MyRye.com is entering the podcasting business with a new weekly podcast hosted by former Rye Mayor Doug French. Available on all major podcasting platforms, MyRye.com Conversations with Doug French will tackle the larger and sometimes intractable issues impacting the City of Rye through interviews with local, county and state officials and business leaders.
In Episode 9 of Season 1, French speaks with Westchester County Legislator Anant Nambiar. Gain insights into flooding mitigation, county budgets, community engagement, development strategies impacting Rye and surrounding areas, and the best pizza in District 7.
This episode of MyRye.com Conversations with Doug French was produced by MyRye.com. Feedback and story ideas are welcome.
Main Topics Covered:
Main Topics:
- The functions and resources of Westchester County government
- Flooding challenges and flood mitigation projects
- Community engagement and communication strategies
- The impact of infrastructure, infrastructure projects, and development on Rye
- County budget breakdown, funding, and financial health
- Technology in government: potential of AI and improving public services
- Strategies for improving county roads and public communication
- Public safety, Playland revitalization, and community outreach
- The importance of affordable housing and economic development
- Opportunities for local residents to stay involved and informed
Timestamps:
(00:05) – Introduction to the podcast and guest
(00:29) – Anant’s background and motivations for public service
(01:07) – Role and functions of county government
(02:07) – Services provided by Westchester County
(02:25) – Anant’s personal journey and public service experience
(04:05) – Initiatives in the Mamaroneck school system
(05:32) – Transition from local to county government
(06:57) – Breakdown of Westchester County’s budget and funding sources
(08:43) – Challenges and progress in flooding mitigation
(11:13) – Impact of AI on public administration and efficiency
(13:14) – The county’s strong financial health and bond ratings
(14:26) – A typical week as a county legislator
(16:07) – Community engagement and relationships with local mayors
(19:00) – Flooding issues specific to Rye and ongoing projects
(23:46) – Update on Playland renovations and future plans
(26:34) – Key issues: affordability, housing, safety, and infrastructure
(28:02) – County roads and maintenance challenges
(28:35) – Reflection on first-year accomplishments
(30:00) – Main constituent concerns: flooding, affordability, economic growth
(31:20) – Improving cell coverage and local safety initiatives
(32:00) – Recommendations for future podcast guests
(33:01) – Final thoughts from Anant urging community involvement
Watch:
Full Transcript:
Speakers
- MyRye.com (Doug French)
- Westchester County Legislator Anant Nambiar
MyRye.com: Welcome to the MyRye.com podcast, Conversations with Doug French. I’m your host, Doug French, former mayor of the City of Rye. And this podcast is all about the people and the issues that impact Rye and our region. And today, conversation is with Anant Nambiar, Westchester County Legislator for the Rye area in District 7, and it’s Nambiar. Anant, nice to see you. Thanks for joining MyRye.com.
Anant Nambiar: Doug, thank you so much for having me. How are you today?
MyRye.com: Doing super. My last guest I knew for 40 years, and I think I think you I’ve met maybe four months, right? So I think what I what I’d like to accomplish today is really three things for the listeners. One is to get to know you a little bit more, because you’re new, not new to the area, but you’re new to representing Rye. The second is to understand the role of county government. And the third is to really deep dive into the issues that impact Rye with respect to your role.
MyRye.com: And so really just to kick us off, get us started, really, you know, a lot of folks do not engage with the county directly. They use their services but they really don’t engage directly. What is really the role of the county government and the services it provides?
Anant Nambiar: That’s a great question and one that, you know, I’m still kind of learning in a lot of ways. The county government and the legislative role is almost a go between the local municipalities, the towns, the cities, the villages, and then the state.
Anant Nambiar: Right, there’s a lot of things that we do basically that from a funding standpoint and from an ability to aggregate and solve bigger problems that are relevant or that are challenging for more than one municipality. We help them think about that. There’s certain services that we provide or we fund that are larger than any one town or village can afford or can do. And so things like, you know, health care services, buses is an example, right? The airport.
Anant Nambiar: is something that we run for the county. Parks and recreation, right? So the five golf courses, the over 50 different locations, that’s all part of the county services that we provide that both are to the residents as well as sometimes to and through the towns and municipalities that we work with.
