Mission
To determine community opinion on civic matters, coordinate community action thereon, and to plan and promote the general welfare of the Edgemont community.
History
Edgemont is a community whose legal identity is as a school district (Union Free School District #6 at Greenburgh) and a fire district (the Greenville Fire District incorporated in 1913) with nearly co-terminus boundaries. Edgemont lies entirely within the unincorporated portion of the Town of Greenburgh, and as such, has no independent municipal government. Because the Town’s council members are elected “at large,” there is no member of the Town Board directly responsible for representing Edgemont’s interests at the municipal level.
The Greenville Community Council was formed at a meeting of fifty residents on Thursday, March 6 1947 to serve as the focal point for the community’s active, neighborhood-oriented civic associations, giving the residents both a community-wide forum for discussions and a non-partisan representative voice at Town Hall. In 1993 the Council was renamed the Edgemont Community Council in recognition that the term “Greenville” was now more closely associated with the area of community on the west side of Central Avenue where the Greenville elementary school is located than with the entire community. That mission of the Greenville Community Council set in 1947 is still the purpose of the Edgemont Community Council today.
However, the Greenville Community Council was not the first umbrella civic organization in our area. A precursor to the GCC was the Greenville Club founded in October 1928. The Greenville Club was organized to take care of the future development of the area, consisting then of all of Edgemont north of the Yonkers line and the country west of Edgemont as far as the Aqueduct, including Cotswold, Edgemont Gardens, the Fort Hill region, Scarsdale Longview and so on. Its focus was in all matters pertaining to the welfare of the district, town planning, streets, schools, playground and all similar subjects. It had significant influence in zoning matters of the time.
When explaining the creation of the Greenville Club, it was written in the October 12 1928 issue of the Scarsdale Inquirer. “Certain Edgemont problems are met by the Edgemont Association, certain Cotswold problems by the Cotswold Association; but there are other problems of concern to us all, the residents of Edgemont and Cotswold as well as those of Fort Hill, Scarsdale-Longview, and other parts of the district, which we now have no way of talking over and acting upon. Zoning is one of them. The question of establishing some sort of master plan for the future development of the district is another. Still other problems will surely arise as the district grows….. The organization which we propose would provide a means whereby, in a spirit of cooperation with the Greenburgh town authorities, we could work out measures for the development of this district as we want it to develop and not haphazard—as to some extent it is developing now.” By 1935 it seems the Greenville Club was disbanded allowing for the Greenville Community Council to be established nearly a decade later.
Today the ECC is the sponsor of the non-partisan School Board Nominating Committee (SBNC), providing the impartial chairperson and underwriting the associated costs.
ECC representatives regularly attend Town, Planning and Zoning Board meetings and take positions on traffic, planning, zoning and budget matters at the Town level.
Since 1950 the Community Council has presented an award to an Edgemonter in recognition of her/his commitment and exemplary service to the community. Originally the “Silver Box Award”, the award was changed to a Silver Bowl in 2014.
