She has also offered to help the Highway Department answer phone calls during storms, a task she has performed in the past. In fact, Becky has spent many nights in the Highway Department, answering the phones with Jenny, her faithful sheepdog.
Kittredge said she is pleased and honored to have served North Castle residents for 32 years. Recently, many town residents whom she doesn't know have expressed their regrets that she won’t be on the board. However, she is considering running again in 2013.
Weaver was unseated after serving his first term of two years as North Castle’s Supervisor, and 16 years as Town Councilman. He has thanked town residents, especially his dedicated staff. Weaver said he appreciates the support, and was honored to serve the community with Kittredge.
Second-term Councilman Michael Schiliro applauded the duo and said, “They taught me how to be an elected town official, and most importantly, to respect the people that work for the town."
Becky had always wanted to become a teacher: Everyone in her family was an educator. Her uncle, Harold Crittenden, served as principal at H.C. Crittenden Middle School. He hired Becky's mother, Lucille Answorth Kittredge, who taught eighth grade, and later on, fourth grade. Becky worked for the White Plains School District for 37 years, until 2000. She worked her way up the ladder to become Administrator in Charge of the Classified Staff.
Becky fondly remembers working in White Plains. She lived in a loft in New York City with a group of people, during the civil rights movement. She said, "It was in the late 1960's. I especially remember marching in Harlem. It was an amazing time."
During the Vietnam War, from 1968-1969, Becky was involved with the youth group at Armonk's Methodist Church. The church was very active, and all the kids from the local churches and synagogue were involved in the youth group. As a parishioner, she assisted Dick and Jane, the leaders of the youth group. Becky has a great sense of humor, and got a kick out of their names as she remembers the old “learn to read books with Dick and Jane”.
"We ended up having a peace march around Armonk Square. It began at the library. We went around the park, and ended our march at the Methodist Church. We used to take the youth group down to Harlem, where we helped build gardens. I'm still friendly with some of the kids from the group, including Ceci Elrod Stone, whose husband, Jim Stone, serves on the town's Budget and Finance Advisory Task Force, and Sue Macellaro, an EMT with the Armonk Fire Department."
The Armonk Lions honored Becky with the Pat Bresha Citizen of the Year award for her community service. Past President of the Armonk Lions, Murray Leffler, said that Becky regularly attended the Armonk Lions' annual meeting. "She expressed concerned about the welfare of the community," said Leffler. "We've played golf together and she plays a hell of a game of golf," he added.
Becky recalls North Castles' Police Chief Al Stipo writing her a recommendation and citing her as an upstanding citizen, when she interviewed for a job at Bermuda Aviation at the United States Air Force Base. She was there when the entire eastern seaboard lost power, and planes landed and lined up at the airport in Bermuda. "I came home for a surprise visit on Christmas Eve. My father died the next day, and it was not the time to leave my mom and go back to Bermuda. I went back to work for the White Plains School District."
Becky said, "I first got involved in politics by helping register people to vote down-south. Dick Ottinger was running for Congress, and I worked on his campaign. After that, I worked for the McGovern campaign." Hanging on her wall at home, among other memorabilia, is a framed invitation to the Obama/Bidden inauguration.
"I went to a dinner for Jimmy Carter, and soon after, I got involved in local politics. In 1975, I started attending North Castle's Town Board meetings. They called me ‘Madame Defarge’. The name came from the knitting fiend from "The Tale of Two Cities", because I sat there and knitted."
After four years of attending the Town Board meetings, Becky ran for office. "I understood that there was a lot more going on at the time, besides the two board meetings per month. In 1979, I ran for office on the Democratic ticket with Gene Matusow.
“There were very few Democrats in the town then, and Jack Lombardi was a little leery of us when we first starting serving on the board. It felt as though we were aliens coming from Mars. During the first year I was elected, all I did was move the records."
Becky fondly remembers Kathleen Baroni, who was no longer serving on the town board, but rather, served as the Town Clerk. "She had been my girl scout leader, along with my mother. We are a small town with big issues."
Becky talked about the big issues, such as the proposition calling for 607 houses to be built at Whippoorwill Ridge and Whippoorwill Hills. "It went down to 409 homes, and then we had the big 409 meetings. Through negotiations, it was scaled down to about 300 homes. Michael Fareri was the developer, and he was the first person to build middle-income housing units off-site at the Whippoorwill School."
