The New York-Connecticut Sustainable Communities Consortium will host the seventh in a series of town hall meetings on February 15th in Mount Vernon, New York to seek public input for a three-year effort to improve jobs, housing, transportation and the environment. The meeting will focus on the needs and priorities of connecting the lower Hudson Valley cities of Yonkers, Mount Vernon and New Rochelle.
The Town Hall will feature Hon. Ernest D. Davis, Mayor of Mount Vernon, Hon. Noam Bramson,
Mayor of New Rochelle, and the Hon. Michael Spano, Mayor of Yonkers (invited) who will speak to issues of land use and transportation in southern Westchester County, along with local and regional planning experts.

The meeting is open to the public.

The meeting also will look at how the consortium is working to expand job and housing opportunities; ways that these southern Westchester County cities – together with a wide range of public, private and local community partners – are participating in this effort; how to obtain preferred status for federal grant applications; and opportunities to get involved in planning for the region.

Downtown New Rochelle business and property owners participating in the New Rochelle BID Energy Savings Program with Con Edison are collectively saving more than $100,000 annually on their electric bills. They are doing this by reducing their energy consumption by more than 625,000 kilowatt hours, equivalent to more than ninety (90) average households’ annual energy consumption and to almost a million (1,000,000) fewer pounds of CO2 emissions. In addition, they are accomplishing these energy savings while improving the quality of their lighting and extending the life span of their equipment, lowering replacements costs.

Senator Suzi Oppenheimer (D-Mamaroneck) today commended the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) for its decision to extend the public comment period on the DEC’s proposed rules on the hydraulic fracturing of natural gas. The extension – to January 11, 2012 – was announced this week at a public hearing in New York City that attracted nearly 6,000 people and generated more than 1,250 comments into the public record.

“The unprecedented attendance at this week’s public hearing underscores the enormous public interest in this important environmental and public safety issue,” said Oppenheimer. “I am pleased by the DEC’s willingness to afford all interested citizens ample opportunity to study the draft regulations and provide substantive feedback to the Department.”

SYRACUSE, N.Y. (Aug. 30, 2011) – The New York State Environmental Facilities Corp. today announced that New Rochelle today won the 25th New York State Drinking Water Taste Test at the New York State Fair.

After being selected from 10 regional contests, water from 10 municipal water systems (see list below) were tasted and judged by nearly 300 Fairgoers today. Votes were cast for two finalists – the Village of Baldwinsville in Onondaga County (judged the best tasting water among ground-water drinking sources) and the City of New Rochelle in Westchester County (judged the best tasting water among surface-source water systems) with New Rochelle winning the final tally by just three votes.

The Environmental Facilities Corp. sponsored this year’s contest to underscore EFC’s role in improving and protecting Clean Water and Drinking Water systems in New York State. EFC has assets of more than $12 billion for low-interest financing, grants and other financing of drinking water and wastewater systems in New York..

A while back I had posted about strange Animal parts by the train station. My laptop died so i was never able to upload the pictures. Today jacksonstreetgrl and I came across more weird body parts so I am including her pics and mine in this post. the city should probably start checking whats going on here..

Walking towards Memorial HWY from the New Haven bound side of the metro north there can be seen strewn about on the floor, a complete pair of wings with no body, when walking towards Huegenot ST near A Renue Spa there is a head, a claw, and a complete heart a few feet apart from each other, this doesnt look like the work of another animal and the head and claw did not appear to be of a bird thats common to the Area. I Took pictures but It doesnt seem like there is an option to upload them to this post. If anyone knows how please tell me. I am not an expert but it doesnt look like left over animal killings ive seen in the past, so if anyone can identifiy if this was done by a human let us know so the proper authorities can be contacted. Thank you!

Residents of the normally quiet East End section of New Rochelle were amused as they watched a young male deer foraging in their neighbor's garden. A first for any of the locals, it was a pleasant surprise especially for the kids. One neighbor called the police who asked "is he breaking any laws?" and that put it into perspective as we all learn to share the environment.