MyRye.com: Great, great. And so if just to jump to you personally, I mean, my producer would kill me by the way, ’cause he doesn’t want to get into people’s backgrounds, but this is a good introduction to you to the people of Rye, so I’m gonna talk a little bit off script here. Can you just speak about yourself personally, professionally, as well as your public service so people get a sense of who you are?
Anant Nambiar: Of course. So I live in Larchmont. My wife and I lived in Larchmont now since 2004. We have three children, all who are older. We have a 28-year-old son, a 26-year-old son, and a 24-year-old daughter, Mamaroneck public schools, grads out of college, all in their different careers. And personally, my wife and I are both born in India. And so that, I think, is something that’s really
Anant Nambiar: different but it’s also very helpful for us to really have kind of a perspective of how lucky we are to live in this county in the state in this country and then also you know all the different things that that that being from India I spent 20 years in Canada as well and now I’ve been in New York since 1996. Professionally I’m an engineer with an MBA I worked about 25 or American Express for MasterCard, Synchrony Financial
Anant Nambiar: Most of my roles were in strategy and product development, product management. Ran a business unit at the last three years where I was basically my clients were banks around the world. So owned a P and L with a global team of 150 people or so. I stopped working in 2021, stopped the corporate world at that time. Really in the sense of our kids were almost out of college and it just seemed like, you know, after COVID there was
Anant Nambiar: lots of change happening and I was like, you know, let’s see what else is interesting out there. My public service career started when I was still working back in 2009. I joined the Mamaroneck School Board at that time. And so at that time, 2008 financial crisis, a lot of things were obviously challenged financially. And so the school board was looking for men, for people with financial service experience, but also people whose kids were still in the school district.
Anant Nambiar: And I thought this is how I can contribute to my community. We all give back in different ways. Some people it’s our time, some people it’s the money. To me, joining the school board was such a great opportunity and I loved it. And part of what I loved about it is that I was learning about some really difficult problems, some really important problems and ones that didn’t have easy answers. And with my engineering and I think my financial experience, I really learned to kind of, how do we strip the emotion and focus on the facts?
Anant Nambiar: and let’s focus on one bad option or one worse option and let’s think about it. And these public service roles are really challenging and amazingly fun, but they’re also hard because you’re having public conversations that affect your neighbor or your child or whatever. And I learned that I was able to handle that in a way that, you know, I was able to contribute and not take it personally. And so a lot of the feedback was really encouraging to me. And I said, maybe this is something I do again. I did that for three years, our kids are going.
MyRye.com: Well they they say that you’re never as popular more popular than on election day ’cause every ever s after that you’re saying no to some some people, right?
Anant Nambiar: That’s it. Somebody’s always unhappy. And that’s okay, right? So after school board, I continued working. And then I got on the town board, the town of Mamaroneck board in 2024 and really enjoyed it. Loved solving difficult problems. I was learning about new topics that I’d never been involved with before. And then when Catherine Parker’s role was coming due because of term limits, I was interested. I thought, I don’t have…
MyRye.com: Yeah.
Anant Nambiar: lots of experience with people who have decades of experience, but I have different set of skills and different set of perspectives. And maybe I’m a viable candidate and Catherine encouraged me. She said, you might not be the best candidate, but you’re a viable candidate. In part, one of the things that I’ve always used in my life, Doug, is a very simple thing. I make people tell me no, right? And I make people say, you’re not qualified, you can’t do this job, you can’t do whatever it is. I make them tell me no. And if they tell me no, I’m fine with that.
Anant Nambiar: And that was the way, and basically I put in my myself and I was really interested in the role because I was gonna have to represent Rye and represent Harrison and represent places I didn’t know that well. So another learning opportunity, but then to also really solve difficult problems that no one town or village can have. Flooding, affordability, traffic, right? Those are bigger issues, but incredibly important to my family and to many families.
Anant Nambiar: And so that’s why I got involved and I was lucky enough to win the election last year.
MyRye.com: Well, it it sounds like the Bloomberg model, private sector solutions for public sector problems. There’s a lot in the private sector that can really help in the in the public sector. And you and I should connect after because we have a lot in common in terms of our our corporate careers and and our approach to government. So that that that’s really fascinating. Thank you for that. So let’s pivot now now to the to Westchester County government. So it’s about a two and a half billion dollar annual budget, which seems like a lot, but how does that how’s that broken out by departments and services, that type of thing?
