A Republican Primary!!

For the first time in at least forty years, there is a primary contest for who will be the Republican candidate for Putnam Valley Town Supervisor.

Stephanie Waters, a longtime Putnam Valley resident, has thrown her hat in the ring. In the election on June 24th, she will face incumbent Jacqueline Annabi, who has been the town's supervisor since 2022 and before that served on the Town Board for 12 years.

Stephanie Waters

Waters grew up in Cortlandt Manor, on the edge of Putnam Valley, and attended the town's elementary and middle schools before going to Lakeland High School. Not long after graduation, her father passed away, resulting in more family responsibilities shifting to her and making it hard for her to complete her college studies in accounting. For a while, she worked in the comptroller's office of a steel company in Secaucus. For the last 18 years she has been working for a real estate investment company in White Plains, where she has risen to the level of associate. She and her husband, who retired from the New York Police Department, moved into a home in Putnam Valley that they built in 2009. Their three kids are graduates of Putnam Valley schools.

While Waters doesn't have the name recognition of Annabi, she is a popular figure in local knitting circles. For years, she taught knitting classes at a Peekskill yarn store, donating the proceeds to the storeowner. More recently, she has held knitting classes at her home. "I'm a hardcore knitter," Waters says. "There's nothing I can't knit."

Waters says she decided to run for town supervisor after years of frustration with what she views as bad decision-making and mismanagement by town leaders. She expresses great concern for the town and worries that it has become unaffordable for seniors, young families, and potentially, even her own children. While growing up, she felt it was a place where hard-working people could move to and raise a family. She no longer believes that is the case.

When asked what she thinks she can do to address these issues, Waters didn't have clear-cut answers beyond applying her accounting skills to the way the town allocates its resources and being a voice for change. "I have an accounting background, I do accounting in my job full time... I’d like to see where the money is spent, where the money is going," Waters says.

When Waters spoke with former town supervisor Sam Oliverio Jr. about the position, he advised her to gain more government experience by first trying to become a Town Board member. But, at the age of 57, Waters says she doesn't feel she has the time for that. "I'm not going to do this for the next 25 years. I want to make change, I don't want to be part of the establishment," she said.

If anything, Waters thinks her lack of experience could actually be an asset. As she put it: "That's the other thing about Putnam Valley. Everybody's connected, everybody's related. and I think that's the one thing that I bring to the table. I'm not connected and I'm not related."

Jacqueline Annabi

By contrast, Annabi has devoted much of her life to local government. After graduating from Carmel High School, she earned a bachelor's degree in political science and business from Western Connecticut State University. But Annabi says she learned how to support constituents at a much earlier age, starting at 11 when she began working at her family's diner.

Annabi gained government experience when she spent six years working for State Senator Sue Serino as the community coordinator for Dutchess and Putnam counties. She became a Putnam Valley Town Board member in 2010 and served as deputy supervisor to both Republican and Democratic supervisors.

As a veteran of the local Republican establishment, Annabi has leveraged her relationships on the town's behalf with Putnam County Executive Kevin Byrne, County Legislator William Gouldman and State Assemblyman Matt Slater on many state and local issues. Most recently, she has been leading the effort to unite all nine of the county's towns and villages around a proposal to secure some of the county's sales tax revenue.

If successful, Annabi thinks Putnam Valley could receive about $300,000 in additional funds. Her ideas for spending that money include creating an outdoor fitness center for seniors and adding batting cages and a mini-golf course to town property. She believes these kinds of amenities will bring more residents into the center of town and help build a more viable businesses community there.

Annabi is sensitive to the complaints about the town's lack of affordability. To address those issues, she points to the $5 million in grants she has been able to secure to support infrastructure work without burdening taxpayers. Most recently, she got a grant to install EV chargers at Oregon Corners and Town Hall; once installed, they will generate revenue for the town and should help lure more people to that area. Of the 81 cars that arrived at Town Hall for last Sunday's "community shred" event, Annabi took note that 13 were electric vehicles.

In a move that will undoubtedly make voters happy, Annabi says this year there will be a freeze on property assessments. For the past year, she and her contacts at New York State's Office of Real Property Tax Services have been monitoring town housing prices and concluded there were market irregularities that deserved more study. She acknowledged that voters may question the timing of this freeze, coming as it does in an election year. However, she says this process has been underway since last May, when she had no idea she would have a contested primary or general election.

Why does Annabi want another term? "We still have a lot of work to do," she says.
"My heart and soul is in this town, and I'm always looking for ways to make it better."

The Republican Party Firmament

Both candidates struggled to describe where they fit on the spectrum of Republican politics. Waters says she moved to the right after the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky scandal. Asked how she squares that perspective with President Trump's convictions, she said that since President Clinton didn't suffer political consequences for his behavior, neither should Trump. "I'm not afraid to say that I'm a Trump supporter and if that means I'm MAGA, then I'm MAGA," Waters said. "There's nothing wrong with trying to make America great again." Her Facebook page includes a photo of her at Trump's controversial Madison Square Garden rally last fall, an event she described as "AMAZING!!"

Annabi created more distance between herself and the MAGA movement. She says she considers herself a tried-and-true Republican, believes in Republican standards and respects the office of the president. She agrees with some things that President Trump is doing and disagrees with others. "I can't say I'm MAGA," she said. "I think America IS great."

The outcome of this race is likely to be determined by the candidate who is most successful at driving voter turnout. There are currently 2,743 registered Republican voters in Putnam Valley. Annabi stands to benefit from her strong name recognition and popularity as a dedicated public servant. Waters is likely to tap into a ready community of voters riled up by Patty Villanova, an outspoken critic of the local GOP who has run unsuccessfully for the Town Board four times. In the 2023 election, Villanova received 1,163 votes, just 55 shy of the 1,218 votes that longtime board member Louie Luongo received from Republican voters. Waters collected 330 signatures to get on the ballot, more than twice what was needed, and says she could have gotten more but ran out of time.

Neither candidate has any events planned yet and there are currently no debates scheduled between the two candidates, who have never met. The next eight weeks will be interesting!

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