{"id":113599,"date":"2026-01-27T04:48:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T04:48:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/113599\/"},"modified":"2026-01-27T04:48:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T04:48:14","slug":"residents-voice-concern-over-potential-need-to-override-village-tax-cap-suggest-cutting-budget-or-identifying-underutilized-property-pelham-examiner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/113599\/","title":{"rendered":"Residents voice concern over potential need to override Village tax cap, suggest cutting budget or identifying underutilized property \u2013 Pelham Examiner"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Marilyn<\/a> <\/p>\n

Marilyn Hoyt address the trustees.<\/p>\n

At the Village of Pelham Board of Trustees meeting marking one year since the opening of the new municipal center on Fifth Avenue, local residents spoke up at a hearing about the Village possibly needing to override the tax cap during the budget process this year.<\/p>\n

According to Mayor Chance Mullen, the public hearing\u2013and the adoption of a local law overriding the tax cap if necessary\u2013is done in advance of the budget process because there is not enough time to do it by the end of the budget process in the spring before the budget will need to be approved. If the tax cap is not overridden, this local law can be repealed, he said.<\/p>\n

The village\u2019s public hearing on the matter came two months after the Town Council of Pelham also approved a local law to override the tax cap.<\/p>\n

Mullen justified the proposed override by pointing to increasing costs that will impact this year\u2019s budget process, including health insurance, retirement, paying for a new 20-year ladder truck, and the village-wide flood mitigation project.<\/p>\n

During the public hearing regarding the tax cap, resident Gregory Spock asked the board if there was anything the trustees could cut from the budget. Spock pointed out that the school board already overrode the tax cap last year, and ConEd prices are consistently increasing. In response, Mullen said the board is going \u201cline by line\u201d through the budget and is \u201cholding the line\u201d as best as it can. Mullen also said that the board will be doing a strategic phasing in of bonds over the next few years to pay for the flood mitigation project, so that there will be \u201ctwo to three moderate increases versus one big increase\u201d in taxes.<\/p>\n

Resident Marilyn Hoyt also spoke during the public hearing. Hoyt said \u201cthe federal government is not like it used to be\u201d and that \u201cstress on towns will grow and grow and not relax,\u201d especially because the federal deficit is increasing. Hoyt suggested the board find some way to generate revenue from underutilized buildings, such as the old Village Hall on Sparks Avenue, as well as property owned by the Archdiocese of New York. She also suggested the board look at neglected areas in town.<\/p>\n

Mullen said that the town\u2019s Emergency Medical Services unit is using space in Town Hall on Fifth Avenue, but a facility will need to be built for the ambulance workers.<\/a> As for the Old Village Hall on Sparks Avenue, Mullen said a decision would need to be made eventually, and that the building would be difficult to rent out. Mullen also told Hoyt that the board has no authority over church property.<\/p>\n

After the override discussion, Allison Anderson, the newest member of the trustees, presented her draft of the scope of work for the Village\u2019s Sustainability Advisory Board.<\/p>\n

This board would focus first on advancing the recommendations Natural Resource Inventory conducted by the board last year to understand Pelham\u2019s access to natural resources, said Anderson. It would also research flexible and accessible community spaces for groups such as teens and seniors to strengthen social connections, and would help with grant alignment for these goals.<\/p>\n

\u201dIt\u2019s exciting to see this is the direction we\u2019re going,\u201d said Trustee Hanan Eldahry.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Marilyn Hoyt address the trustees. At the Village of Pelham Board of Trustees meeting marking one year since…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":113600,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,9,24,63,129,131,130],"class_list":{"0":"post-113599","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-the-bronx","8":"tag-bronx","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-city","11":"tag-nyc","12":"tag-the-bronx","13":"tag-the-bronx-headlines","14":"tag-the-bronx-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113599\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}