Latest / MyRye.com Conversations with Doug French / Greg Usry, former City Manager for the City of Rye on the Comprehensive Plan
Transcript
- MyRye.com: Welcome to the MyRye.com podcast, with Doug French. I'm your host, Doug French, former mayor of the City of Rye. And with this podcast, we will speak with local city, county, state, and federal officials, as well as community leaders on the decisions that impact Rye and our region. And in conversation today is Greg Usry, ⁓ Rye City manager. And the topic is master planning. Greg, welcome to MyRye.com. Greg Usry: Okay. Great. Doug, thanks for having me. It's always a great opportunity to talk about the city and all that's going on. I will make one minor suggestion at the beginning. We are referring to this as the comprehensive plan. I know 1985 was the master plan and things have changed and evolved and we're now in a comprehensive plan. MyRye.com: Good to know. And that was really going to be my first question is, if we were to do a word association with John Q. Public on the street, and we would say Master Plan, the first thing they would say is 1985. Because that's how long it's been. However, when you look at the metrics, any plan has to have metrics. The median household is probably about $2 million in value. a thriving downtown with dining experiences. The are top. ⁓ Quality life is tremendous. ⁓ The in Rye has never been higher. having all that, what are the two or three cracks in the foundation that the city really should address in this process? Greg Usry: Well, I think that the most important point here is that the comprehensive plan is not necessarily to drive change. It is an opportunity to pause and to evaluate where we are as a community today versus where we were in 1985. There are actually some states that require a comprehensive plan every five years. So, you know, in answering your question of where are the cracks, I think it has a lot to do with where are the citizens today and the residents and the visitors versus where they were in 1985. I mean, as you point out, value of homes is high, quality of schools is high, quality of recreational space is high. But there has been a lot that's changed since 1985. You think about the number of floods, both coastal as well as riverine that have affected community. You think about the growth and the interest in sustainable ⁓ sustainable practices today versus what they would have been 20 or 30 years ago. You think about the demand for recreational space as our community has evolved and changed. Think about the aesthetics of the downtown and the potential need for greater housing and maybe even affordable housing. So ⁓ it's not much about cracks as it is as an opportunity to take a pause to look at our community. holistically by the residents that live here today because the residents of today were certainly not the same type of residents that we had 30 or 40 years ago. MyRye.com: Thank you, Greg. so flooding, we're going to talk about in another episode. So I'm not going to dive too deep into flooding because that is a key issue. So let's take them as you mentioned. is the city poised to be that future ⁓ city ⁓ it's great sustainable practices? Do we have the right committees in place and policies in place to drive such efforts? Greg Usry: Mm-hmm. Sure. I mean, you certainly look at what's happened in the last 10 to 12 years with the sustainability committee and how active they've been in community practices and encouraging as well as government to ⁓ more, to do better. I'll give ⁓ big to ⁓ Ryan and Public Works. We were ⁓ adopting practices in Public Works six, seven years ago. you know, with the first electric vehicles in the city for commercial use, with the use of electric backpack leaf blowers, you know, the of pollinator gardens. All of those are things that local government has already done. You know, are we doing enough? ⁓ know, I don't think it's ever going to be enough, but I think that, you know, we are, the community is certainly highly, highly attuned to ⁓ practices and sustainability. some of those for financial reasons, some of those for longer term social policy issues. ⁓ think that sustainability committee, and I certainly think that this council is highly attuned to ⁓ practices and to continuing to advance that. MyRye.com: And then how is the coordination between our other partners, regional partners, villages, as well as the county and the state, as well as the schools in mean, ⁓ everybody working off the same playbook or is everybody kind of doing their own thing when it comes to sustainability? Greg Usry: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Well, you know, I think it's ⁓ not ⁓ answer, obviously. mean, you we have in our you know, certain needs that are common or goals that are common versus our neighbors, both in other villages towns and also regionally with the county and with the state. But we also have goals that, you know, may not be the same. We may have challenges ⁓ that are not same. You know, we have, you know, we have ⁓ a ⁓ significant of that, for example, Rye Brook doesn't have, that the rest of the county doesn't necessarily have. But I think that in terms of coordination, and I'm nine, well, 10 months removed now, the relationship, the working relationship that I had with my counterpart, the counterparts in Rye Brook and Port Chester were