Your Town Board Candidates
Putnam Valley voters will have an opportunity on November 4th to elect two of the three candidates who are seeking to represent them on the Town Board next year. Two are incumbents, Stacey Tompkins and Christian Russo, and one is a relative newcomer, C.J. Brooks. Tompkins and Russo are running on the Republican and Conservative lines; Brooks is running on the Democrat and Working Together lines.
As the newest entry to the field, Brooks is likely to attract the greatest scrutiny.
A former NFL football player who originally hails from Georgia, Brooks moved to Lake Peekskill in 2022 with his wife, Beth Gorman, who now chairs the town's Commission for the Conservation of the Environment (CCE). Brooks says he decided to throw his hat in the ring because he wants to become more active in the community and believes that fresh perspectives and a more collaborative approach are needed. This would be his first time in the political sphere; he runs two businesses, one in computer code coaching and the other, DJing.
To make his case, Brooks is networking with residents who he says feel disenfranchised by the group that has been running the town. As a resident of Lake Peekskill, he has been particularly troubled by the serious water quality problems that have plagued that lake and thinks that building alliances with residents from other lakes would be advantageous. "They are all very siloed and even though they're all dealing with different things, we could still come together as a community to try to have better solutions," Brooks says. He also thinks residents who don't live on a lake and don't have access to them are often ignored and he'd like to better represent them.
While Brooks is trying to set himself apart from his opponents, both of whom have a long history here, the three candidates have plenty of viewpoints in common. They all say they want to streamline and make more efficient the town's building and zoning codes. They all want to bring more small businesses to Putnam Valley. None supports ICE breaking up local families who may be undocumented but who have been living and working here peacefully without any criminal offenses. "I don't want to see families being just pulled apart," says Russo. "If it becomes something that we are seeing in Putnam Valley, I will - and I believe the whole board will - happily sit down with the Sheriff's Department and talk about this and how we feel about it," says Russo.
All three also de-emphasize their affiliation with the two national political parties. Tompkins says that she wasn't a registered Republican until four years ago. Brooks was a lifelong Democrat who registered as an independent when he first moved to Putnam Valley because he felt some "dissonance" with the Democratic Party after the 2020 election. Russo is a longtime Republican, but stresses that he thinks national politics should have no place in town issues. That said, he is being considered as a serious GOP candidate to run next year for William Gouldman's seat representing Putnam Valley in the County Legislature. (Gouldman can't run again because of term limits.) Russo says he's not made a decision yet about whether to seek that office, which would be far more time consuming than the Town Board. If elected to the Town Board, he could end up serving just one year if he runs and is then elected to the legislature.
Russo and Tompkins are basing their campaigns on the record of accomplishments they attribute to their work on the Town Board for the last four years. As examples, they cite the creation of the Neighborhood Business Committee, the $7 million in grants that have been obtained to help shore up town infrastructure, the new law regulating short-term rentals and the fact that budgets have remained below the tax cap despite inflationary trends.
They also both cite the value of their business experience and their conviction that there is still more to accomplish if given another term. As president of Tompkins Excavating, Tompkins says her experience in that industry gives her special insight into the infrastructure challenges the town faces with its roads, bridges and sewers. The mother of three adult children who all live in Putnam Valley, she attributes some of her interest in serving on the Town Board to wanting to ensure that the next generation of her family can afford to stay here. Russo's three children are much younger, but he cites the same motivation. A chiropractor based in Shrub Oaks, Russo grew up in Putnam County and says he loves the quietness and rural setting but worries that it's becoming unaffordable.
Two of these three candidates will be attending the "Meet the Candidates" night hosted by The Lake Peekskill Civic Association at 7pm on October 20th. (Brooks cannot attend because of a long-scheduled commitment out of the country on that date.)
Normally, the term for a Town Board seat is four years. However, because of the state's efforts to align the timing of local elections with those for state and federal positions to encourage turnout, the winners of this election will probably only serve a three-year term.
In addition to choosing their Town Supervisor, voters will also have the opportunity to award their Highway Superintendent with another term. Shawn Keeler is running uncontested for that position and will be on the ballot on both the Democrat and Conservative lines.
The last day to register to vote is October 25th. Information about how to register is available here. Voters with two residences, regardless of which they consider their primary home, have the option of deciding where to cast their vote. For more information on that process, click here.
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