In the News

Read about all the great work Stephanie is doing in the Town of Clarkstown:

From the Patch:

Support Your Favorite Small Business With a Patch Shout-Out

With Small Business Saturday coming this weekend, you can help drive feet—and wallets—to your favorite independent business.

By Robin Traum, November 22, 2011

You might be the type who finds sleeping on a freezing sidewalk for the best Black Friday deals exciting. Or perhaps you’ve already started working out your mouse-clicking finger for Cyber Monday. But if neither scenario appeals to you, there is an alternative—Small Business Saturday.

Small Business Saturday, conceived by American Express to help spotlight the efforts of local small businesses, comes at the beginning of the big holiday shopping sprint, this Saturday and encourages shoppers not to bypass Main Street for the mega-mall.

Clarkstown Supervisor Alex Gromack and Councilwoman Stephanie Hausner stressed the importance of residents keeping their dollars in town by utilizing the ‘downtowns.’

“While it is difficult for the small business owner to compete with the larger box stores, there is no replacing that ‘neighborly’ touch and friendly service you get when you shop locally and no denying that a dollar spent here in Clarkstown will do far more for our communities than a dollar spent someplace else,” said Hausner

New City Patch would love to hear which small businesses you can’t live without here.  Tell us in the comments which independently owned business is a must for local shoppers this Saturday and why. Your shout-out could help a sector of our economy that has created 65 percent of the net new jobs over the last 17 years.

So when you must get your nails done just right, discover that perfect bottle of wine or have a craving for an amazing sandwich, where do you go time and time again?

by Stephanie Hausner

I want to thank Governor Cuomo for making the Tappan Zee Bridge Hudson River Crossing project a priority and pushing this it forward. Some of us have been attending these workshops for years and it seemed like a new bridge would not happen in our lifetime, so I’m excited to see such a short timeline and that this bridge will be built shortly.

By adding another lane to the bridge, a bicycle lane, and a shoulder this bridge this is already a huge step forward.

As part of the ongoing meetings Clarkstown has been conducting over the past couple of years as part of our Tappan Zee Taskforce, we recently heard from Project Director Michael Anderson about changes to the Central Nyack/Mountainview Avenue Exit 11 Interchange. While I realize that the current bridge project is only slated to cover the span of the bridge and not the rest of the Rockland Thruway corridor as originally proposed, project planners should consider how the increased traffic flow will impact the Central Nyack area, Mountainview Ave, and the town of Clarkstown. Many residents use Rt. 59 and Exit 11 to travel onto the bridge, this exit is already backed up causing congestion on Route 59. One of our largest hospitals is located less than a mile from this intersection so especially in the morning there is already significant traffic from both the bridge and people trying to get into Nyack.

One of the future options that project planners have suggested is adding another bridge in the future to handle mass transit later. Of the three options for future transit on the bridge, I strongly encourage you to choose the design which includes transit on the bridge itself. Adding a third bridge or using the space between the spans for transit will never happen because of its high cost.

I hope that there is a real plan in place for the train as well as the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) discussed at earlier meetings. For the future vitality of our town and county, it is imperative that these transit options not be taken off the table and continue to be part of a larger plan for the region.

Stephanie Hausner is a Town of Clarkstown Councilwoman. She delivered these remarks at the Public Scoping Briefings on the proposed infrastructure improvements for the Tappan Zee Hudson River Crossingon Thursday 10/27.