cousins first ran for New York State Senate in 2004, but was defeated by 18 votes by incumbent Republican Sen. Nicholas Spano.

In 2006, she challenged Nick Spano again and defeated him.

As of 2019, Senate District 35 includes all of Greenburgh and Scarsdale and portions of Yonkers, White Plains and New Rochelle .

Stewart-Cousins was born in 1951 in Yonkers, New York. She earned her Bachelor of Science Degree from Pace University and her teaching credentials in Business Education from Lehman College.

She received her Masters of Public Administration from Pace University in May 2008 and is a member of Pi Alpha Alpha, the public administration honor society.

She spent twenty years in the private sector, including thirteen years in sales and marketing with New York Telephone.

She also pursued a career in journalism and teaching before entering public service.

Stewart-Cousins’s public service career began in 1992, when she was appointed as the Director of Community Affairs in the City of Yonkers.

Stewart-Cousins was married to the late Thomas Cousins.

She has three children and four grandchildren



NEW YORK STATE ASSEMBLY — Westchester County – District 92 — Thomas J. Abinanti (D)

Photo of Assemblyman Thomas-Abinanti
Thomas J. Abinanti is an American politician, lawyer, and member of the New York State Assembly from Greenburgh, New York. A member of the Democratic Party, Abinanti was elected to the State Assembly in 2010 to replace Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, and represents central Westchester County

Thomas J. Abinanti (D)

District 92
District 92 Map

Contact Information

Website
Facebook
Twitter @TomAbinanti

District Office

303 South Broadway, Suite 229
Tarrytown, NY 10591
Phone (914) 631-1605
Fax (914) 631-1609

Albany Office

LOB 744
Albany, NY 12248
Phone (518) 455-5753

Committee Membership
  • Chair, Commission on Government Administration
  • Committee on Health
  • Committee on Codes
  • Committee on Corporations, Authorities and Commissions
  • Committee on Election Law
  • Committee on Environmental Conservation

Born in Brooklyn, Abinanti graduated from Xaverian High School in 1964. He received a B.A. degree in political science from Fordham College in 1968 and a J.D. from the New York University School of Law in 1972.

Abinanti moved to Westchester in 1975 and has lived in Greenburgh ever since, where he is a practicing attorney and served two terms as Greenburgh Town Councilman (1980–1984 and 1990–1991).

Abinanti has taught continuing legal education courses for Pace Law School and courses in state and local government as an adjunct professor at Mercy College.

Abinanti was legislative counsel to a Congresswoman and staff counsel the Speaker of the New York State Assembly and various Assembly committees. He served as a prosecuting attorney for the villages of Ardsley and Dobbs Ferry.

For almost twenty years (1992–2010), he represented the 12th District on the Westchester County Board of Legislators, which included the villages of Irvington, Dobbs Ferry, Hastings, Ardsley, and much of unincorporated Greenburgh, including East Irvington, Central Greenburgh, Hartsdale and Edgemont, until his election to the State Assembly in November 2010.

On the County Board, he previously served as Majority Leader for three terms when the Democrats first assumed the majority on the Board for the first time in the history of the Westchester Legislature.

The 92nd District of the State Assembly which Abinanti represents includes the towns of Greenburgh and Mount Pleasant, the villages of Ardsley, Elmsford, Dobbs Ferry, Hastings-on-Hudson, Irvington, Tarrytown, and Sleepy Hollow, as well as parts of the Village of Briarcliff and the City of Yonkers.

In 1996, Abinanti was defeated in a run for the 35th District of the New York State Senate against the incumbent Republican State Senator Nicholas A. Spano.

Village of Ardsley – Barbara A. Berardi – 5 Stars

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Barbara A. Berardi

1. Freedom Of Information Compliance And Knowledge Ratings:

Village of Ardsley Clerk Barbara A. Berardi passed our review with flying colors. The response from her office was exceptional. She is truly an asset to the taxpayers of Ardsley.

2. Email Address For Filing FOI Requests

BBerardi@ardsleyvillage.com

3, Mailing Address For Filing FOI Requests

Town Clerk
507 Ashford Avenue
Ardsley NY 10502

4. Experience:

Barbara A. Berardi has been Village Clerk since 2006.

