A Salute to the Veterans of Scarsdale
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- Written by Joanne Wallenstein
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Scarsdale honored the bravery and sacrifice of those who have served in our armed forces on Veteran’s Day, Monday November 11, 2024. The morning started with speeches, followed by a parade through the streets of the Village.
On hand were Mayor Justin Arest, representatives from the Scarsdale Board of Trustees, Village Manager Alex Marshall, the American Legion, Scarsdale’s Girl Scouts, Scarsdale’s Boy Scouts, the Scarsdale Fire Department, the Scarsdale Police Department and many Scarsdale residents who attended to express their gratitude to our veterans.
Photo Credit: Mayra Kirkendall Rodriguez
Photo by Mayra Kirkendall Rodriguez
The Pledge of Allegiance was led by Troop 4 Scouts, Christian Kirkendall-Rodriguez and Jason Ren and the scouts participated in the parade.
Photo gallery by Michelle Sterling:
In Support of Garrett Capobianco for CNC
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- Written by Joanne Wallenstein
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The following letter was submitted by Victoria Capobianco in support of her father for election to the Citizens Nominating Committee.
It’s late on a Tuesday evening and I’m leaving work. Worn out and drawn long, I eagerly anticipate speaking with my Dad as I drive back to my apartment. After discussing work, studies, and recent global events, I ask him about home and his running for a position on the Citizens Nominating Committee (CNC). He fittingly said, “From a place of profound gratitude, I am humbled by the opportunity to continue to serve our community in a new role, as a member of the CNC representing Greenacres.”
Please permit me this opportunity to tell you a little bit about a man whose head and heart have always been filled with service— a man who I call “Dad”
My dad, Garrett Capobianco, is a 53-year-native of Scarsdale, NY and has sought out ways to serve his community throughout his life. His commitment to service was instilled to him by his experiences in the scouts as a young adult and was further cultivated in his 11 years as a member of Scarsdale Volunteer Fire Company 1, an organization which he joined while attending Scarsdale Senior High School at just 18-years-old. My dad would go on to serve as Volunteer Membership Chair from 1987-1992, increasing company membership to the maximum allowed by charter. From 1991-1995, he was Volunteer Lieutenant and later promoted to Volunteer Captain, serving from 1995-1997.
After earning his Bachelor of Business Administration in Banking and Finance from The Frank G. Zarb School of Business at Hofstra University in 1989, my Dad worked as a loan officer for the Bank of New York Mortgage Company from 1990-1993, earning the title of Assistant Sales Manager in 1992 at just 26-years-old. Throughout his work as a loan officer, he continued to be invested in his contributions as a volunteer Scarsdale firefighter, and although he experienced much success in his position at the Bank of New York Mortgage Company, he felt a deeper calling to service. In 1997, my Dad graduated from the Westchester County Career Fire Chiefs Firefighters Academy Class 1-97, and became a career firefighter for The Village of Scarsdale– the very same town in which he grew up. He served on the letter committee as the Letter Chair & Corresponding Secretary from 1998-2003 for the International Association of Firefighters Local 1394 and as union secretary from 2001-2014. In 2014, he was elected to a two-year term as union president by his department. Throughout this 21-year career, he received many Line of Duty Commendations for his exceptional work and dedication to public service.
He has said that it “takes a village to raise a child. I was raised in this Village and with this Village I have raised two children.” Of all of the titles and positions he has dutifully fulfilled throughout his lifetime, my Dad assigns the highest priority and pride to his role as a single father to two children– Christian and Victoria. Our Dad raised us in the Scarsdale School System, where both my brother and I attended and graduated from Greenacres. While we learned and grew at Greenacres, our Dad was heavily involved in the Parent Teacher Association (PTA) for many years and served as Safety Advisor in this position– a role that proved evermore critical in the wake of the Sandy Hook tragedy. I can recall our Dad attending almost all of our field trips and the playground frequently filled with vibrant, new equipment. It would not be until I grew up that I realized these happy experiences were, in part, the results of Dad’s commitment to the PTA.
