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:

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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)