Mamaroneck REVIEW THE
January 20, 2017 | Vol. 5, Number 3 | www.mamaroneckreview.com
Village of Mamaroneck drug committee goes live By JAMES PERO Staff Writer
GRAND OLD TIME! Mamaroneck players celebrate Tiger coach Mike Chiapparelli’s 1,000th career coaching victory on Jan. 13 in Rochester, New York. Chiapparelli is the first Section I coach to reach the milestone while coaching just two varsity sports. For story, see page 14. Photo courtesy Mamaroneck High School
Gun rights activists threaten to sue ahead of town gun ban By JAMES PERO Staff Writer With the Mamaroneck Town Council mulling a ban on firearm possession on town property, gun rights activists in Westchester County say they are ready to sue. According to Scott Somma-
villa, the president of the Westchester Firearms Association who will be attending a public hearing on Jan. 18, after press time, regarding the local law, his organization will be watching the council’s decision closely. “The [council] doesn’t have legal authority,” he told the Review. “We’re lawyered up.”
Trustee Tom Murphy, a Democrat who said that the whole Town Council is behind the ban, said the law is being put forward in an attempt to make Mamaroneck safer. “We realize that the law will not stop every mad man with a gun,” Murphy said. “But the idea is that the less guns in a public
area, from people who aren’t authorized, will make everyone safer.” Even despite the threat of litigation, Town Supervisor Nancy Seligson, a Democrat, said the council is undeterred. “We haven’t really discussed BAN continued on page 8
As communities nationwide continue to struggle with mitigating the effects of an increasingly fatal heroin and opioid epidemic, the village of Mamaroneck has turned to discourse as its antidote, broadcasting its problem—now in a literal sense—to the public at large. Last week, the village of Mamaroneck, with the help of its public access affiliate Larchmont-Mamaroneck Community Television, LMCTV, featured its first-ever televised drug committee meeting, wherein local lawmakers and residents discussed the village’s response to the scourge of drugs. While the meeting itself wasn’t unprecedented—the committee was formed in September and has held several forums since then—its level of reach and transparency was. “There was no forum for this stuff, three or four months ago,” said Mayor Norman Rosenblum, a Republican, who helped spur the committee into existence. “Now you’re seeing it on television.” Over the course of the hourlong meeting, a combination of concerned residents, members of the village’s judicial system, and a representative from the county district attorney’s office pored over issues of prevention, education and enforcement,
bouncing ideas off a guest speaker; a social worker from Long Island. According to Rosenblum, who reached out to LMCTV to coordinate the broadcast, despite communities’ tendency to lean towards secrecy when it comes to drug-related issues, the meetings have garnered positive feedback. “Surprisingly, the reaction was the most positive of any program I’ve tried to start in the village,” Rosenblum said. According to Village Judge Christie Derrico, a Republican, who has been involved in the meetings from their inception, when it comes to how much progress the committee has already made, “there is a lot to say.” Among the initiatives to already stem from the committee, Derrico said, are plans to advertise the county’s “drug take-back” programs, in which people with controlled substances are able to drop their drugs off for proper disposal, in addition to informative guest speaking events. On May 9, Derrico hopes the committee will host speaker Michael Nerney, the former director of Narcotic and Drug Research Inc., at the Hommocks Auditorium, where the public can learn about prevention, detection and signs of drug abuse. COMMITTEE continued on page 7