In 2015, Garrett joined The Rotary International Club of Scarsdale, NY, and has been a dedicated member ever since. Following his retirement from career firefighting, he became President of the club for the 2020-2021 Rotary year. Charged with transitioning the club from in-person to virtual meetings, Garrett was greatly adaptive in his role and integral to the success of the club throughout the pandemic. In recognition of his service to the club and his community, Garrett was awarded the title of Paul Harris Fellow in 2021. As his role in Rotary continues to expand, he endeavors to live his life by the Rotary International Four Way Test:
Of the things we think, say, and do;
Is it the truth?
Is it fair to all concerned?
Will it build goodwill and better friendships?
Is it beneficial to all concerned?
He currently serves as President of the Scarsdale Rotary Foundation, a position which he has fulfilled since 2021. I am filled with excitement to witness how his role in service to the community will continue to grow.
Service is at the core of all my Dad strives to do in his life. In this new role as a representative for Greenacres of the CNC, he brings intellectual humility, profound empathy for others, dedication to “service above self” and an unparalleled appreciation for his village and those in it. My Dad deeply understands what it means to be a member of this community having been raised himself, attended school, worked, raised kids, served and resided in Scarsdale. To this role on the CNC, he also brings with him the capacity to advocate, earning significant experience in this skill as Union President of Local 1394 and later as the President of the Rotary Club of Scarsdale, NY. Throughout his many positions in service to the community, my Dad has worked with a wide range of people from diverse backgrounds, cultures and personalities. From these many experiences and relationships, he has developed true cultural competency, and intellectual humility– he embodies what it means to value the nuances of other perspectives and to be a team player. With your support and vote for my Dad, I am confident that Greenacres would be well represented on the CNC. He is greatly privileged and humbled by the opportunity to serve Scarsdale in this new capacity. I am proud to call him “Dad”.
Please cast your vote on Tuesday, November 12th at the Scarsdale Public Library from the hours of 7:00 AM to 10:00 AM and 2:00PM to 9:00PM.
With great respect and appreciation,
Victoria Capobianco
SHS ‘20
[email protected]
Letters to the Editor on Proposition 1
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- Written by Joanne Wallenstein
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This letter was submitted by Will Brennan of 10 Tunstall Road Scarsdale and does not reflect the views of the publisher of Scarsdale10583.com as published on our pages.
To the Editor,
Constitutional amendments like Prop 1 (called the New York Equal Rights Amendment by its proponents) should be clearly written and clearly understood by the public before they are adopted. Unfortunately, New York’s Democratic Party appears to have decided that obscuring what Prop 1 says and does better suits their electoral interests. Thus, the Scarsdale Democratic Party’s October 9th Letter to the Editor is woefully inaccurate and misleading in its effort to promote Prop 1. This amendment will make significant, undiscussed changes to New York law, and potentially will alter not only abortion laws and parental rights, but also the application of criminal laws to minors, as well as laws regulating driving, marriage, alcohol/marijuana, and firearms.
First, it’s never a good sign when the proponents of a constitutional amendment fail to link to the actual wording – it is here.
Second, the Scarsdale Democratic Party’s primary selling point for Prop 1 is that “Prop 1 does nothing to change existing law—it does not create any new rights or protections” because it merely “enshrines [existing] rights and protections in the New York Constitution.” This is both implausible – if it doesn’t change existing law, what’s the point? – and inaccurate on multiple grounds.
To begin, constitutionalizing rights previously granted by statute does change them: it gives such rights much more authority in case of a conflict between these rights and other state policies. Put simply, constitutionalized rights almost always win out in conflicts between those rights and other government priorities. More importantly, Prop 1 would create new rights – including rights that appear to be unintended by Prop 1’s drafters – that go well beyond existing law.