5. From The Village Website:

Image = Village of Ardsley Website 74

The Clerk‘s office is located on the main floor of Village Hall, and is open Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

The Village Clerk is appointed to a two year term and has custody of all Village records, papers, books and communications, as well as the reports and communications of the Board of Trustees. She attends all meetings of the Board of Trustees, serves as Clerk of the Board, and maintains records of the meetings.

The Clerk’s office issues various licenses and permits including annual parking permits for the Village Green and Bridge Street Lots, peddler’s permits, film permits, street opening permits, leaf blower permits and dumpster permits.

The Vital Statistics office is also part of the Clerk’s office. The Registrar of Vital Records maintains and issues certified copies of birth and death records of the Village. The Village Clerk is also the Freedom of Information Officer and processes all requests for records under the Freedom of Information Law.

The Village Clerk acts as the Deputy Treasurer, in the absence of the Village Treasurer.

Staff Contacts

Name Title Phone
Barbara A. Berardi Village Clerk (914) 693-1550 x120

6. Media Reports / Related Pages

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HAMLET HUB: New Village Website Design for Ardsley

It’s always exciting when something gets new and improved and it looks like the Village of Ardsley has done some spring cleaning in hopes of re-vamping the town’s website, and it looks as though it has worked!

The new website has a much more user friendly design, is much easier to read, and contains more useful information than past websites.  In the first 2014 edition of The Ardsley Villagerour town’s newletters, Mayor Peter Porcino make sure to give a shout-out to Nicole Minore, former trustee, and Barbara Berardi, village clerk, for their hard work on the new website design…..

http://news.hamlethub.com/rivertowns/politics/493-new-village-website-design-for-ardsley

THANKS FOR THE MEMORIES: Former Village Manager Remember’s How The Clerk’s Office And Village Used To Be