exceptional. I mean, we, as a group, as a management committee, we worked extremely, extremely well together, very, very collaboratively. I would say the same thing with members of county government you know, there's for some of these challenges, whether we're talking about sustainable practices or flooding or ⁓ or anything else, there's not a, you know, for a, for a community of 16,000 people and seven square miles, you know, we can't solve all those problems ourselves. So, ⁓ know, I think that, I think that the short answer is we're doing a good job. I think that there are some of these tasks that are, we're going to have to have. county, state, and probably federal partners to address. MyRye.com: Okay, and I want to get back to that as we go on. Another thing you mentioned was the downtown. ⁓ I know there's been a real pivot point in downtown from when a lot of us moved here. It was all about the mom and pop shops, and then it moved to a lot of franchises, and then it moved to more experiences, dining experiences. ⁓ And never seen it more thriving in terms of the buzz and activity because people are shopping ⁓ online elsewhere, so you don't really need to have as much of that as we used to. Those were real policy changes. Greg Usry: Mm-hmm. MyRye.com: as well as changes driven by the residents. Can you expand on some of the efforts that you did and where you see it going? Greg Usry: Right. Sure. You know, mean, you it really, you know, my first experience with that aspect of the job came during COVID as we were looking like many communities were doing to try to find ways to support our downtown merchants and restaurants. And, you know, there was, you know, there was 12 months of of very positive experiences, some controversy as we closed and opened streets and tried to provide for outdoor dining, you know, and the like. had a very, very good relationship with Tony who was the president of the chamber at the time, and then ultimately with, ⁓ with ⁓ gosh, last name, I'm sorry. But, you know, worked very well with the chamber. I think that, as you point out, you know, when, when I moved to Rye, much as you described, It was really in a conversion or a movement, moving away from the smaller mom and pops to some of the bigger national chains. And there was a great fear that, you know, the banks and the, you know, and the change we're going to kind of take over the downtown. And that's, that's very, very much evolved over, over time. My sense is that the next, you know, the next thing that we're going to face as a community and probably something that the comprehensive plan is going to need to address. is what do we do about density in the downtown? There are several properties that have sold on Purdy that are in the midst of either having development, for example, where the old town dock was and building across the street to some other properties there that are being considered ⁓ by Planning Commission right now about development of whether we want that kind of density in the downtown. And also that type of aesthetics, you know, what would happen If the Purdy corridor went from two stories to four stories, what happens if we add more density of housing downtown when we know that there's already some parking challenges? know, the developers of the dock of the town dock property purposely develop that building to provide for parking on the ground floor of that footprint in recognition by them and the planning commission that, you know, you have to provide for parking. you know, as we talk about or think about density in the downtown, parking, garbage collection, know, sidewalk, all that are going to be a big concern or of great interest. And I do think that's probably one of the more important aspects of a comprehensive plan for the committees are doing this to consider and then ultimately the city council when they have to adopt zoning changes that are in compliance with the recommendation. is both the aesthetics as well as the use and the density of the downtown. MyRye.com: Yeah, it's interesting. So when I was in office, we floated the concept because the city owned old Lester's, was the now it's the old it's the current YMCA that owns it. But ⁓ floated the concept of raising height and more apartments and density And the residents just not want it because of all the various impacts that we've talked about. But so it's interesting time in the plan ⁓ may evolve into that. Greg Usry: Perfect. MyRye.com: The last thing is you talk about rec space. think that's one of the areas where you really have all organizations and schools and local government really come together for rec space because you've seen a huge increase in youth getting more involved, in specialized teams, in females getting more sports teams, ⁓ the explosion of other sports like lacrosse. But we're out of space. So what are your thoughts on that? ⁓ Greg Usry: So, you know, I think that it's important to take a pause and acknowledge what we have been able to do in the last 10 years with recreation facilities in the city. During we took an opportunity to reimagine if you will, rec park, construction of the amphitheater, the walking path, the pollinator gardens, replacing all the tennis courts, the creation of the pickleball courts. All things that came out what we saw as the demand for greater recreation space. thing with Nursery