For example, New York already has statutory age discrimination laws, but these are limited to specific contexts (e.g., employment) and don’t apply to all ages (child labor laws actually require discrimination against minors in many contexts). Prop 1’s constitutionalized ban on all age-based discrimination would sweep far more broadly. On its face, forbidding laws that discriminate based on age would abolish age limits in driving, marriage, purchasing and consuming alcohol and cannabis, and possessing firearms. Our existing laws that give leniency to minors who commit criminal acts constitute de facto discrimination against older offenders – so does Prop 1 mean we will have to punish children more, or adults less? The Scarsdale Democratic Party’s Letter to the Editor also assures voters that Prop 1 would not impact parental rights, but fails to explain how parental rights could be unaffected once laws that discriminate on the basis of age are invalidated. Parental rights are fundamentally age-based -- they depend on the government’s ability to recognize that minors should not have the full set of civil rights exercised by adults. 
Prop 1 proponents may claim that the New York courts could find a way to avoid striking down at least some of those existing laws and rights, but what does it say about Prop 1 if we have to hope that it won’t be implemented as written?
Third, while Prop 1’s abortion-related wording is not at all clear – it doesn’t even mention the word “abortion” – the Scarsdale Democratic Party assures us that Prop 1 would not change New York’s existing 24-week threshold and the rules that govern abortion after 24 weeks. But no explanation is offered as to how this can be true when Prop 1’s plain text does not indicate any limit at all on abortion rights, let alone the specific 24-week threshold in existing law. It thus seems far more likely that Prop 1 will operate to change New York’s abortion laws than to preserve them and, since Prop 1’s wording is so opaque, it’s not clear what the result will be.
Finally, it is especially problematic that Prop 1’s “Form of Submission”, the description that voters will see on their ballots, fails to adequately describe the proposed amendment. Specifically, the ballot will not describe Prop 1’s Section b, which permits the government to make laws and regulations that do discriminate against protected classes as long as the government claims that such discrimination was needed to “prevent or dismantle” some other discrimination. Thus, Section b arguably increases the power of New York law-makers, since the existing New York Constitution does not have a “good intentions” exception for governmental discrimination. People can absolutely disagree in good faith about whether our state government should be granted the power to discriminate against people based on their group identity when law-makers say they mean to help, but surely the Legislature’s request for a new power to discriminate should be clearly described to the voters.
Prop 1’s proponents should be willing to defend Prop 1’s changes – both intentional and accidental – as part of an honest and open debate, but that’s not what’s been happening. Especially given existing laws and the Democratic Party’s control of all branches of our state government, Prop 1 is just a poorly drafted amendment with unknown effects and for which there is no urgent need. (For those interested in what a better alternative would look like, Ohio passed a much clearer constitutional amendment protecting abortion rights last year.)
I encourage you to vote “No” on Prop 1.
Respectfully,
Will Brennan
10 Tunstall Road
Scarsdale, NY 10583
From State Senator Shelley Mayer
State Senator Shelley Mayer encourages constituents to vote yes on Proposition 1 - here is her letter:
Proposed Constitutional Amendment - Proposition 1 - to be Considered by Voters on November Ballot
This year’s November ballot will include a proposed amendment to the New York State Constitution, named the Equal Rights 
Amendment, which, if approved, would amend the Constitution to protect against unequal treatment on the basis of ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, creed, religion, or sex including sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes, reproductive healthcare and autonomy. The Equal Rights Amendment would enshrine the right to abortion in the State Constitution. If the amendment is not approved, the state constitution will be left as it currently is.
The Equal Rights Amendment passed both houses of the New York State Legislature in two consecutive sessions, as required by law. The measure now goes before voters for their consideration.
The New York State Constitution currently only provides protections against discrimination on the basis of race, color, creed, and religion. This amendment would extend that protection to include age, gender, disability status, sexual orientation, and pregnancy outcomes, among others.
Prop 1 has been endorsed by the New York City Bar Association and the New York Civil Liberties Union. For more information, please visit your local Board of Elections.