Anant Nambiar: So let’s just first talk about where that two and a half billion comes from, which I think is a little bit interesting. When we pay property tax, when you and I pay property tax, typically 50 % of what we pay goes to the school district, goes to the school budget. 30 % of what we pay goes to the town or village we live in. Only 20 % goes to the county. So it’s a relatively small percentage of what we individually pay that go to the county. If you look at the county’s two and a half billion dollar budget, almost
Anant Nambiar: 39%, a little over 38 % comes from actual sales tax of sales within Westchester County. So 38 % of that 2.5 billion comes from sales tax. Another 25 % comes from like federal and state funds to the county. And only about 22 % comes from property tax. Now that’s still a big number when it’s 22 % of two and a half billion dollars. It’s 400 million, but.
Anant Nambiar: in terms of the actual impact to each of us. And so, you we were talking about the tax rate that the county has put in. We’ve had probably five or six years of zero tax increase because of the fact of the sales tax, the growth of the sales tax during COVID. But this year we put in a little bit larger increase. I think it was about 3%, 3.7%. But that really is to the individual homeowners bill.
Anant Nambiar: It’s not a significant amount because of the fact that the county tax is only a 20%, a fifth of your total bill. Where that money goes, the 2.5 billion of where it goes, right, these are, like I said before, the services that we provide. Almost a third of that is federal funds that are being reimbursed. If you look at that 2.5 billion, two thirds of it is mandated, right? Social services, healthcare, right, things like that.
MyRye.com: Mandated data from the state.
Anant Nambiar: Two thirds of the entire 2.5 billion is mandated in terms of the salaries and benefits of people that work for us. We have about 5,000 county employees that are working on the parks, they’re working on social services, the bus drivers, the airport, that’s all part of the 5,000 staff that we as a county have. And so two thirds of our entire budget
Anant Nambiar: is mandated in terms of things like the benefits, like the salaries, like services, things like that. A third is what’s called non-mandated, that’s still almost 800 and then 900 million. And those are the things in terms of services that we provide around problem solvers, around flooding and other things like that, that the county is providing.
MyRye.com: Gotcha, gotcha. And I saw there was a reduction of what, eight percent in personnel? Is that about right? So you’re reducing that five thousand?
Anant Nambiar: Yeah, so what it was that two different things. It was an 8 % reduction across all budgets in all departments and then also reduced staff typically by by not filling open positions. We did not let the county did not let employees go. But as you know, you know one of the ways to to maintain cost is to not fill open headcount. And so I think there’s about probably 200 or so positions that were open that were not filled.
Anant Nambiar: just to make sure because this is obviously a very difficult year. And part of the biggest challenge that we have is the uncertainty of how the federal reimbursements are going to happen. The current environment, political environment that we’re facing nationally, New York is a place that is potentially not gonna get all the federal reimbursements that we’re supposed to. As an example, FEMA canceled about
Anant Nambiar: over $300 million that was allocated for improving flooding in New York State. So different places around New York State, 300 million had been allocated that was in proactively improved flooding. That money was all canceled and basically has not been allocated. So that creates pressure because some of those projects we can defer and we can say, okay, you we’re not going to do them. Some of those projects have either already started or are so essential.
Anant Nambiar: that have to get done and that’s where the county has to step in and do things. This county or the state have to fill that gap that was unexpectedly created.
MyRye.com: Right, right. And you know, you mentioned the the staff. Do you given your corporate career, do you see AI playing a role in in filling some of those tasks and those responsibilities?
Anant Nambiar: I think definitely, but once again, not in the position of reducing headcount. I mean, it’s interesting to read all the headlines about AI, right? And so you and I have, we’ve lived through so many technologies over the last 30 years that are going to revolutionize and change that really ended up not being much of an impact. And so it’s interesting to me to read all this and to say, is AI going to be as disruptive and as beneficial as claimed, or is it going to be just kind of a minor improvement?
