Mayoral Candidate Marianne Olive

My name is Marianne Olive and I’m running for Mayor of Nyack.  As one of eleven children I was raised in West Nyack in a self-sufficient community called Marycrest, where family and community living was an extremely important part of my life, as it is to this day.  Here I learned by example what being part of a team meant for the overall good of the community.  In Marycrest we built our own homes along with a ballfield, basketball courts, and a big modern barn where we had weekly lessons in both arts and crafts and dance.

My father was an extraordinary man. He graduated from Fordham University with a degree in clinical psychology.  He hand-printed a monthly newspaper called The Marycrest News and Views. He raised honey bees and free-range chickens, goats, and pigs.  He had a wholesale organic fruits and vegetables business.  He  practiced Yoga and homeopathy, as I do today.  He  made Methane gas from  manure, built model airplanes, and hand-crafted telescope lenses.  One of my father’s favorite hobbies was to venture into Manhattan with a friend to rare book stores where he would collect first editions.  We had a  huge library, many books which I still keep today.

Every year my father donated a hundred pounds of peanuts and candy apples  to St. Dominick’s Bazar,  St. Agatha’s and St. Agnes’s homes for foster children.   All the neighborhood kids would come over and we would staple bags of peanuts  to sell for the benefit of the orphans.  We would dip the candy apples and prepare them as well.   We never thought of any of this  as a job.  We just thought of it as fun.

Around Christmas time our community would make cookies and other baked goods and we would bring them to Rockland State Hospital where we would feed the patients and sing carols for them.

My mother was a fabulous cook and hairdresser, who fed us delicious recipes made with our homegrown produce and livestock.  She was the center of the household who kept the family together.  She was very organized, loving, caring, warm, even-tempered, strong, generous, and gently disciplined all of us.  She was the foundation of our lives, the backbone of the family.  She prepared meals five days a week for many years for the priests in the rectory in Pearl River.  Every week on Sunday she would pick up a patient named Norman from Rockland State Hospital.  Norman never had any other visitors since his only relative was a sister who lived in California.  At our home he played with the children and the animals, he helped plant in the garden, he swam in a creek down the street, he cooked, and did many other things kids love doing.  He was a happy-go-luck soul who loved being with our family and was so grateful to be with us.

My education consists of studying graphic and fine arts at Rockland Community College and the University of California at Berkley, and a degree in Cosmetology from the Wilfred Academy.  I’m also a graduate of the French Culinary Institute, a licensed airplane pilot and motorcyclist, a beekeeper, and a biodynamic, raised bed organic gardener whose produce is used in my restaurant “Olive’s” on Main Street in Nyack.

In 1973 I opened up a hair salon in Irvington, New York, followed by a second one in Nyack the following year. Originally I came to Nyack because of the cultural scene and unique close-knit community.  A year later I purchased two commercial properties on Main Street, which was named “Most Improved Property” by the Nyack Chamber of Commerce.  It was here that I opened up my restaurant, then known as “One Potato, Two Potato,” and which remains a prosperous business to this day.  For twenty years I hosted All-Age shows at my restaurant, where high school age kids had a safe, creative, and encouraging forum for their original music, a number of whom went on to become world famous.

Over the years I have conducted numerous hair cutathons, donating the profits to charities such as breast cancer and multiple sclerosis, and I have been deeply involved in other charitable causes such as local schools and sports teams.  I have participated in The Taste of Rockland for the past several years, donating, cooking and serving food to 400 people for the benefit of ARC.   I am an active member of The Restaurant Row of Rockland and the Nyack Chamber of Commerce.

In 1980 I brought a house in Nyack and it was here, as a single mother, I began raising  my four wonderful children – Matthew, Meghan, Monica, and Mollie –who  are well on their ways to successful and productive careers.

I am a proud resident of Nyack with a two bedroom apartment on Main Street.  I also own a small farm in New Jersey, where I keep my honeybees and maintain a raised-bed biodynamic organic garden where I raise organic produce for my restaurant and recycle fruit and vegetable waste products for soil enrichment.

As Mayor of Nyack, here are my goals:

• To create an efficient and people-friendly  parking situation for merchants, residents, professionals, and visitors.
• To bring “green” living and energy efficiency (and recycling for businesses!) to the Village.
• To take more pride in the appearance of Nyack by keeping our buildings and properties clean and esthetically-attuned to the historical traditions of our great village.
• To be the liaison for bar and restaurant owners for taking responsibility for the behavior of our patrons as it pertains to noise levels and respect for private property.
• To encourage programs for children that will cover areas as diverse sports, river-activities, literacy and music programs, and bee-keeping.
• To construct a safe, beautiful walkway down Burd Street which will connect the center of town to the Hudson river.
• To enforce present village codes, especially those pertaining to air pollution caused by buses idling on Atropee Way.
• To have a much stronger police presence in Nyack so that everybody – from children to seniors – will feel safe and secure.
• To scrutinize the applications of potential residents who will be dwelling in public housing so that seniors don’t have to worry about the various problems associated with drug addiction and prostitution.
• To restore and beautify Nyack’s docks.
• To allow and encourage the operation of bed and breakfasts and other tourist-friendly businesses and ventures to make Nyack a more viable destination for vacationers.
• To bring into being, with certain modifications dependent upon citizen feedback, the exciting and visionary Riverspace projcct, which I do fully believe will be instrumental in restoring Nyack to its former greatness.
• To advocate safe, affordable housing for seniors.
• To renew streetscapes with new sidewalks, lighting, and plantings;
• To engage the services of a full-time Village Administrator who will:
  • search for ways to increase revenue without increasing taxes.
  • implement efficiency in every village department, which will guarantee the saving of  money.
  • analyze every detail of the proposed Riverspace superblock;
  • seek government grants and low-interest loans to finance the cost of maintaining and improving the infrastructure, including parks, water systems, sidewalks, lighting, sewers, streets, landscape, and the Gateway to Nyack.
  • audit energy costs and search for green solutions.
  • organize more cultural events and explore ways to develop the river front  to increase tourism.
  • unite together residents, merchants, professionals, and village administrators to work towards the goal of improving the Village of Nyack.
• To work together with the village board to fairly and expeditiously accomplish goals in the best interests of the Village of Nyack.
• To avoid favoring any special interests, but instead to take care of the village and to give back some of the success the village has given to me.

I’m a doer, not a talker.  I have been in business in Nyack since 1973.  I know the village and I know the people and their needs.  I am here with a different point of view with which to represent the people of Nyack.  I’m always here, and am always available.  I’m here to answer any questions, solve any problems, or discuss any issues that might arise in your lives.  You can visit me in town at Olive’s or Hair’s Marianne, or phone me at 845-596-2985.

Our future is going to be greatly effected by who is elected mayor.  So please remember to vote for me in the upcoming Democratic primary on September 15, and together let’s revitalize and rejuvenate Nyack!