The Katonah-Lewisboro Times 2024 Year in Review

 

Some say it takes a village to raise a child. The residents of the Lake Waccabuc neighborhood in Lewisboro have shown that a community can come together to make a movie. With Waccubuc’s Mar tina Finch—a writer, producer, and actress—at the center of the project, her neighbors stepped up to make sure the movie, which was filmed entirely throughout Lewisboro, got made. Filming for “The Ant Farm,” a psychological thriller, with a touch of science fiction, began in 2019 and took 14 days to complete. The movie is now streaming on Amazon Prime’s Freevee service where it boasts four stars.

 

 

In June, Superintendent Andrew Selesnick retired after nine years at the KLSD helm to become executive director of the Tri-State Consortium of some 50 high-performing, metro-area school districts. At the June 6 Board of Education meeting, the superintendent was saluted by KLSD’s assistant superintendents, Lisa Herlihy (business), Neill Alleva (human resources), Julia Drake (curriculum) and Alexandra Casabona (student support) as well as school board President Julia Hadlock. It was announced that Dr. Raymond Blanch, formally of the Somers Central School District, would be assuming the role of KLSD Superintendent in July.

 

 

In May, veterans’ advocates proudly joined Lewisboro officials, State Senator Pete Harckham, and Assemblymember Chris Burdick to officially dedicate a stretch of Route 121 as the “John Jay High School Veterans Memorial Highway.” Harckham and Burdick originally introduced legislation in July 2023 to rename the highway in front of JJHS to honor the memory of six veterans who were alumni and died in service. The legislation also calls for the Department of Transportation to install and maintain signage of the designation. The Route 121 designation follows the efforts of recent JJHS alumnus Grant Vialardi and John Lemke, chair of the Lewisboro Veterans Advisory Committee, to build a monument commemorating the six fallen veterans.

 

 

In August, the Bedford Town Board voted for a six-month moratorium on applications and permits for so-called “battery farms,” the storage facilities for lithium-ion batteries that collect and hold green-generated electricity.

100 Wins for Walsh John Jay field hockey coach Debbi Walsh notched her 100th win on Oct. 6 when the Wolves topped Hen Hud 7-0. “I am the luckiest person, and I have the best job,” said Walsh after the victory.

 

 

Raymond J. Baker, Sr., Deputy Chief of the Golden’s Bridge Fire Department, died unexpectedly in his sleep at his home on Saturday, March 9. He was 64 years old. From adolescence to his death, Baker’s time in the fire services as both a career and volunteer firefighter spanned more than four-and-a-half-decades. Baker joined the Golden’s Bridge Fire Department in 2016 as a mutual aid member, reuniting in the fire services with the eldest of his two sons, Raymond Baker, Jr., who was already an active volunteer firefighter with the GBFD. One of Baker’s proudest moments in his fire services career was serv ing alongside his son for the past eight years, and together rising through the ranks of the Golden’s Bridge Fire Department – he as Deputy Chief and Baker Jr. as Fire Lieutenant. Baker Sr. became a full member of the Golden’s Bridge FD in 2017, and prior to his appointment to the Deputy Chief position, he served in other posts including as the department’s Certified Training Officer and Captain.

 

 

In May, New York State Senator Pete Harckham and Assemblymember Chris Burdick announced that a $6.5 million resurfacing project had begun on Route 35 between Katonah and South Salem. Joining Burdick and Harckham for the announcement at the Lewisboro Town House were Lewisboro Town Supervisor Tony Gonçalves, Bedford Town Supervisor Ellen Calves, Westchester County Legislator Erika Pierce and New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) Region 8 Deputy Director Nikhil Natarajan. The project was undertaken on parts of Route 35 (also known as Cross River Road and Old Post Road) between Route 22 in Bedford and Mead Street in Lewisboro.

 

 

Two New Jersey men were facing charges in connection with the bombing of a private residence in Bedford Hills in January. Bedford police were called to the McLain Street home near the Mount Kisco border on Jan. 11, to inves tigate a report of a suspicious fire. The fire was contained and there were no injuries or property damage reported. Two days later, police arrested Damjan Stanivukovic, 52, of Closter, and Vladamir Radunovic, 47, of Pompton Lakes, and charged them with one count of unlawful possession of a destructive device and one count of conspiracy to commit stalking apiece.

 

 

The winter season closed with three very talented solo acts. On the vault, around the track and in the water, Kayla Cambareri, Sloan Wasserman and Thom as Brown were the last three to tally the winter solstice, with Cambareri taking 9th place on the vault and Wasserman finishing 14th in the 3000-meter. In the fall Wasserman would again return to states for cross country, this time alongside teammate Andy Condon. Both Wolves would take second place at the state meet in November.

 

 

In November, Democratic incumbent Pete Harckham once again turned away the challenge from Republican Gina Arena in the 40th Senate District. On Election Day, Harckham received 85,554 votes to Arena’s tally of 74,592, according to un official results from the New York State Board of Elections. Harckham was reelected alongside fellow Democrat Assemblymember Chris Burdick, who ran unopposed in the 93rd Assembly District.

 

 

On May 21, Barbara Williams, a South Salem resident and vice president of the Meadow Pond PTO, was the top vote-getter among five school board hopefuls in this year’s Katonah-Lewisboro School District voting. KLSD voters also chose two other trustees in the May 21 balloting and overwhelmingly approved a $124 million budget. With, 1,149 votes, Williams was elected to a three-year term along with Marjorie Schiff of Pound Ridge. A veteran of 12 years on the KLSD board and its president for eight, Schiff easily secured her fifth term with 1,115 votes. With 815 votes, Jon Poffenberger finished third in the three-seat race to fill a board vacancy for one year.

 

 

On Feb. 29, Katonah Fire Department volunteers were dispatched to the scene of a three-car motor vehicle accident on Interstate 684, with reports that an occupant in one of the involved vehicles had been ejected from their car. Further reports indicated the patient may have fallen underneath the interstate overpass that spans Beaver Dam Road and into the water below. Using a Stokes basket and rescue ropes, crews extricated the patient from the ravine and moved him up to the waiting ambulance on the overpass.

 

 

In January, the Bedford Town Board agreed to release thousands of residents’ email addresses to former councilman Don Scott, who had sought them since October under the state’s Freedom of Information Law. While opposed on privacy and safety grounds to providing the personal email data, board members said in a 3-1 vote, that they nevertheless felt compelled to do so under threat of a Scott lawsuit. Scott, a board member from 2015 through 2019, said he was “glad that, in the future, community members will be on equal footing with the Town Board to disseminate important information.”

 

 

Troubled that kindergarteners and other Meadow Pond Elementary School youngsters might hear a book’s fictional account of gender change, parents brought their concerns to a meeting of the Katonah-Lewisboro School District board. Fifteen community members turned out for the Oct. 10 meeting and five addressed the board. They protested any reading to their children of the book “When Aidan Became a Brother,” which tells the story of a child—“everyone thought he was a girl,” the book opens— who is allowed to change his name, room and appearance to become a boy and a brother to his newborn sibling. In response to the parental concerns, the district issued the following statement: “We appreciate that parents take the time to share their views with the Board of Education and school administrators. Our goal as a district is to foster a partnership with families and share relevant, reliable information. It is important to note that there is not and never was a plan to read “When Aidan Became a Brother” as part of an elementary school unit. The book, considered age-appropriate for students in pre-K through second grade by the School Library Journal, is one of many in a classroom library that is used to respond to and support particular children in a teacher’s classroom in a given year. These age-appropriate books are used to provide windows and mirrors into the lives of students and those of their classmates to foster understanding of and appreciation for our unique situations.