Anant Nambiar: I read about the, there’s CEOs who are saying we can eliminate jobs through AI and there’s other CEOs who are saying we can actually eliminate the parts of your job that you don’t like. So your job’s not going away, we’re just gonna allow you to do more of what’s important and what you like because there other stuff, there less exciting stuff, AI’s gonna do that. I think that second approach is what the county hopefully will take, is that we can use AI to improve things like just turnaround of
Anant Nambiar: permits and applications and those sorts of things that are really cumbersome, have to get done, but just are not something that you or I or the county really wants to spend a lot of time on. But that’s where we should really leverage AI. We have a great IT staff that’s constantly thinking about AI and how it can improve. Obviously, cybersecurity is always a concern because our services need to be delivered.
Anant Nambiar: And so we need to make sure that there’s no disruption and things like that. But I think that that’s how I’m hoping that AI impacts our residents, like my and my family’s life, is that there’s certain things that the county does that need to happen. AI can hopefully make them more efficient, not reduce jobs.
MyRye.com: I agree. I’m a marketing guy. I have never been more productive in my life. All the tasks that I could do, I could do more tasks, I could do them faster, better. So I agree with that. I think incorporating that in government will have huge benefits. So how how would you rate overall the financial health of the county then? I know you’ve got fits and starts with with with block funding and those types things, but overall when you look at the debt and and our situation, how would you rate the overall financial health?
Anant Nambiar: I think it’s something to be very, very proud of. It’s a top of class, mean, like, look at our bond ratings, is AAA. And this is something that has not always been the case, right? I mean, there was a period 10 years ago where we were, the county was not as financially respected. The bonds were, I think, close to junk ratings. We have turned that around. Our fund surplus, our fund balance has grown substantially. We have done the tough planning and work.
Anant Nambiar: to make ourselves a financially stable and thriving county, which is really a testament to the leadership of Ken Jenkins and George Latimer before him. So financially incredibly strong, which is really important because we do a lot, we issue a lot of bonds to cover the hundreds of millions and billions of dollars we’re spending. And to have that AAA bond rating
Anant Nambiar: incredibly valuable and financially benefit to all of us because we pay less in interest because of those ratings.
MyRye.com: Excellent summary and you’ve only been on the job, what, five months now? So excellent summary for somebody new. It’s not like you’ve been on five years. Let’s talk about the typical week of a legislator. What do you do? You know, how do people engage? Like just take us through the week. You start Mondays, what happens?
Anant Nambiar: Yeah, that’s actually I gotta tell you something unexpected that I’m that I’m finding out and learning. So the way so the way that that it this works. I think about it, but my role has there’s two parts to it. There is the legislative and you know work that we do as a board of legislators. There’s 17 of us. Mondays are the days that we meet together typically, so we have meetings from 8 AM.
Anant Nambiar: We have budget meetings every Monday that are 10 a.m. probably till noon. I chair appointments committee, is Monday afternoons. We have another caucus. Mondays are typically meetings from early in the morning till nine o’clock at night. Very consistent. We have an office in White Plains. We are meeting, we are discussing, we are thinking about things. That’s the legislative part. The second part of my job is what happens after that, which is my representation and my interaction with the district. So basically, my
Anant Nambiar: Tuesday to Sunday schedule is quite open and quite flexible in terms of what I need to do or have to do. There’s no set meetings I have to go to. I can choose to go to as many or as few of the town council meetings as I want. I can go to all the local events and so what I’ve been trying to do is that really be present. It helps me, right? Just kind of listening and hearing.
Anant Nambiar: and I’ve really spent some, some good time and building some good relationships with the five mayors and supervisors in my district. Right. Sarah Bauer in Village of Larchmont Jane Jaine Elkind Eney Town of a Mamaroneck Sharon Torres, Village of a Mamaroneck, Josh Nathan in Rye, Tom Scappaticci and Harrison. Because my role, I think is to support them, is to really understand, what their residents are focused on, what their pain points are. And then from a county level to see.
Anant Nambiar: If there’s a way to, you know, to aggregate some of those problems, to see if there’s solutions that already exist in other places of the County, to see if there’s resources, whether that’s money or skills that the County can help them with. So what I’m doing from Tuesday to Sunday is, is being as active in my, in my five communities as I can to really be present, to, to go, there’s, there’s so many kinds of, there’s so many activities that are already happening that I can just kind of step into and plug into. So.
