Supervisor’s half-year recap

I very much enjoy this being your full-time Supervisor and I’m honored to be able to do what I do for our community every day. Here is a look at some accomplishments from 2025 so far:

I assisted 41 of our neighbors in various constituent services cases for the first half of the year and will continue assisting our neighbors with their individual needs and issues throughout the remainder of the year. These are issues that impact your life daily; like the potholes you see me posting about, waste collection, building department complaints, flooding mitigation, financial issues, state/federal services, and more.

Under this current administration, the Town of Chester has either received or been awarded approximately $1,063,339 in grant funding. Of this amount, about $400K represents grant funding that was awarded prior to 2024, but due to paperwork issues, the funds were never received. The remainder of the $600K plus was secured over the last year and a half.

This amount of funding is transformational for our community. It allows us to get projects started/finished like the upcoming Sugar Loaf sidewalks, water district upgrades for Walton Lake Estates, paving for Johnson Road, and ADA walkways for Carpenter Community Park. It also pays for amenities like community picnics, our upcoming Chester Field Day in August, EV charging stations, and our senior fitness equipment.

In response to long response times for emergency ambulance services, in February I signed a contract for a new 24/7 ambulance service with Empress EMS. This paid immediate dividends as our average response time went from 17 ½ minutes to about 9 minutes. These are golden minutes for our family members that mean the difference between life and death. We also signed contracts for online tax services to be offered in 2026 and a new emergency notification system that will soon be implemented. These are also thanks to Tax Receiver Vin Maniscalco and Town Clerk Linda Zappala.

We officially designated our Senior Rec Center as an emergency shelter and heating/cooling center thanks to the newly installed generator we acquired.

We have worked on passing multiple new local laws and reforms such as new water district billing which reduces assessed taxes; noise ordinance reform; an increased parkland fee so land developers pay their fair share towards our parks; procurement policy reform; a new investment policy which will allow the Town to earn more interest on your money; a local law on zombie poles for a safer and more visually pleasing community; new Senior Center and Performing Arts Center fee schedules; Hotel/Motel/Airbnb tax; and fire department tax exemption reform.

These are just some of our accomplishments this year so far. I want to thank all town representatives, staff, & professional services that helped to make them all happen.

Looking forward to the rest of the year, this Town Board is laser-focused on ensuring your quality of life is as high as possible while also keeping your taxes/cost of living as low as possible. Now that we stabilized fund balance spending and cut back on spending across all town departments, we are confident there will be no sharp tax increase in 2026.

Finally, I’m committed to working on projects like our lighting at the Chester Commons Park field, playground improvements, additional senior center parking, finishing our comprehensive plan update to protect our town’s character and natural resources, and passing new tax exemptions for our residents who are disabled and/or veterans.

If you have any questions, suggestions, or concerns, please feel free to reach out by emailing bholdridge@thetownofchester.org or calling (845)469-7000 X2.