Bigger Days are Ahead
Dear Mount Vernon Family and Friends,
In 2005, I wrote a letter to President Bill Clinton asking him about careers in public service and how to manage constituents with varying interests.
I was fortunate enough to receive a response from the President. He told me that, “a career in public service calls for dedication to meeting the needs of our country’s citizens,” and that this work is both challenging and rewarding. President Clinton encouraged that I “get to know many different people with different religious and political backgrounds” to get a better understanding of our country’s diverse needs. He also emphasized that, “Good leaders must have a clear plan of action to solve problems and make positive changes.”
As a father and as Mayor, I am always thinking about the future and how we can turn today’s problems into tomorrow’s solutions.
We all know what Mount Vernon’s problems are.
A shuttered Memorial Field.
A City Council that cut the Police Commissioner and slashed the police force by nearly 12 percent.
A Comptroller who won’t pay the bills and leaves Mount Vernon in the dark.
The solutions are clear.
Open Memorial Field.
Invest in public safety and support our men and women in uniform.
Digitize City Hall.
And Bring Jobs Back to our City!
These things are difficult to accomplish when there are deep communication issues between me, the City Council, and Comptroller. My office has written letters, sent invitations, convened the Clergy, gathered thought leaders from Bloomberg Philanthropies, commissioned studies by the World Economic Forum, each in an attempt to transparently work with them… and still they won’t accept my invitation to connect, even on LinkedIn.
The facts are clear and concrete. Mount Vernon wants deep and substantial change. Mount Vernon deserves deep and substantial change. And I will continue to advance deep and transformative change.
I am committed to making our City rise and will not give up on getting the Council and Comptroller to the table to address the issues that are important to you. These priorities include safety, quality of life, improving the schools and increasing property values.
The simple truth is we are winning and Mount Vernon is winning. Just last week, the city gave over $1 million in funding to three critical organizations that are doing transformative work such as Habitat for Humanity, Westchester Rehabilitation Organization, and ACE. These funds will go towards home-buying programs and getting hard working people safer, healthier homes to live in.
After months of ignoring your voices, we finally got the City Council and Comptroller to listen and take the first step toward acting on our vision for a safer city. The recently authorized $4.5 million in equipment will translate our conversations with Microsoft, Trust for Public Land, Pace Land Use Center and your neighborhood associations into essential investments in public safety, technology, and strengthen municipal services. The time frame for this to happen is now. We waited long enough and we are implementing our new vision to make Mount Vernon the smartest-city by operational design.
Our work is shining through darkness, resulting in Mount Vernon being cited as the best bet in Westchester by the New York Times, dubbed best of the bunch for millennials by the Journal News, and identified as a “priority” by Governor Andrew Cuomo and the Mid-Hudson Regional Economic Development Council.
Despite the obstruction, my door remains open to sit down and discuss their concerns to arrive at solutions to better serve you. We pay too much in taxes to have Council-members acting like whining children, using alternative facts to make fake news because their egos are bruised. The problems are problems. They don’t solve themselves. Carrying on and creating fake drama while our parks are shuttered and our senior center is in shambles is unacceptable and an embarrassment to the city and the people that elected us to serve.
The fact that the discovery of $6 million in undocumented loans has led to people acting deranged in the streets and throwing up smoke-screens of false accusations can only mean that we have discovered something significant. Perhaps it is the old guard political establishment, led by Giulio Cavallo, that is scrambling to cover their mis-deeds.
If the City Council has new ideas on how to solve decades of neglect, I am eager to hear them. They must remember that teamwork requires a team. They should never forget that we belong to Team Mount Vernon. They must never forget that they must be ready to work hard, roll up their sleeves, swallow their pride and be determined to win for Mount Vernon.
To date, we have gotten nothing but empty promises, stall tactics, personal attacks, and more unnecessary drama than the hit TV show “The Bachelorette.”
The political shenanigans hurt the city. And as Mayor, I understand the frustration and damage this does to our collective identity and how it ultimately impacts property values. I urge you to urge them to stop the games, stop holding Mount Vernon down. Tell them that short term political objectives undermine the long-term policy priorities of a cleaner, greener, stronger Mount Vernon.
Your voice matters!
Remind them that they work for you, just like me.
Call the City Council at 914–665–2351 and outgoing Comptroller Maureen Walker at 914–665–2442.
My administration is committed to serving your needs and we will not waver. We will not back down to those who bring nothing but hate in their heart because ours is filled with hope for the future. We will fight the good fight for the greater good and forge forward, pruning the political weeds that choke the life out of the beautiful garden of Happy Homes in Mount Vernon.
Sincerely,
Mayor Richard Thomas
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