mean, obviously that piece of property has been owned by the city since the early nineties, but because of you know, natural grass and demand for playing time and the number of activities going on, it just wasn't practically surviving a full season. And so there was a lot of time that the field was out of use. I'm not going get into the, you know, the pluses and minuses of turf in the field or not, but that was in response to ⁓ express demand by the community that we need more recreation space. You know, we, ⁓ and not sure how much people really know this, but Our rec department works as ⁓ one or ⁓ joint if you will, between us and the schools when it comes to recreation space. We operate of the fields in the city, whether they be owned by the school or by the city, almost as one entity in terms of how we schedule the use of those facilities. The school provides their fields for ⁓ non-school activities. provide our facilities for school activities. And so that's done on a very collaborative basis. But with all that said, there is still greater demand than there is supply. hopeful that as the Rye Country Day property ⁓ the thruway is that that becomes another option for our community to have for recreation. Gagliardo Park something, as I was leaving the city, was something that we were heavily, heavily focused on, is how do we take that piece of property maximize use beyond what it is right now. Because ⁓ not is it not being maximized for use, just, parts of are derelict. ⁓ And we have luxury of overlooking those pockets of ⁓ property that should and can used for recreation purposes. So I think that's probably the next thing. MyRye.com: Yeah, and you hit on something, it's development on the post road across from Rye Country Day School. ⁓ if a resident, you see development happening all the time, residential development, ⁓ you ⁓ organization So we've got things like the Arts Center ⁓ is to develop, the Osborn, ⁓ Rye Day School, that you also have. Greg Usry: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. MyRye.com: expansion of residential properties. If you're a resident, what's the best way, or con, have your voice heard to really influence the process because development has up because of the demand in Rye? Greg Usry: Okay. Absolutely. Well, you know, and again, going back to where we started with the comprehensive plan, this is the moment for the pause. This is the moment for people to be able to to get engaged in everything that is going on. One of the things that I did as city manager and it was extraordinarily helpful to me is that I attended 90 % of the Board of Zoning Appeals and the Planning Commission meetings during the six years I was city manager. And in terms of getting an education on everything that goes on in the city as it relates to land use, these volunteers are the experts and they have seen everything. And one of my takeaways from all of that is something that Alan Weil, the Board of Zoning Appeals would say oftentimes, and that is, There's a balancing test that we have to do. You know what you want, your neighbors know what they want. There has to be some balance because you can't just make an arbitrary black and white decision when it comes to land use. And I'll give you a good example of that. In spite of the amount of residential development that's going on in town, there are still smaller homes in Rye that have not been sold and redeveloped. Some of the bungalows along the the Milton corridor, for example. there those in the city that would like to say, look, we need to not allow any more development of residential properties. And I understand that. I I understand that as a resident, aesthetically and concerned about flooding and everything else. ⁓ However, I've living in that home for 50 years, my net worth is tied up in that home. And if you're going to tell a... a future builder that they can't buy that house and develop it to a certain extent, that is financially impacting me. And so there has to be some recognition or understanding of the balancing of those interests. But again, going back to your question, I think that this conference of plan process is the time for that. It is the time for, you know, what do we think about the development downtown? What do we think about the multifamily development that's gone on, whether it be you know, the end townhouses on Locust or whether it be an expansion of the Osborn or the work that's going on in Port Chester, you know, adjacent to our border with the United Hospital site. MyRye.com: Right. And so when you talk about the balance, there's also that there's a, there's a conflict here in terms of time. There's resident time. Residents want things done now versus government time, which is years, sometimes decades in my case, in the making. So, so can we create a sense of urgency? as, as customers, as residents are getting more involved with the planning process, right, as they get more involved with all the different stakeholders for businesses and schools and, Greg Usry: Yep. Mm-hmm. Sure. MyRye.com: Staff, right? How do we create a sense of urgency to make sure that we stay we create a good plan and we stay on a path? Greg Usry: Well, I think, and this isn't just your germaine to the comprehensive plan, it's to everything in the city. So you're right. I and I, even though I may have said this prior to taking the