Anant Nambiar: Mondays are very structured, very present, very kind of like, you know, organized.
MyRye.com: Are you in the chamber Mondays too? Monday so you’re in
Anant Nambiar: Every other Monday night, we are in the chamber for our full board meeting. So that’s why Mondays are very kind of like regimented and very structured. Tuesdays to Sunday are much more variable week to week. They’re depending on what activities are happening, right? There’s typically three to five different activities I can participate in or not participate in. And so what I’m trying to do is really go to those events where I can learn.
Anant Nambiar: where there’s different people that I’m either meeting or listening to or hearing from. And obviously geographically there’s good kind of representation. But it allows me to be flexible with my schedule in terms of picking and choosing. And I wanna make sure that I give myself enough time, one, for my own exercise and enjoyment, and second, for my family. And so that’s kind of what I would say is that it’s hard to predict what the week
Anant Nambiar: look like outside of Mondays. But that actually, it’s fun to get all the options and then kind of think through which ones do I want to join and participate in and which ones I don’t.
MyRye.com: Yeah. Yeah that that that’s great. And people should follow you on Facebook, right? ‘Cause I see you’re around everywhere that you just mentioned. But but if I have an issue and I’m not sure, like what’s the best way to reach you or contact you?
Anant Nambiar: Great question. So what I’m trying to do is I have a monthly newsletter that I send out that basically, you know, please, if anyone wants to subscribe, you definitely can. My email is nambiar at Westchester legislators with an S NY.gov. My phone number, 914-995-2802.
Anant Nambiar: and, so, you know, or, or through your local towns and councils, which will bubble up to me. And so, so that is, I’m trying to go to where people are, right? It’s not like you got to find me. It’s like, I’m going to find you. And so as try as much as I can, like you said, Facebook, the newsletters, our website, my email, right. My, my, personal legislative aid, we’re all.
Anant Nambiar: collecting, trying to get as much information in terms of how we can help.
MyRye.com: Jim. Alright, so we’ve got about ten more minutes or so. Let’s dive into the issues that really impact Rye. The first one has to be flooding. So from a county perspective, what are the projects, what are the priorities? How do you see that shaking out you know for Rye in terms of flooding?
Anant Nambiar: Yeah, flooding is the number one issue for all District 7. I campaigned on it. I continue to hear it. I’ve lived in a Larchmont amount for 24 years. I’ve been flooded three times. It’s miserable. And there’s people whose lives are in danger. And so flooding is not one issue and is not one thing to fix, but it’s a few different things. And so I think that this is where the county is doing, especially from a funding standpoint, is helping.
Anant Nambiar: Part of the problem with flooding is that it’s not so clean geographically. These bodies of water flowed through multiple jurisdictions. So the interaction and communication between the towns and villages, and not just in our district, but all the way upstream, is critical. And so part of what I’m trying to do is make sure that I’m connecting with White Plains and Scarsdale and other places like that, because what they do, what happens in their geographies impacts us.
MyRye.com: Yep. Right.
Anant Nambiar: And so that’s one of the things that I think is incredibly important. And I’ve seen improvement in progress, right? I mentioned Tom Scappaticci, who’s the mayor of Harrison. He has been an incredible partner coming to the table where Harrison typically hasn’t been that interested in working on flooding. And so we’re doing more work with Harrison trying to help the downstream, know, Beaver Swamp Brook and Mamroneck River and things like that.
Anant Nambiar: We’re working more with the mayors of White Plains and Scarsdale to make sure they understand how their development impacts us. And we’re then being really aggressive around funding, around grants and other things like that, whether it’s New York State or elsewhere that has money available to do this. Think the thing about flooding is it’s not, like I said, it’s not one issue to fix and it’s not gonna be one thing.
Anant Nambiar: We’re going to have to build a 20 year plan, which I think we’re starting to do that. Have the Army Corps of Engineers who’ve done some work around the Village of Mamaroneck Now the county is stepping in to look at all the sound shore kind of water bed shed and basin. We’ve got LISWIC which is the Long Island sound watershed inter municipal council. That’s now reinvigorated. Better communication, better collaboration. Right. And so I hate to say that, that we are making slow progress.