In 1946 Sam Goldwyn released a wonderful film called “The Best Years of Our Lives.” The drama received seven Academy Awards including Best Picture, and had absolutely nothing to do with me. Its title, however, pretty much sums up the last 24.5 years of my life spent with you as your Village Manager. Little did this fellow know back in 1990, he would be spending nearly a quarter of century dealing with the trials, tribulations, and triumphs of this one square mile community. In a sense 1990 was a relatively quiet time in the Village, and much was still done with pencil and pen. The Village Treasurer and the Village Clerk would break their routine each day at 10:00 am, and prepare tea and scones for themselves and anyone who happened to stumble into the offices. Computers had not arrived yet, nor had postage machines, fax machines, copy machines with collators, or even smoke detectors, but we did have an Addressograph! Construction was slow. If my memory serves me correctly, a grand total of 5 building permits were issued that year. The fleet of vehicles were ancient, but not as ancient as our Village Hall whose attic and walls were shelter to many squirrels, bats, and other furry fauna, with heaving floors, a failing HVAC system, and non-functioning windows. The timbers in the basement were still scarred black from an oil fire in the 1970s, and one of my first big assignments was to secure a firm to install metal reinforcements so the floors wouldn’t collapse. My second big assignment was to get a bond issue to cover the cost of introducing computers to the workforce. My third big assignment was to determine how to address the trout who had taken up residence in the Village Green parking lot — a very long story unto itself. The Village Board was embroiled in a debate with the local merchants about the costly retro-fitting of fire sprinklers in the various storefronts, and much in the way of midnight oil was burnt as this routine stretched on for months and months. Roll the cameras forward to 2014. To the casual observer not much has changed, but the landscape really has changed, and the changes have been vast. The ancient Village Hall was finally demolished and a new modern facility was erected in 1998. A new fire house arrived a few short years later. The reconstruction of Ashford Avenue and its sidewalks, first conceived by my predecessor, Tim Idoni, in 1989, was finally completed in 2001. The library endured not one but two expansions thanks to the generosity of the Carvel Foundation and a joint services contract with the Village of Elmsford, and of course the legendary tenacity of Floyd Lichtenberg. The 1960s vintage ASVAC building was demolished, and thanks to the cooperation of the NYC DEP and the leadership of Captain Pat Hoffmann and her volunteers, a new modular building arrived in the last decade. The bucolic Jordan property was subdivided, and Jordan Lane came to be with its several beautiful homes. The Ardsley Garden Club with the help of a state grant erected a beautiful clock in Addyman Square. Thanks to Arline Weston and Frank Jazzo, Revolutionary War signs were erected in Bicentennial Park and McDowell Park illustrating Ardsley’s role in that era. With the guidance of the Little League Commissioners and Mayor Leon the parking lot was paved in McDowell Park, a new modular restrooms facility arrived, and 4 ball fields were restored. Pascone Park has its skatepark now thanks to Lorraine Kuhn, and a gazebo thanks to Cheryl Mathew. Milton Pintell subdivided his property and the 175 unit Woodlands – Atria and the nearby beautiful homes on Sylvia Avenue came to be. Consolidated Edison was finally persuaded to take over the maintenance of the power lines on McCormick Drive which ensured the Middle School would receive immediate response in the event of a power outage after a major storm. Bridge Street was revived with the arrival of new or remodeled buildings occupied by Doctors United, Riviera Bakehouse, Bucci Auto, and Stagioni. Lou Cillo built a beautiful office building on the south side of the Village, and Maurice Hyacinthe and the DeCicco Brothers revitalized a shopping center in the heart of the Village. Mayor Leon secured a large state grant, and, with the aid of Don Marra, we now have sidewalks we can be proud of on Heatherdell Road, at least between Farm Road and Town Park. And the changes will continue. Although the plans are in place, I leave a Village Board and a very talented new Village Manager who will be faced with the tasks of contending with the reconstruction of the Ashford Avenue bridge, the widening of a portion of Route 9A, the dedication of the 22 unit affordable housing project on the former Waterwheel Restaurant site, and whatever traffic is generated during the construction of Rivertowns Square. I have full confidence that Mayor Porcino and Trustees Malone, Kaboolian, DiJusto, and Monti will perform their tasks admirably as did the five mayoral administrations before them. Often I hear people say they moved here for the schools, and though the schools dearly deserve their fine reputation, I dare say the schools represent only part of the equation. Ardsley has always been very fortunate with the people who reside here. The volunteer spirit in this community has always been alive and well, and continues to thrive even in this era of busy dual income households. The residents stay in tune with what their local government is up to whether it be via newsletter, local newspaper, television, the Internet, over the fence gossiping with a neighbor, or showing up unannounced at the front counter of Village Hall. No matter the mode of communication, the important thing to take away is that the people of Ardsley care about what happens in their community, they really do care, and as a local municipal administrator I really cannot ask for more than that. And so, from the bottom of my heart I thank you all for caring, for volunteering and for letting me be part of your lives these last few decades! — George Calvi, Village Manager

http://rivertowns.dailyvoice.com/news/ardsley-village-manager-offers-november-report/460536/

Response to FOIA Request – American Civil Liberties Union – Automatic Plate Readers

Aug 8, 2012 – Ardsley, New York 10502. (914) 693-1550 … BARBARA A. BERARDI. We are in receipt of … Ardsley Village Police Department. 507 Ashford Avenue …

https://www.aclu.org/files/FilesPDFs/ALPR/new-york/alprpra_ardsleyvillagepolicedepartment_ardsleyny_1.pdf

FIND THE DATA: Barbara Berardi Salaries

2011 – $79,946

2013 – $85,696

http://state-employees.findthedata.com/d/a/Barbara-Berardi

JOURNAL NEWS: Westchester villages on fiscally stressed list

Mayor: Ardsley not ‘fiscally stressed’

Four villages in Westchester and Rockland counties made 2014’s most-fiscally stressed list released Monday by state Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli.

The comptroller’s report said Tuckahoe was among four villages in the state facing “significant fiscal stress” while Ardsley was designated along with two other villages as being under “moderate fiscal stress.” Pomona and New Square were listed in a third tier, “susceptible to fiscal stress.”

DiNapoli reviewed 539 out of the state’s 549 villages and scored them by calculating year-end fund balance, short-term borrowing and patterns of operating deficits. The 10 villages with fiscal years beginning in January will be included in a later report….

