Saying Thank You After Serving North Castle for 16 Years
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Thank you, North Castle!
I am finishing my 16th year serving the great Town of North Castle, the last 10 as supervisor, and I owe a debt of gratitude to you, the residents, for giving me the opportunity to serve you. It’s truly been a blessing to be allowed to serve first as a councilman, and then to lead the town as supervisor, and I send a big THANK YOU to all of you for this great honor. And I thank my wife and three daughters for their sacrifices in allowing me to govern.
Yes, there were many challenging times, but the accomplishments always outweighed everything else. I entered the board in January 2008, and the Great Recession was one month old. But the town endured, as we did through all of the blizzards, hurricanes, power outages, COVID, New York and Connecticut state legislative battles and everything else that was thrown at us.
When I think of the proudest moments of my tenure, several come to mind. During COVID, I sent an appeal to townspeople to “make” masks for frontline medical staff using whatever you had at home – truly an Americana-type story. And you did, with the most dazzling fabrics you had, and dropped them off in a bin on my lawn at all hours of the day.
Restoring our town’s fiscal health through a team approach was a five- to seven-year project but we did it! Paving every town road years ahead of schedule to improve your quality of life. And through it all, I insisted on an apolitical and bipartisan approach, which is the proper way to govern. Good policy before politics, always.
When my beautiful wife Lori and I moved here in 1999, I never had the slightest notion that one day I would serve on the Town Board, let alone become town supervisor. But here I sit with only a few days left in my final term, and what an incredible experience it has been. To meet so many of you along the way, and I always enjoyed people stopping me anywhere and talking about the town, and offering kind words of appreciation. Thank you for that!
As we move into the future, I still look forward to seeing you all around town. And no, I’m not “retiring,” as I still have my day job! My one request to all of you is to practice kindness, patience, and above all, decency. And our town will be the better for it.
Michael Schiliro
North Castle
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