Mayor Chance Mullen gaveled open on Tuesday the first village trustees meeting in the new Village of Pelham Municipal Center, with Trustees Michael Carpenter, Theresa Mohan, Russell Solomon and Krystal Howell alongside. The bang of the gavel came seven years after the effort to create the center began.
Mullen began the regular meeting with words from President Theodore Roosevelt, saying, “We get in the habit of speaking of the government as if it were something apart from us. [But] the government is us—we are the government, you and I. And the government is going to do well or ill accordingly as we, with sanity, with resolution, with broad charity and sound common sense, make up our minds that the affairs of the government shall be managed.”
Mullen said the new municipal center is almost perfectly equidistant from all the borders of the village, making government more accessible to everyone.
Each trustee thanked Mullen and Village Administrator Christopher Scelza for their hard work in seeing the project through.
Former Mayor Michael Volpe said that when the effort first began, people said he was crazy and that nothing ever gets done in Pelham. Nonetheless, his board moved forward in February 2018 to begin the project. “To have this tonight is a tremendous accomplishment for the community and for everything this community stands for,” said Volpe. “I want to thank the people of Pelham for supporting this. I hope we all together made a difference for years to come.”
Other attendees included State Sen. Nathalia Fernandez, County Legislator Terry Clements, Town Supervisor Dan McLaughlin, Town Councilwoman Maura Curtin and Board of Education Trustee Sid Burke. Past elected officials of the village also attended, including former Trustees Kim McGreal, Lisa Hill-Reis, Pete Potocki, Ciro Greco and Xaira Ferrara, as well as the lead developer of the project and Pelham resident Patrick Normoyle.
Under the deal Normoyle and his partners struct with the village in 2022, the developers built the municipal center and are constructing a rental tower at Fifth Avenue and Third Street. The developers received village land—the old fire house and a parking lot—and zoning breaks in exchange for paying for the construction of a new home for all the village’s departments, which is across the street from the properties the village traded.
The Village of Pelham Fire Department and village government offices are fully moved into the new building. There will be a larger celebration in the spring to celebrate the completion of the municipal center.
