Latest / MyRye.com Conversations with Doug French / Launching a new podcast with former Rye Mayor Doug French | MyRye.com Conversations with Doug French
Transcript
- MyRye.com: Hello, I'm Jay Sears, the publisher of MyRye.com. This year we're celebrating our 20th anniversary and we're proud to report we have published over 12,000 stories on the City of Rye. continue to serve our audience ⁓ days a week with our MyRye.com website, our free daily email newsletter, ⁓ distribution to major social media platforms. Entering 2026, we ⁓ wanted to look at the bigger, ⁓ issues impacting Rye, the opportunities and challenges that years to tackle ⁓ and require complex, multi-jurisdictional cooperation. We wanted bring in another voice to MyRye.com, ⁓ someone who has in and around Rye his entire life and someone who has a demonstrated history of public service. service. MyRye.com is very pleased to be working on our new podcast programming with former Rye Mayor Doug French. Doug, welcome to MyRye.com. Yeah, hi, Jay. It's great to be here and I can't believe Next year will be 40 years that Kara and I moved to Rye. And we raised our three kids here. We've done all things Rye from Little League, you name it, to public service. We've made probably some of the best friends and neighbors anyone could ask for. And I think the comprehensive plan, you and I were talking about it's a great catalyst for these discussions because there's going to be a lot of things out in the public about what we want Rye to be. And it's pretty important to understand all issues and challenges that go along it. Now this podcast is going to be called MyRye.com, with Doug French. It be available on the MyRye.com website and all the major podcasting platforms, including YouTube, ⁓ Spotify, and podcasts. We don't to give away all our guests just yet, but I think both of us are pretty excited with the caliber of the guests. And we've recorded the first ones and the quality of the insights is just first rate. Doug and I are going to talk about some of the issues that will be tackled on the podcast. And first, I just want to give you a little bit of Doug's background so you can see what he brings to the table. Of ⁓ Doug mayor of the city of Rye from 2010 to 2014, where he dealt with hurricanes, including Superstorm Sandy. He worked on finance issues. the city, ⁓ transformation, the Boston Post Road Diet, pedestrian and sustainability initiatives, lots of with Playland, a issue here, and some transformative work at Rye Town Park. Doug also chaired the Rye Rec Commission in the early ⁓ 2000s and he's involved all sorts of community groups including Little League, Scouting, the Lions Club, and the Local League of Women Voters. Currently on the Westchester County Board of Ethics and in his professional career Doug has been a global marketing executive with leaders in the financial information sector including S &P, Thomson - Reuters, and Wolters Kluwer Doug, let's have you touch base on just some of the more complex opportunities and challenges we're going to be addressing on the ⁓ Well, it is ⁓ because in the 40 years I've been in Rye, the more things change, the more they stay the same. A lot of the same issues are at the forefront. And the great news about Rye is we have so many passionate people that have made this community what it is. They want to get involved. They want to be informed and they want to take action. And so things like flooding. I cut the ribbon for the sluice gate back in 2012 and it's still not operational. Planning and development. How is the how is some of the development around Rye going to impact us when you talk about ⁓ the ⁓ Post Road, example, Sustainability, are we managing our resources responsibly? Public safety, technology is really taking a foothold in future of public safety. Are we staying up with those advancements? ⁓ One the things when I was chair of recreation, the recreation commission is the explosion of female in sports, ⁓ Sports teams, you name it, all kinds of sports. Do we have the capacity for open space and recreation? And are the groups working together to provide those services? And then capital planning. Are we invested for the future? Do we have the right priorities and projects? And so when you look at something like the comprehensive plan, there are two sides of the story, hey, we're doing pretty well because demand for a Rye is pretty high, right? The median household income is high. But are there other things we should be doing? this allows us to take a really deeper dive, a longer narrative, a longer conversation than just a blurb or a headline. As somebody gets off the train, they hear about something. This allows us to talk to the people that make the decisions and really get behind the who, what, and why and how you can get involved on those issues. Yeah, it's so interesting as we said up front, so multi-jurisdictional issues that are going to take ⁓ a year or two, but five years, 10 years. Some will take a generation to really ⁓ Rye current and prepare for the future. This already been a really exciting project to work on and I think it's going to be of great interest to people that live here and people that work here in Rye. And there's other surprise to let you know today. Doug, which is we've created a theme song for the podcast. So we're going to play it on the way out. And as we do, we're going to remind people that our podcast, MyRye.com conversations with Doug French will be available on our MyRye.com website and on all the leading podcasting platforms, ⁓ YouTube, Spotify and Apple podcasts. Doug, going to a terrific project to work with you and to introduce our readers and our listeners to a host of guests that care as much about the City of Rye and this region as we do. Alright everybody we're going to you soon.