Senator Shelley B. Mayer said, “I encourage all New Yorkers to make their voice heard on this matter by flipping their ballot over and voting on this constitutional amendment.”
A rally for reproductive rights and Proposition 1 was held in White Plains on Saturday October 25.
Broken Voting Machines and a Dispute About Campaigining on Election Day
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- Written by Joanne Wallenstein
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In the run-up to this pivotal election we have heard so much about the potential for fraud and the disenfranchisement of voters. Though many are concerned about the security of the election in other states, most of us assumed that voting in our small Village would be routine.
However, this was not the case on election morning at three Scarsdale polling sites where broken voting machines and a dispute over signs disrupted the vote.
What happened? At the Heathcote School a voter reported that he showed up to vote just after 6 am, the voting machine for his district was broken. (There are four districts in Heathcote and just one machine was broken.)
Eric Schnipper said, “A staff member stated that he was going to report it but had no idea when the Board of Elections would arrive to repair the machines. They went into election day knowing that one of the machines was broken but were surprised that the other machine was broken as well. When I initially voted by affidavit my ballot was placed on the floor and when I protested the lack of security of this ("We have to put it there for now so we can process other voters") it was then placed in an intended envelope which the staff did not seem to know how to open initially. The level of unpreparedness for an event such as this was astounding and I felt disenfranchised.”
Schnipper continued, “I reported this online and have already spoken to someone from the NY State Attorney General's office. Additionally, this story has been picked up by multiple sources on X/Twitter and has been widely disseminated.”
A Quaker Ridge woman had a similar experience. Though the voting machines were initially working, when she went to cast her vote at 8:40 am the voting machine for her district, which is one of two districts, was also broken.
What to do? She was told to fold her ballot and put it into a red bag that would be sealed and brought to the Board of Elections to be tabulated. She left there with the uneasy feeling that her vote would not counted.
There were also reports that one of the two voting machines at the Edgewood School was broken on election day morning.
By 10:30 am the machines had been fixed. It should be noted that the voting machines are supplied by the Westchester County Board of elections who runs the election, not the Village of Scarsdale.
Advocacy
Problems have also emerged with advocates for Proposition 1 who were disseminating literature and speaking to voters outside the polls. NYS law permits signs at polling places if they are 100 feet from the door.
Th school district received a complaint about the advocates near the Heathcote School and the Superintendent was called. Citing a policy that bars advertising near the schools during school hours Superintendent Andrew Patrick said they would have to leave the property.
The question is, when school is not in session and the school is serving as a polling place, do school rules prevail for political activity?
Former Scarsdale Residents Launch 5 Star Inn: You're Invited
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- Written by Wendy MacMillan
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Have you ever fantasized about leaving the Dale behind and running a country inn? That’s what two former Scarsdale residents have done – and you’re invited to visit their beautifully designed suites in Salisbury, CT.
Many in Fox Meadow remember Aidan and Charles Cassidy-Teti. As long-time designers, the dynamic duo were well-known in Scarsdale for their beautiful aesthetic…whether it be home decor, an impeccable meal, landscape design, or decorating for elementary school events, we miss their artistic touch.
But now you can enjoy fall foliage season. school visits and autumn’s bounty at 9 Academy, their new bespoke inn for discerning travelers.
Nestled in the quaint, storybook village of Salisbury, CT. 9 Academy offers a home away from home with three beautifully designed suites that combine “the flair of a luxury hotel with all the amenities and convenience of a well-appointed home.” With each suite featuring lavish king sized bedrooms that flow seamlessly to spacious living and dining spaces, 9 Academy is the perfect place to come back and unwind after exploring the beauty of the Berkshire Mountains.
After an adventurous day of hiking in the woods or trekking through the prestigious campuses, some guests may choose to stay in and take advantage of their suite’s well-stocked kitchen or relax with a glass of Pinot in their own private garden. For those that prefer to tour the charming, New England village, 9 Academy is ideally located steps from all that Salisbury has to offer.