Anant Nambiar: because I’d like it to be faster. I’m an impatient person, but this is slow. Our sewers are outdated. The Mamaroneck Sewer District, which comprises more than Mamaroneck, over the next five to seven years, the capital budget of the county is to spend $230 million on upgrading the sewers. These sewers are hundreds of years old. They’re not designed to support the intensity of the rain that we’re getting right now. That’s one of the things that has to happen that will take time. So these are all the sorts of things that are in plan.
Anant Nambiar: in progress, just not moving as fast as any of us I think would really like.
MyRye.com: Yeah, and you talk about upstream. I know we’ve looked at retention ponds upstream, but the cost benefit analysis just doesn’t pass the Army Corps measuring measurement. Right. So let’s talk about upstream. The airport. So what’s can the can the airport retain more water upstream? Are there the development with the airport, how does that really impact flooding as well as other issues with the airport?
Anant Nambiar: Yes, from a flooding standpoint, the airport is participating and helping in terms of what they’re doing and how they’re changing their topography, the drainage, right, improving all the drainage sort of things. So that is happening. I think one of the things that I would say that I personally would love to see around flooding is better communication to our residents. And what I mean by that is there’s so much work happening, but there’s really not an easy place to go and see.
Anant Nambiar: What’s happening within Rye or Village of Mamaroneck I can go and look on a site. Understand the plan, the timing, right? All these pieces, but then not just within municipality, municipality, but overall. And, and that’s something that, that I’m trying to figure out and working with, with our communications team and the villages. How do we do that better? Right? Because this is so important. Our residents want to know about it. We are doing, we are making progress. We’ve got lots of effort. We’ve got lots of funding.
Anant Nambiar: put against it, but we’re not doing a good enough job of communicating proactively to our residents around flooding so that they feel a little bit of confidence. Obviously, there’s always going to be fear when we hear rain is coming, right? And certain residents, it’s PTSD. When they hear rain is coming, they don’t know how to, they can’t sleep. But so we need to build a little bit of confidence and credibility from our residents that, hey,
Anant Nambiar: things are happening, maybe not as fast as I’d like it to be, there. So that’s not something that’s available yet.
MyRye.com: I love the idea because people that have listened to this podcast have heard me. I cut the ribbon for the sluice gate with Rob Astorino in 2013, I want to say. And it’s still not fully operational up on Bowman Dam. So just showing progress, having that updated communication and reporting is a great idea. Playland. So what’s the status of Playland? I see you you invested 150 million, sounds like lot of money. What’s what’s the idea and the plans behind that?
Anant Nambiar: You know, I think, I think Playland has, has unfortunately become, you know, bad rep. Mean, this has been a part of our family for almost a hundred years, right? For the Westchester County family. And I’d say probably for like 95 of those years, we were very happy with Playland. We weren’t worried about, we losing money or are we not losing money? This was something that was an asset, a jewel that people enjoyed. People working there. It’s attracted a lot of negative attention, unfortunately. And, and last year was a difficult year. Was the right year. All the decisions were right.
Anant Nambiar: It was just something where we had to kind of rip the bandaid off. We had to transition back to county ownership. We realized that a lot of the money that was supposed to have been spent was not spent, which required the county to kind of step up. But what we’re doing is we reopened Playland last weekend. I was there just during the week. It’s beautiful. It’s really beautiful. The rides are, there’s 39 rides, right? The Dragon Coaster is available.
Anant Nambiar: The water slides will be open soon. They’re not open yet. They will be open soon. We’ve changed the structure. So it’s going back to where it’s a free admission and you can buy the passes as you need for the rides or the games or things like that. So I actually think 2025 was a year of transition for Playland, but we’re now back on track where we’re hiring, we’re gonna have the rides, each the Tiki Bar, the games, keep adding rides.
Anant Nambiar: And we’re also making sure that all these rides are maintained as they need to be and should be, which wasn’t the case for the last three or four years. So I actually, and it’s one of the things, you know, like I can say the words, but the best thing is to go and see it. To go and see how good it looks, how well it’s been laid out, right? The flowers, how pretty it is, how much fun it is.
