Three years ago today, I had the honor of taking office as Brightons Supervisor, along with Town Clerk Dan Aman and two of my colleagues on the Town Board, Jason DiPonzio and Chris Werner. We joined Jim Vogel and Louise Novros, who already served on the Board. Since that time, I am proud of the work we have done together as a team for the people of Brighton. During 2014, we celebrated 200 years of Brightons history and I am always conscious of how important it is that we continue to build on the vision and success of Brightons past leaders, while charting a course towards an even more successful future for Brighton, its neighborhoods and businesses, and its residents. Financially, Brighton is strong, despite the economic struggles of recent years and increased costs in so many areas. Despite those challenges, we have kept the Towns tax levy increases below the NYS tax cap each year since the tax cap was established, and we have maintained the AA2 Moodys credit rating that we inherited from my predecessor, Sandy Frankel and her team. We have received several significant grants and will be putting those grants to good use developing trails, updating our comprehensive plan and exploring the use of agricultural structures at Buckland Park as a new home for the Winter Farmers Market. We partner with many other local governments and non-governmental groups, and these partnerships have led to shared successes. We continue to focus on our environment. We have purchased approximately 70 acres of new parkland, and we will construct a trail through that land connecting central Brighton and the Town Hall area with Buckland Park. We have amended our Town Code to prohibit fracking and related activities, to preserve our local control of land use decision making. We have become a Climate Smart Community, one of the few in this area, and as part of that program, we are working to reduce our carbon footprint in our own operations, as well as finding ways to do so for the Brighton community as a whole. We also celebrate the diversity of Brighton, a diversity that makes us a stronger community, where we can all learn from the life experiences of our neighbors. Just last month, we passed legislation prohibiting discrimination against transgender individuals, after the State Senate had refused to even vote on such a measure despite overwhelming passage by the State Assembly. I have been engaged in several formal and informal community dialogues and programs, such as UNITE Rochester and the YWCA Person2Person program, aimed at addressing the issues of poverty in the Rochester area and engaging in communication among people of different races and backgrounds. I greatly appreciate the support that I have received from my friends and supporters, especially all of you that have shown their support by liking this page, my campaign Facebook page. I continue to be committed to public service, as important a mission as there is, and committed to Brighton, a diverse and engaging community like no other. I welcome your feedback, your ideas and most of all, your friendship. My very best wishes to each of you for a happy and successful 2015
Posted on: Thu, 01 Jan 2015 20:47:49 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015