job, I got so tired of hearing, well, government just moves slowly. just moves slowly. Well, here's my two cents now having seen it from the other side. There are 150 city employees. There are 12 department heads. All of those... employees and department heads have day jobs. you say, why doesn't the city advance the salt shed any faster? Why isn't ⁓ city engineer doing X, and Z? Well, it's because he runs Public Works. He's responsible for all of the city infrastructure. That's his day job. Now, when we add other things to that, that become a priority. But the I I want to make is that The best thing that the elected officials can do, this city council, the last city council, the future city councils, is to set a very specific set of priorities and to stick to those priorities. Now, look, an Ida is going to happen. know, Ida threw us off by nine months on so many things that we wanted to do because of the severity of the storm, similar to the experiences you had when you were mayor. But with that said, The worst thing that can happen is that for an elected body every quarter to change its list of priorities to say, now we want to do XYZ because three residents showed up and are unhappy about it. If the comprehensive plan is the priority, recognize that's going to take a lot of time and a lot of focus, but it can get done as long as everyone's not distracted about whatever the latest issue is. that a group of residents wants to do. And the same thing for a resident. know, a resident has to understand that if they want something done, then they can advocate for it. They need to go to their elected officials, and that's how it becomes a priority. But I can't emphasize enough that those policies or those goals need to stay consistent and focused. MyRye.com: Yeah, no, I could not agree more. And before we pivot to my next topic, that's unheard of that you went to all of those zoning board meetings. I mean, that is great experience and I would recommend the new city manager do the same. I think that that's foundational to a lot of the ⁓ that you had to do. Greg Usry: Well, you know, and one last note on that, city charter actually mandates that the city manager go to planning commission meetings. That is one of the things in the charter that the manager is supposed to do. The zoning board, you know, adding that because ⁓ those two work so much in tandem and sees them as the same issues. And again, mean, Weil, Alan Weiner, Nick Everett, I mean, you these are... ⁓ These folks are so important to this community and there's a lot to be learned from them. MyRye.com: So I want to touch on two things before we then wrap up money and technology. So you were on the Citizens Finance Advisory Board. Give us a sense, know, good, bad, ugly. The city dashboard, it doesn't have to be the exact numbers, but just directly, how do we stand with our debt, our cash, our cost structure, capital investment? Greg Usry: Mm-hmm. Absolutely. So, you know, it's probably one of the things I'm the proudest about during my time there. that happened to the city is done by any one individual. This was all done as a team. But, you coming out of the recession, know, the City Rye, like many communities, ⁓ it was I'll call it shy, about overextending itself, about borrowing, about... you know, even some of the deferred maintenance. And so by the time we got to the late, you know, mid to late 2015 to 20 time period, there was a lot of aspects of the city finances that needed to be buttressed. And I don't mean we needed to make more, do more money. We needed to do a better job of planning. And so some of the things that we did that I think are now paying huge dividends are number one, we established a formal policy as it related to the general fund reserve. that we wanted that to be 10 % of the total budget, which is somewhere in the 52 to $53 million range. So call that $5 million. We further said that any surplus in any year was going to be dedicated to capital projects and that we were going to, you know, we knew what our needs were, but we needed to put the money away for it. We began putting into the tax rate things that we knew were going to be annual ongoing needs. For example, street resurfacing. You know, the city has played as has paved 30 lane miles of roads in the last eight years now. That's because a lot of money was already put into the tax rate. We established with the city engineer, the first management plan in the history of the city. We know that every year we have to replace police cars. We know that every 12 years we have to replace garbage trucks. We know every 20 years we to replace the fire truck. If we know that we're have to do that, that we need to be putting money away every year for that. So story short, the city's finances ⁓ are a ⁓ tremendously good right now. With the help of our legislative delegation through Shelley and Steve and George and others have achieved a large of grants for projects. We have a very robust CIP capital reserve. We have money in the tax rate. are bonds rolling off right now that I would anticipate over the next year or two that the city ⁓ be going back to the bond markets. My year we borrowed about $13 million at right at 2 % for 25 years. So we're in shape and I think that the city should be back in the bond market. sometime in the next couple of years because all these are long-term