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Council Member Peter Jovanovich To Run For Mayor Of Rye

RYE, N.Y. -- City Council member Peter Jovanovich announced Wednesday that he intends to run independently for Mayor of Rye.

City Council member and Deputy Mayor Peter Jovanovich announced he will run for Mayor of Rye this November.

City Council member and Deputy Mayor Peter Jovanovich announced he will run for Mayor of Rye this November.

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“I believe that the City of Rye can only be made a better place through the collaboration of Democrats, Republicans and Independents,” he said. “The challenges we face are practical, not partisan, and we need volunteers from all points of the political spectrum.”

Jovanovich was elected to the City Council in 2009 and has served as deputy mayor for the past two years. He also served as a member of the Architectural Review Board and the Planning Commission, as well as on the board of the Friends of the Rye Nature Center.

A graduate of Princeton University, he spent his career in publishing, including as CEO of Macmillan/McGraw-Hill School Publishing and the CEO of Pearson Education, which he helped create. For the past six years he has served as president of the Alfred Harcourt Foundation, a Rye-based nonprofit that provides college scholarships to low-income students. His wife Robin is the publisher of the Rye Record. They have two grown sons, one who graduated from Rye High School and one who graduated from Rye Country Day School.

Issues that Jovanovich said he wants to address include improving the city's infrastructure and renegotiating with city unions to keep employee compensation and health care costs from rising too quickly. He proposes more oversight for the Rye Golf Club, including both internal and outside auditors to review the Golf Club, as well as an expansion of the Golf Club and Boat Basin Commission to include residents with financial expertise. He also wants to reinforce the city's mission of providing low-cost recreational amenities.

"We have lost sight of this goal: to provide affordable access to recreation,” he said. “The cost of a pool membership at the Golf Club is now three times the average cost of other pools in Westchester. That’s not right.”

Jovanovich will need to collect 377 signatures from residents by Aug. 20 in order to appear on the ballot. He will be facing Republican Joe Sack in the mayoral race. The Democratic Committee did not select a nominee to run for mayor in this year's election. Mayor Doug French has decided not to run for re-election.

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