….Ardsley Mayor Peter Porcino said the village had under budgeted for police salaries and village contributions to benefits by $200,000……

The Mayor Later Responded:

“Our financial condition is fine,” said Ardsley Mayor Peter R. Porcino. “We’re surprised that the comptroller has us in that category.”

http://www.lohud.com/story/news/politics/2015/02/23/rockland-westchester-villages-stressed/23904495/

7. Notes

This Ratings Page Has Been Updated With Additional Information

About The Village Of Ardsley

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Ardsley is a village in Westchester County, New York, United States. It is part of the town of Greenburgh. The village’s population was 4,452 at the 2010 census. The current mayor of Ardsley is Peter Porcino.

The Ardsley post office serves the entire village of Ardsley plus some nearby unincorporated sections of Greenburgh. The Ardsley Union Free School District includes the entire village of Ardsley plus parts of the village of Dobbs Ferry and unincorporated parts of Greenburgh. Ardsley has a library that is a member of the Westchester Library System.

Ardsley should not be confused with the nearby hamlet of Ardsley-on-Hudson, which is part of the village of Irvington.

Before the area where Ardsley is now located was settled by Europeans, it was inhabited by the Wickquasgeck Indians, a band of the Wappingers, related to the Lenape (Delaware) tribes which dominated lower New York state and New Jersey.

After the Dutch came to the area, the land was part of the Bisightick tract of the Van der Donck grant purchased byFrederick Philipse in 1682, but in 1785 the state of New York confiscated the land from his grandson, Frederick Philipse III, after he sided with the British in the American Revolution, and sold it to local patriot farmers who had been tenants of the Phillipse family.

The village of Ashford was formed from some of these portions, named for the main road. Notable businesses included a blacksmith, and a sawmill and grist mill both situated upon the Saw Mill River. Three pickle factories were in operation by the Civil War, and in the 1880s the construction of the Putnam Railroad and New Croton Aqueduct led to a population boom which saw the installation of electric lighting and improved roads. Due to the presence of an earlier Ashford Post Office in New York state, the town took the name “Ardsley” after the name of a local baron’s estate, and the first village postmaster was appointed in 1883.

The renaming of Ardsley is attributed to Cyrus West Field, who owned 780 acres (3.2 km2) of land lying between Broadway (Dobbs Ferry) and Sprain Brook (Greenburgh) named Ardsley Park. He had named Ardsley Park after the English birthplace of his immigrant ancestor, Zechariah Field (East Ardsley, West Riding of Yorkshire, England), who immigrated to the U.S. in 1629. The story told growing up in Ardsley by elderly neighbors is that Cyrus W. Field agreed to use his influence to get the post office established, and in return the village would be renamed Ardsley. The information about Zechariah Field and Ardsley Park came from Diane Druin Gravlee, great-great-granddaughter of Cyrus W. Field.

Incorporated in 1896, Ardsley would continue to grow at a steady pace, until a fire destroyed the village center in 1914. This led to the reconstruction of several buildings, and the establishment of a fire department in the former schoolhouse. Two more population booms would follow, the first spanning the time between the end of the first World War and the beginning of the Depression, and the second following World War II. A public high school was established in 1912, with an addition in 1925. The school did not suit the needs of the growing population, so the current high school was established in 1957, with its first graduating class in 1958. The old high school was converted into a middle school, until in 1971 the 5.5 million dollar middle school was built. The Concord Road School was built in 1953 with an addition in 1966.

This second boom led to the eventual construction of several village schools, including Concord Road Elementary School (1952),Ardsley High School (1958), and Ardsley Middle School (1967). The village was greatly changed by the construction of the New York State Thruway in the late 1950s, which resulted in both the loss of the Ardsley station on the Putnam Division of the New York Central Railroad and the loss of much of the downtown business district.

On October 19, 1985, an earthquake measuring 4.0 on the Richter scale shook Ardsley and was felt over much of the New York City area.

Please Read More Here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ardsley,_New_York

Area: 1.313 mi²

Zip code: 10502

Population: 4,540 (2013)