“We used to have a holiday party for everyone that worked for the town. We haven't done that in years,” Becky remarked. She thinks of the town employees as family. "We used to socialize with both town employees and members of the advisory boards, such as the Architectural Review Board. The Town Board appointed the board members, but we didn't necessarily know them. This gave us the opportunity to get to know one another. If you break bread with somebody, it is different from sitting over a town board table. After the Town Board meetings, we would go out and and talk about how they went. Now no one does that now.
“The Town Board worked together. When Armonk was considered for the Westchester County district's post office, Jack Lombardi and Gerry Geist went together to Washington to fight it. They succeeded, and it was built in Harrison."
Becky feels a Town Board member should know the department heads. They need to spend time together. She recommends that any new Town Board member take a day and meet the department heads to understand what they do.
Becky remembers the year when standing Councilman Pat Bresha passed away, and Frank Danino moved from the town. The vacancies on the board were filled with two residents who were politically neutral, to avoid tipping the political scale either way. Bert Steinberg and former Councilman Bob Flynn were appointed by Lombardi to finish the terms. They had agreed not to run for election after their appointment.
What about her legacy? Becky proudly tells the story behind how the John and Goldie Hergenhan Recreation Center was built. "We wanted to build a recreation center in Community Park, but unfortunately, it wasn't passed as a referendum by the voters. I was having a cup of coffee on the porch of Beascakes Bakery. We were looking across Maple Avenue at the old Armonk fire house and I said to Barbara DiGiacinto, ‘That would be a great place for a recreation center. It's walking distance from Crittenden and Wampus Schools, and the kids could walk right there.’ I went to Jack Lombardi and recommended that we put the Recreation Center there. Jack said, 'Do you want to try to run with it?' There was a joke that Jack had predicted I was not going to pull it off. I went to the Recreation Board, and they asked me to draw up the plans. I met with Architect John Sullivan, who redesigned the building. We had recreation fees to use from the budget, but it didn't cover the entire cost. We didn't know what to do because we weren't able to finish the building. Barbara DiGiacinto had a holiday dinner, which her cousin, Joyce Hergenhan, had attended. Barbara told Joyce that I was upset because we were short on funds. Joyce grew up in this town, and her father was well respected as the Chief of Police. Joyce told Barbara that she would donate $500,000, if the building was named after her parents. Barbara called me that night and I said it wasn't up to me, but instead, the decision of the Recreation Board as to what the building would be named. The next morning, Barbara called me and said, 'Joyce has changed her mind.' My heart, of course, sank. Then she added, 'She is going to donate a million dollars.' Joyce is a very intelligent woman, who worked for GE, Con Ed and the Reporter Dispatch. Her mother was a homemaker and volunteered to drive senior citizens on errands."
When Becky grew up in Armonk, the drinking age was 18, and everyone would go to the local bars. One of her favorite pastimes was dancing the twist at the Avalon, now The Fire Pit Tavern. Times have changed, and now she stops to talk with the teens that gather on Kent Place near the library. Becky feels they are great, very respectful kids, who need a place to go. She has asked them if they would be willing to spend time together at the Hergenhan Center, if given the opportunity. She stressed that they couldn't smoke or drink but they would have a place to go for a few hours. She added that if we could get the Anita Louise Ehrman Pool situation worked out with the town, she would like to see it open every Friday night, as a place for the kids to go.
Becky enjoys playing the lottery. She joked, "I have two chances for the lottery tonight. If I win millions, a million goes to the police station and two million for a new highway department building." Maybe if it was a big winning, she could also make a donation to the Ehrman Pool.
Becky will be driving in her Cadillac on her yearly trip to Florida. She refers to it as “the boat”. You can't miss her car with the license plate: "NOCASTLE". You can take her out of North Castle, but you can't take North Castle out of her. And even though she will be out of town, she'll be spending plenty of time with her cronies from town. She plans to visit the Dillingers, who used to own Dillinger Plumbing in town, long-time Armonk resident Bimmy Cox, who is a member of one of the original families from North Castle (Cox Avenue is named after his family), and Linda Lewis, who was a secretary to North Castle's Police Chief.
When she returns from Florida, sorting through a few dozen boxes of paperwork that she has accumulated over the years is on her to-do list. This chore will certainly bring back more memories of the past three decades that Becky served on North Castle's Town Board.
|
