Karen Brown’s Third Term Goal: Keep Tarrytown On Track

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Maor Karen Brown, Tarrytown's unchallenged incumbent

October 31, 2025

By Barrett Seaman–

When 2026 rolls around, there will be new mayors in five of the six rivertown villages covered by The Hudson Independent. Three of the current incumbents—Niki Armacost in Hastings, Nancy Kaboolian in Ardsley and Vincent Rossillo in Dobbs Ferry—are voluntarily stepping down and will be succeeded by political allies that are running unopposed in the November 4 election. Two incumbents, Jon Siegel in Irvington and Martin Rutyna in Sleepy Hollow, are retiring in part because of health issues. Their successors will be determined next week in competitive races.

Only one incumbent mayor will return to office unopposed: Tarrytown’s Karen Brown, a Democrat with two terms under her belt after defeating two more conservative opponents in 2021 and ’23. With Brown on the November 4 ballot—also unopposed—is the current deputy mayor. Becky McGovern, and trustees David Kim and Effie Phillips-Staley, who is also actively pursuing the Democratic nomination to challenge 17^th District Republican Congressman Mike Lawler.

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Brown entered office at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the village’s budget had been ravaged by the decline in tax revenues and the loss of millions in parking revenue. Hardly anybody was shopping downtown and the lots at the Metro North station were all but empty as erstwhile commuters stayed away from New York City. As if COVID weren’t enough, she recalls, “the nation was going through a very tumultuous time, and I wanted to make sure Tarrytown came through it.”

By most measures, it has. The MTA lots are not yet back at full capacity but much fuller than they were in mid-pandemic. These days, parking in the village is a problem the other way; there are not enough spaces. Though the new underground garage at 62 Main Street (the former YMCA) has added 180 spots, there is still more demand for parking than there is supply, and as Brown pointed out, with people using UberEats and DoorDash to pick up their meals, double parking has become an issue downtown.

Since COVID’s apparent retreat, the village budget has stabilized. The board has cut village taxes two years in a row and consistently kept the budget under the state-mandated three percent tax cap. “This is possible,” she says, “because we plan strategically, budget conservatively, and pursue outside funding whenever possible.”

Brown is quick to note, however, that the board has effective control over only about 20%, with major fixed items like healthcare, pensions and insurance expenditures baked in each year. How well the trustees do is evaluated every two years by voters. “Tarrytown residents,” she says, “expect their local government to manage resources wisely, invest in long-term needs, and avoid unnecessary debt.”

Big ticket items—water, sewer, flood protection—demand investments beyond the limits of what taxpayers will fund. Brown boasts that her board has brought in millions in state grants to make infrastructure repairs, park upgrades and sustainability programs it otherwise couldn’t afford to do. Since 2022, the village has brought in over $5 million in federal grants, including from two Biden-era programs, the American Rescue Plan and Safe Streets for All.

Other budget items in need of state or federal support include Lagana Park on Sheldon Avenue, just south of I-87/287, scheduled to open early next year, and the 70-year-old H Bridge, the village’s only link over the Metro North tracks, which is in need of structural improvements.

Tarrytown also launched ClearGov, a web site open to the public where they have access to the village’s budget and other financial information. “This tool makes government more accountable by allowing everyone to see exactly how their tax dollars are being spent,” states Brown. The site also allows residents to pay for water bills, taxes, and parking tickets online.

Brown espouses traditional progressive positions on issues such as protection of the environment, promoting pollinator pathways and adopting Project Mover electric bike rentals along with neighboring villages to encourage non-automotive transportation. In her time in office, she admits that she has come to appreciate the work of TEAC, the village’s environmental advisory council. “I was never a tree hugger,” she confesses, “but watching and listening to them. I’ve really learned more, and it’s important to me.”

Pollinator pathways are one thing, but staying ahead of climate change will require long-term, expensive efforts to keep a rising Hudson River at bay while maximizing the utility of the waterfront. Already, plans are in the works to relocate the 70 garden-style apartments at Franklin Courts from low-lying land to higher ground.

Economic and cultural diversity ranks high on her list of priorities. The village board recently adopted a Good Cause Eviction law designed to keep certain landlords from forcing low-income tenants out of their rental apartments in order to raise rents, hence profits. Generally popular with the village’s liberal majority, the law is opposed by conservative residents who see it as New York City-style rent control that stifles the free real estate market. Affordable housing will remain an issue for the board in the coming term.

With the projected costs of many of the long-term infrastructure needs well above Tarrytown’s (or any village’s) ability to pay, Brown is looking for cost-sharing ideas. She is talking to her counterparts in Irvington and Sleepy Hollow, the Town of Greenburgh and the county for any ideas that would combine services or equipment and thus save money. One idea she mentioned was a plan to join forces with Sleepy Hollow for a new water pumping station sometime in the coming decade. Other bolder schemes, like combining police or EMT services, face significant obstacles, including labor union opposition, not easily overcome. That has left Brown reluctant to discuss ideas with any specificity without a carefully thought-out plan.

Having now served on the board, first as a trustee for three terms, then as mayor for two more, Karen Brown has been involved in hiring most of the senior staff and department heads in Tarrytown’s government. They are, she says, “highly experienced and deeply caring about what they are doing.” That has allowed her to operate collegially and avoid internal conflict. It has not, however, insulated her from outside criticism.

If she has a nemesis in town, it is John Stiloski, owner of the eponymous trucking and towing company based at the end of Wildey Street. Well before Brown became mayor, Stiloski had developed a reputation for baiting village officials with Freedom of Information (FOIL) requests, public letters and confrontational appearances at trustee meetings. His latest grievance is a 2024 purchase of a Seagrave Aerialscope Fire Truck for nearly $3 million, which Stiloski asserts cost at least $511,000 more than the village should have paid. Though the decision to purchase the truck was made by a committee appointed by the village’s fire department after years of study, Stiloski aimed most of his criticism at Village Administrator Richard Slingerland and Mayor Brown.

For a fuller account of Stiloski’s charges and the village’s response, see the exchange in our Letters to the Editor section, published in August 2025 (https://thehudsonindependent.com/exchange-of-letters-concerning-tarryrtown-purchase-of-seagrave-firetruck/).

While there is little indication that the campaign has gained traction among residents, Stiloski has continued to press his case. His latest is an offer (published in our Letters section) to donate $3,500 to the village’s Senior Holiday Celebration “IF Mayor Karen Brown provides documentation and full accounting for the $511,000 discrepancy by Friday, October 31^st.” If she does not, Stiloski wrote in a separate message, the mayor should resign.

The posting is signed by “Tarrytown Taxpayers for Accountability,” a group that has no web site or any other discernible evidence of viability. But in a village the size of Tarrytown, Brown acknowledges, “People who have [First Amendment] rights can use them as a weapon that can sidetrack a whole village.”

Part of her job going into a third term is to make sure Tarrytown stays on the rails.

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