Anant Nambiar: And I would say that it’s really great and hopefully will be part of our family for another 100 years.
MyRye.com: Great, well well thank you for that. And and before we continue, I just want to remind our listeners if in if you have a a guest or topic you would like cover on the MyRye.com podcast, Conversations with Doug French, just email me at French at MyRye.com or just let me know around town and we’ll we’ll get that get that on for you.
MyRye.com: So we’re gonna pivot now to the last few minutes we have. Just one-word reactions or short statements, change the cadence a little bit. My last guess was impossible to keep down in one word, so I I give I’ll give you some leeway. You know, how would you rate the overall communication and coordination and flooding between the communities at all government levels?
Anant Nambiar: Yeah.
Anant Nambiar: Improving. Not done. Getting better. But this is critically important because it’s something that without communicating, we’re not going to be successful individually or collectively. And so that’s why I’m saying it’s improving because we’re speaking more, we’re talking more, we’re working together, we’re collaborating, we’re signing agreements, all that stuff. We just got to do more and we got to do it faster.
MyRye.com: Is there one issue that we didn’t cover today that’s a priority for you?
Anant Nambiar: Yeah, affordability. I think that that’s critically important. Affordability covers a lot things. It covers just the cost of living. Con Edison, all those sorts of things. There’s certain things we can control and impact at the county level. There’s other things that can’t. A big part of affordability is housing. And what I mean by that, I’m not talking about kind of, I’m talking about housing at all price points. We need to be able to have our teachers be able to live where they work.
Anant Nambiar: New Jersey and Connecticut are doing this better than New York is. The biggest asset that I have, my house price is determined by the quality of the schools that my kids can go to and other kids can go to. If teachers are gonna choose to move to New Jersey and Connecticut because they can live in their towns at cheaper rates, then how long is that quality of school gonna be high? How long is my house gonna be valuable if the quality of schools? And so this is a financial, housing is a financial issue.
Anant Nambiar: that we need to solve, we need to allow first families. My kids are successful in their careers. They wanna come back to Larchmont, Mamaroneck It’s gonna be a challenge for them, right? Senior citizens. So affordability is a big issue that I think is, affects all of us in hundreds of different ways. And I never forget how lucky I am to live in this community, but we just can’t be a place only for wealthy people. We just can’t. We don’t wanna be, and I think that we have to be really cognizant of that.
MyRye.com: Absolutely. Absolutely. There are a number of roads in Rye that are are county owned and residents don’t realize that. How would you rate the county roads in Rye?
Anant Nambiar: Good but challenging, right? The thing with the roads is the amount of traffic that’s on these roads is so high. Like we paved them and then we got to start again. And so it’s just one of those things that we got to constantly keep putting the money, the time and the effort, which means disruption, but we all wanted to be better. So it’s one of these things where good but needs to continue to be worked on.
MyRye.com: So at the end of twenty twenty six, when you look back at your first year, be is it it w what’s one of the key accomplishments you’re gonna you’re gonna look back and be and be happy and proud of?
Anant Nambiar: I am very happy about the flooding. Obviously, number one that I feel like I am representing my district, all five to all 60,000 people who voted for me, the people who didn’t. I feel proud that I am hearing from lots of different people that who didn’t know me that they feel like I’m representing. Obviously we had amazing leadership with Catherine Parker. We had George Latimer before that. I mean, these are some great leaders in our representing our district.
Anant Nambiar: So very fortunate for that. But I feel good that no one has come to me and said, man, big drop off from Catherine to you, Like people are saying different, we see you representing us. So I feel really good about that. I’m very proud about the flooding part as well, Doug, because this was not that complicated to get people to table. It’s hard to do. It’s easy to say hard to do, but this is personal relationships, right? Is spending the time to build.
Anant Nambiar: the relationships with the different mayors, with the different towns, to be able to bring in the county, to be able to bring in White Plains and Scarsdale and other places to say, hey, we need to solve this together. I feel good that I’ve played a little part in just basically increasing the conversation. We haven’t started to show tangible results yet, but that’s gonna come because of those conversations. So I really feel good about that.
MyRye.com: That’s the engineering in in you that’s is there one issue you hear most other than flooding, you hear most from your your constituents in your district?
