Face off in Piermont Mayoral Race

Earlier this month, the Rockland County League of Women Voters ran a candidate’s forum for the mayoral race in Piermont. The Rockland County Times received copies of the forum where the two faced off. Nate Mitchell and Kevin Timoney were both on hand for the event and reviewing the forum there are clear differences in their approaches.

Mitchell, an IT consultant who works with businesses to develop processes, has served in a variety of municipal positions in the Village of Piermont, including the Piermont Board of Trustees and the Planning Board. He has been a member of the Fire Department and for over 15 years, and serves currently as the Director and Accountability Officer, serving previously as Dive Lieutenant.. In his tenure as Trustee, he served as liaison to the Planning Board, Zoning Board, Building Department, Fire Department, Department of Public Works, and the Parks Commission. Mitchell manages operations for the Piermont Summer Concert Series and has chaired and served on the Piermont Comprehensive Plan Committee and the Waterfront Resiliency Commission.

“I will seek to balance development with preservation of our community character as a charming, walkable collection of neighborhoods with a vibrant downtown commercial district. We will pursue funding to increase our infrastructure capacity,” stated Mitchell. “What people love about Piermont is we’re a very walkable community. And a lot of people, rather than get in their car and drive somewhere, would just like to walk down the street. However, we don’t have sidewalks on every street,” he said.

He sees the predominant challenges as environmental, the second being economic, and the third being social. The frequency of flooding events that Piermont is experiencing needs to be addressed.

“What we haven’t done well enough in the last few years is to plan beyond a single year’s budget,” he said. “What I would like to do is get back to looking at a 10-year capital plan.”

Mitchell stated he would immediately ask the Board to repeal Local Law #4 of 2023, a law that created the CBM Zoning District, in order to ban oversized buildings in downtown Piermont. 

“It’s a mistake to sell any of our Village property in order to facilitate anything if it comes at the cost of losing some of our important green spaces. Zoning laws would help with that. We have not increased our real physical inventory of parking. And as a result of it, now we have sold somewhere in the neighborhood of 85 to 90 parking spots that simply don’t exist now. So that enforcement is going to be critical to fixing our parking issues,” said Mitchell. 

Candidate Kevin Timoney holds a Master’s Degree in Urban Studies from Fordham. He has held positions in public service in NYC and the State of New York for over 22 years and is currently the Executive Director of Citywide Contracts at the New York City Office of Technology and Innovation, where he oversees contracts representing over 177 million dollars. In Piermont, he’s served on the Zoning Board of Appeals and founded the BTND (“Better the Next Day Run Club”)

He has a focus on zoning, stating  “I think we need to create a new process that is transparent and community-engaged. We need to make sure that it favors no specific development,” he said. “… We need to do an internal audit on spending. See what we can cut down as waste and what is redundancy.”

“Police should not just drive around in a cop car but actually be physically outside walking the beat,” stated Timoney.

Timoney believes he can build an Architectural Review Board. “If that means a brand new board or… having that as part of our Planning Board, we need to have the Village have a say in what our character of downtown looks like.”

Taking a shot at his opponent Timoney commented on the way Mitchell communicates; “As you read the way Nate communicates, there’s almost always a conspiracy or a dark overtone. Piermont doesn’t need that. As I’ve said from the beginning, we don’t always have to agree, but we can respect each other’s opinions without turning every disagreement into a battle or treating our neighbors like enemies.”

  mayor, mayoral race, Mitchell, piermont, politics, TImoney