I recently had the pleasure of catching up with my dear friends and convinced them to share an update with us all.
What drew you to Salisbury?
We fell in love with the Northwest Corner like many people do, by visiting and then buying a weekend place. Escaping from the city was our weekly ritual and over the years we found ourselves wanting to spend more and more time up here. The Salisbury CT area is a special place, bucolic in nature, full of interesting and creative people who are drawn to the unspoiled landscape and the proximity to the urban centers of New York and Boston. There are also a number of world class boarding schools that attract a global audience of families visiting and enrolling. This adds a vibrant multicultural layer to the community.
What inspired you to create 9 Academy?
Both of us have spent our entire working careers in the design field. Covid offered us the opportunity to apply those skills with a fresh start. Armed with our deep knowledge of the area we found a small building in the center of Salisbury village that hit all the right notes, walkability, convenience and potential. Recognizing a void in the market as there are few hotels in the vicinity, we settled upon the idea of creating an upscale hospitality venue. Somewhere we imagined that WE would be the ultimate guest and with an original aesthetic not duplicating the format of the wonderful inns and small hotels that are currently here.
How does 9 Academy differ from more traditional accommodations?
9 Academy is a brand new property comprised of luxury apartments available by the night, featuring three modern and elegant suites. Each suite occupies a full floor of the house giving you privacy and plenty of space to relax. Inside the experience is equal parts posh hotel (Le Labo bath products, Parachute bedding and Nespresso coffee) and home comfort (European kitchens , washer/dryers and super fast WiFi), each with its own charm and personality.
Go for the Garden Suite for a separate entrance and private outdoor space: the second floor Parlor Suite is made for slow mornings, with a cozy reading nook and stairs down to a quiet yard; while the third floor Loft Suite is a light flooded enclave with skylights and French doors that open onto a private terrace. Common throughout is a flexible layout for four (including children aged 8 and up) with a king bed and queen sleeper sofa. The spa -like bathrooms have huge soaking tubs and heated floors - perfect for a New England retreat.
We feel this functionality allows our guests to experience a more relaxed vibe, as if they were on a staycation but, with all those additional perks a typical short-term rental may not offer.
What makes 9 Academy such a beloved respite for discerning travelers? What do you think inspires so many 5 star reviews?
Our intent for the suites at 9 Academy is that a sense of relaxation and comfort should envelop you.
To achieve this Zen vibe we used a curated, pared back aesthetic for the interiors featuring a palette of soft plaster, raw oak flooring, wide expanses of polished concrete and earthy linen textiles. We wanted to evoke a sophisticated modern look but, still have it feel as though you are rooted in rural Connecticut. Artwork and photographs further emphasize the landscape and local flora. The emphasis on simple natural materials makes that connection and people really seem to appreciate it so far.
What is your idea of a perfect weekend spent at 9 Academy?
Whatever the season, don't miss a wander into town for cappuccino and morning pastries at Sweet William’s followed by a yoga class at RigaYoga. Head out to West Cornwall to shop the stylish finds at Michael Trapp, if you’re feeling adventurous hop on an E-Bike at Covered Bridge Bike and hit the mountain trails. Head back to Salisbury for dinner at the White Hart Inn and end the day with a nightcap on your private terrace. 9 Academy is a plum location in the heart of Salisbury and the wider CT-NY-MA triangle that puts all the regional highlights within driving distance. Plan to eat, antique, ski and swim your way through all three states!
In fact, there are so many wonderful places and things to enjoy in the area it inspired us to build an “Explore” page at our website, where guests can browse our personal tips for local dining, shopping and cultural attractions. There is really something for everyone in the Northwest corner!
So if you are looking for that perfect autumn get away or just want to say hello to an old friend, make sure you check out 9 Academy here.
And it’s not too late to take advantage of their Fall Promo: Enjoy a discount on any two-night stay starting 9/5/2024 and ending 11/30/2024. And check them out on Instagram here.