Anant Nambiar: You know, I’m definitely, flooding affordability, the two things, personally, one of the things that I’m very focused on is economic development. And the reason for that is our commercial tax base is not high enough. That’s why the property tax pressure we feel and just keeps rising, right? We need to do everything we can. And this is not just our district, but also Westchester, everything we can to really support our small businesses, to attract more jobs here, to enable
Anant Nambiar: more business opportunities and growth because that commercial tax base is so critical to us, right? In Mamaroneck, it’s less than 10 % and getting smaller, which means that 90 % is property tax. So school budget and everything, we don’t have any offsetting revenue coming in that’s growing. And so one of the things that, Josh Nathan on your last podcast talked about, and I’m focused on as well, is improving cell phone coverage. And I’m putting out legislation to talk about how we can use
Anant Nambiar: county property to improve cell phone deployment so that we can because because if you’re a small business but you don’t have a cell phone reception it’s not good but more importantly it’s a safety issue if you’re anywhere on a golf course or any place like that and you can’t call 911 that is a critical concern and so I’ve introduced a legislative bill that talks about leveraging county property to improve cell phone coverage Nassau County Suffolk County Schenectady County are already doing it
Anant Nambiar: Westchester potentially might be, and so that’s an opportunity I think that helps both safety but also economic development.
MyRye.com: Well, I was on Chatsworth Avenue in Larchmont the other day. I couldn’t believe. It’s poor over there, correct? ‘Cause I couldn’t get a signal. It’s it it was crazy. I thought Milton Point was bad. Best pizza in your district.
Anant Nambiar: Nicky’s because I know everyone loves lot of people love Sal’s. Like to me pizza is always about the crust. I like that crunch. I want a little bit thicker crust. Nicky’s has that crust for me.
MyRye.com: And and where is Nikki’s? Maybe we’ll get them as a sponsor.
Anant Nambiar: I’m sorry, right across from the Larchmont train station on Chatsworth Avenue.
MyRye.com: Okay. All right. Good to know. And is there somebody we should that you recommend we should have on the podcast?
Anant Nambiar: You know, I love what you’ve done. I’ve listened to your podcast. I think you’ve got some really interesting communities around here that Rye touches and, you know, benefits from. Harrison, right? The mayor of Harrison, Tom Scappaticci, really good guy. Village of Mamaroneck Sharon Torres, right? To hear what they’re doing and how they’re thinking about things, I think is excellent. I would definitely also say
Anant Nambiar: you know somebody from the Parks Department is good because there’s so much positive things happening that the Parks is doing and I know that Playland got a lot of negative publicity and you things like that it’s great to hear what they’re doing they’ve got some great plans and they’re definitely making things happen. I think that’s always a great opportunity for the people of Rye here all the positive things that are happening and will be happening.
MyRye.com: That’s that’s great. That’s a great suggestion. So I wanna just in closing, Anant Nambiar correct? That’s pronunciation. Thank you for your time. I really enjoyed it. Thank you for your public service as well. Any final thoughts for the residents and and listeners before we go?
Anant Nambiar: No, think thank you, Doug, for I will just say we are so lucky to live where we live. And so much of that comes from how involved people are. And the two things I say, because a lot of my friends are not politically curious or active on a local basis, obviously, internationally. And I say one thing and I think you’re helping do this. Be informed, be involved, right?
Anant Nambiar: Whether it’s your school, whether it’s your town, whether it’s the county, whatever it is, it’s so interesting. Yes, it’s time, but that’s what makes our community great is that people give their time, their interest. So I’d say to anybody out there, right, be informed, be involved. And if you don’t know how, reach out. I’m happy to kind of talk it through because, you know, not too long ago, I was not aware of how to get involved. And I started and it just was just so rewarding and so enjoyable.
MyRye.com: That’s great. Great advice. And and again, thank you Anant. Really enjoyed the conversation. Thank you all for listening at at home or on your
MyRye.com: advice wherever you are on listen to podcasts. You can find the full transcripts and local news and more at MyRye.com If you enjoyed the episode, please follow or subscribe wherever you get your podcast. Thank you all, and that’ll do it for today’s conversation.
Anant Nambiar: Take care, Doug. Thank you.
