Week in Review: With Dancing and Celebration, Port Chester Marks the End of Summer on a Festive Note

Fall is right around the corner.

As kids prep for school and families return from their last summer getaways, neighbors in Port Chester made it clear there was still some summer left this week, waving goodbye to the warm weather and long days with festivals and dancing.

On Wednesday, hundreds turned out to shake and groove to the sounds of La Avalancha, a salsa band. From a stage erected near the waterfront, the band got people out of their seats and onto the makeshift dance floor with percussive vibes and ethnic melodies. With one installment left, organizers are happy with this year's concert series, "Dancing Under the Stars."

Pegging music as a way to unite Port Chester's many cultures, they banked on a mix of swing, Italian standards and Latin sounds to bring the community together. Judging by the action on the dance floor, the plan worked.

On Saturday, crowds turned out in force again for the 22nd annual Port Chester Day celebration. The hot summer months might have seemed like a distant memory on Saturday, with mild weather and clear skies encouraging residents to make their way to Lyon Park, where there was food, music and a chance to see neighbors and friends.

On the lighter side of news, Port Chester Patch contributors profiled familiar faces and places in town. On Friday, writer Rob Rennie took readers inside Aqui Es Santa Fe, introducing them to the restaurant's proprietor and detailing her long journey from single mom to proud restaurant owner. And earlier in the week, arts writer Christine Loughran kept local singles in mind with her recommendations for "Six Great Places to Take a Date in Port Chester (and Rye)." While dinner and a movie remains a standard, the story highlighted some quirky and fun local venues for couples.

As a recent graduate of SUNY Oneonta, Loughran also shared tips for Port Chester's college-bound kids, designed to make those 8 a.m. classes and pesky prerequisites easier to handle.

In government, Port Chester's board of trustees met Monday at the courthouse, where they were frustrated by an incomplete report by the village's professional staff. Trustees want to take advantage of a state program to help towns trim their budgets by encouraging retirements and eliminating positions. But without a detailed run-down of which positions could be eliminated – and how much money the village could save – they were forced to put off their decisions until the next meeting.

There wasn't much news on the pair of investigations into thefts from parking meters, but the issue came up again this week on the heels of a television news report that speculated millions might be missing. Trustees weren't happy about the report, which compared supervised collections from two weeks earlier this month to the same two weeks later year, and extrapolated the figures to arrive at the theoretical millions. But elected officials warned against assumptions based on small data samples, and a long list of compounding factors raises the uncomfortable possibility that no one may ever know how much was stolen.

As summer winds down and kids across Westchester prep to take the field for soccer, football, volleyball and other sports, columnist Susan Konig wrote about how local moms prepare for school sports – by bracing themselves. With her tongue-in-cheek account of what it's like to be a parent in the stands at a football game, Konig reminded us that moms cheer too, even if they might look away during tackles and bumps.