assets. you're going to build something that's going to last for 30 years, then doing it via debt is a thoughtful way of doing it. But none of these are any way ⁓ stretching the city. I think we do ⁓ with money ⁓ than most municipalities do, frankly. MyRye.com: Great. That's great to hear and just quickly about technology. Is the city poised to really embrace AI and technology to provide more efficient services, cost savings, all the great things that AI and tech is bringing to the communities? Greg Usry: You know, again, I mean, I think the starting point of this was that, I'll say this a dozen times, there were some very positive things that came out of COVID for us. One of the things that came out of COVID for the city was that in a matter of 30 days, we had to go 100 % remote. And in doing so, we had to set up virtual workstations. We had to advance our technology greater than it had been in 20 years or 15 years before that. The city has brought on Joe DeVita as its chief technology officer in the last 12 months. Joe was previously associated with one of the big four accounting firms doing As we said earlier today, Doug, I'll be completely honest. I can't tell you what the city is doing with AI. I can tell you that we have or we're moving toward 100 % cloud-based, which we had in the past had servers. know that our Public Safety Commissioner ⁓ an ⁓ adopter of AI as it relates to public safety, our City Engineers as well. So I have no doubt that we're going to be moving as quickly as we can, recognizing that we've come a long way in just the last five MyRye.com: That's great. It sounds like the city's got the expertise as well. Before our last segment, I want to let our listeners know if you have a topic or a guest you would like to have here on the MyRye.com podcast, Conversation with Doug French, shoot me an email at French at MyRye.com and we will take it into consideration. So the last segment, I want to do a question and a sentence. So just keep it to one short sentence. So if Greg, us, we, the city manager, was talking to Greg Usry the Rye resident, before he became city manager. What would he tell him? Greg Usry: Be more engaged or be more aware, right? mean, pay attention to what's going on because there are actions that happen at city council meetings and during the budget every year that are going to affect your life. And so pay attention. MyRye.com: Rye? Greg Usry: Well, I can wax philosophically about Rye but... ⁓ MyRye.com: one sentence this is one question one sentence Greg Usry: We had two in an apartment on the Upper West Side. We were getting ready to have a third. It was to move and my wife said I've picked two communities and we're gonna look at houses and those and Rye was the best. MyRye.com: your Rye pet peeve? one. Greg Usry: highly intelligent, highly effective, highly motivated individuals with lots of uninformed opinions about the City MyRye.com: How about your favorite Rye food? Greg Usry: bar scene at Ruby's, which kind of became our cafeteria for my wife and I after we became empty nesters. MyRye.com: Nice. we don't have to do each one, but if you were to speak with, you know, Congressman George Latimer or County Executive Ken Jenkins or Josh Nathan, our you know, what's the one thing you would ask them or say to them? Greg Usry: Talk and collaborate. I mean, we are, many communities, we ⁓ have needs that far outstrap our abilities, ⁓ that be financial or operational, but have been, and I'm sure will continue to be good partners. MyRye.com: And is there a guest or topic that you think we should cover on this podcast? Greg Usry: well, I kind of referred to it earlier. I cannot say enough good things about our ⁓ Rye-Ryebrook EMS. Kenny Barton, Kenny Barton is the supervisor. I'm not sure that's his right title, but that organization is best that local government can, can, can, can offer. ⁓ you have three communities that work extraordinarily well together and our EMS. I will say without a doubt is the best in class across the entire state. And that comes from the likes of Shelley Mayor and even the County Head of Emergency Services. ⁓ do extraordinary work and ⁓ at little cost to average resident. MyRye.com: And for those that may want to connect with you, what is the Greg Usry brand today? Greg Usry: Well, I've, this is my second time around of quote unquote retiring. ⁓ think this one's going to stick. But I am, ⁓ I'm but surely building a nice portfolio of activities. I have joined the board of trustees at Mercy University in the last several months. I'm driving for Meals on Wheels down in Rye a few times a month. I have been engaged as a consultant for a good friend of mine who's running for County Executive down in Tennessee where I grew up. So a whole lot of interesting things, but nothing full time and nothing after hours on the weekends. MyRye.com: It's great to hear, Greg, it's been a real pleasure to have you on the podcast and I will just also thank you, but also thank listeners. Thank you all for listening to MyRye.com podcast, Conversations with Doug French. You can find more local news and full episode transcripts at MyRye.com. If you found this conversation helpful, please follow or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And with that, we'll thank you to all ⁓ and see next time on the MyRye.com podcast conversation with Doug French.