As Mayor of the Village of Ossining, Bill Hanauer is the official head of a village of 25,000 residents in Westchester County, and a Commissioner of Police. Hanauer presides at all meetings of the Board of Trustees, which makes the laws of the Village and safeguards its interests. He sits on all committees of the Board and chairs the Board of Commissioners of Police. He is also a Marriage Officer.
As Steering Committee Member of Ossining Communities That Care, Bill Hanauer helps lead a large coalition committed to strengthening the community on behalf of youth and families, concentrating especially on "Too Young, Too Smart, To Start," a program to end underage drinking and substance abuse.
As Board Director of Prison Communities Inc.: Rehabilitation Through the Arts, Hanauer develops policy and programs to offer incarcerated prisoners the opportunity to build social, communication, language, literacy, and leadership skills, and to gain knowledge and respect for themselves and community.
Hanauer is an Associate Member of Independent Hose Firehouse #6, Ossining’s largest volunteer company of emergency first responders.
As a member of The Rotary Club of Ossining, Bill Hanauer participates in community-based projects and national emergency responses. He is chair of the Program Committee.
As Member of the Westchester County Electrical Licensing Board from 2008 to 2010, Bill Hanauer provides administrative support to the Westchester County Electrical Examining Board.
Five months after Bill Hanauer moved to Ossining, he was elected Vice President of the Sparta Association in 1997. As President from 1999 to 2004, Hanauer led a large neighborhood association of historic Ossining, lobbying on issues affecting the Village, such as Sparta Park, traffic, redevelopment of the Arcadian Shopping Center, and historic preservation.
Bill Hanauer has had a forty year plus career in the entertainment industry. He has been a theatrical director, designer, and performer, and has taught these crafts at The College of Staten Island (CUNY) and The College of Mount Saint Vincent.
From 2001 to 2005, Bill produced the annual New York Emmy® Awards Galas and directed the NY Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and its not-for-profit educational Foundation.
From 1985 to 2000, he led three entertainment industry unions, was chief negotiator of their collective bargaining agreements, chief labor organizer, and trustee of a health and a pension plan. For twelve of those years, he also led Unions for the Performing Arts, a 21 union legislative action coalition.
Hanauer was on the steering committees of coalitions of Business, Labor, and Government: the NYC Mayor's Office of Film, Theatre, and Broadcasting and Production NY. He has also been on the Board of the NYS Governor's/NYC Mayor's Committee for Positive Action, developing programs and funding to increase minority participation in the technical crafts of the motion picture industry, and addressing conferences and university audiences.
Bill has a BA in Communications Arts and Sciences from Queens College – CUNY, and studied acting with Day Tuttle, Lenore DeKoven and Stella Adler. He still performs in staged readings and, in his very limited spare time, his pursuits are opera, theatre, cooking, and designing and overseeing renovations of parts of his historic home, the former Calvary Union Chapel.
In 1996, Bill chose to move to Ossining with his mother and his long-time partner because the Village is, like his native New York City, a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-linguistic municipality of socio-economic diversity — and it is on the Hudson River.
For the 2010-2011 school year, they are pleased to welcome Hardik Yadav, an exchange student from Gujarat, India, into their family.