July 11, 2011 Q:What brought you to this point? Why did you decide to run for the Town Council? "My
first entrance into politics in North Castle came four years ago when
Mike Schiliro was elected to the Town Board and left his post on North
Castle's Housing Board. He recommended me for the position since he had
known me for a while and knows I'm a CPA. He thought I would be a good
fit to replace him as the numbers guy on the Housing Board."
Q: Is the North Castle Housing Board an appointed position? It's an appointed position approved by the Town Board. The primary purpose of the Housing Board is to review tax returns and financial information and then award points that allow buyers to purchase the town's middle income units. I know how to look at a tax return, ask questions, and see where the headaches may come up. Barbara DiGiacinto is the Chairman of the Housing Board, and I have served as chairman in her absence. She was the first to recommend that I run for the Town Board.
Q: Did you see an opportunity to run once you saw that Becky Kittredge wasn't running? "Two years ago I started thinking about what was happening around town and on other committees. More recently, I had a conversation with Becky Kittredge. Once she decided she wasn't running for Town Board, she encouraged me to run even though I'm a registered Republican. After this I met many people and received many phone calls from people in different political parties who said, 'I'd like you to run.' I decided the time to run is now. I have the backing and the support. With so many people behind me, this is the time to run."
Q: Can you give us some background information about yourself? "I graduated from Manhattan College. I grew up in Hartsdale and attended Iona Preparatory School. I took the CPA exam and have been a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) for 32 years. I started Stephen A. D'Angelo CPA, PC and practiced in New York City for a few years, then moved to Elmsford. I worked for a few accounting firms before opening my own firm 27 years ago. In 2002, I opened an office on Main Street in Armonk and have since moved to Maple Avenue. My first office was behind Holmes and Kennedy Real Estate, on the Armonk Square property. The building is no longer there. That was nine years and four owners ago."
Q: How does your business experience translate into a skill that you can bring to the town board? "My specialty is tax returns by individuals and small businesses with few employees, mostly mom and pop operations. I'm their CPA, their friend and business advisor, and their outside guy advising them on what to do and how to do it. The economy has slowed down and this presents questions for business owners: Do I get a loan or do I put my own money into a company? I sit down with a number of clients on a weekly or monthly basis and analyze what funds they will collect in the next month and what orders are out there, and we work from month to month on how to make it through the quarter. I would do the same thing for the town.
"I would use the same methods to help the town in this economy that I use to help small businesses: controlling costs and increasing revenues, not just by raising tax rates, but by getting the most value from one's money. I would also encourage more development, since we have a number of projects on the drawing board that are ready to go at this point.
"I would bring a very strong financial background to the Town Board. One of my other strengths is that I'm an outsider who has not been involved in the government. It is time for some fresh blood because the last few years have been very contentious. We need to work together, and I've been recruited by several parties."
Q: How are you going to bring people together when there is an issue? "Being nonpartisan means having no allegiances. Being and multi-partisan means bringing different parties together in a small town. I would work across party lines in an intelligent manner to do what is best for the town. Let's have our differences but in an intelligent and adult manner and do what is best for the town. We have to control costs and spending, and lower the rate of tax increases. We have to get development going, and we have to work as a united board to move things along. For a period of time, we've done very little and this is why we are losing the A&P."
Q: What is your position on the supermarket issue? "I would like to see the A&P supermarket stay where it is, but that is not going to happen unless some miracle occurs in the next few weeks. We need a supermarket and the two proposed sites are in Armonk Square and Business Park. I prefer to see a supermarket in town. Outside the Main Street business district a supermarket becomes a separate destination. People would drive there and bypass the entire downtown. I haven't looked into it closely enough, but I'm skeptical whether we could support two markets. Does a supermarket even belong in Business Park? A supermarket could lead to an expansion of retail outlets there and I don't think that is what we want. We have already branched out there with the Gym, a cafe, a hotel, and a sports facility. We need to determine what the people want. I don't think they want a shopping center in Business Park. You look through the town's comprehensive plan and it works well. The two areas where planning has to be reviewed are Business Park and Banksville."
Q: You say we need to get going? How can you help the Town Board to get going? "We need to get the existing projects done. One project is the housing at the Cockren property. I don't have a preference whether it is for affordable housing units or middle income units, but let's get it started so that the builders can finish the Cider Mill, and so that Crabapple can move on to their next project, Armonk Square. The middle income or affordable housing at the Cockren property on Old Route 22 is going to be built. Crabapple owns the property, the construction has been approved, and they owe the town eight middle income housing units and have proposed to build ten units. But they don't want to build ten units without a buyer down the line, and this is holding them up."
Q: What is the biggest opposition to the affordable housing? "I've looked at the numbers for the affordable housing and there is very little difference between the criteria to buy the town's middle income units and the criteria to buy the affordable housing units. The price difference between the different units is only about $15-20,000. The incomes are close too, about a $6-7,000 difference. The building plans are identical. The buyer has to be someone who can afford to buy a $210,000 home. They may come from other parts of Westchester, but they still have to be able to afford a $180,000 mortgage, the additional charges, and the taxes. Whether a housing unit is 'affordable' or 'middle income' won't affect the neighbors."
Q: Do you think that affordable housing will hurt the property values in the area? "No. The 24 middle income units in Whippoorwill Hills haven't diminished the value of the surrounding properties and I don't think the Crabapple properties will negatively affect the neighborhood either. The location is not the greatest no matter what you put there. But it is approved and it will be built, whether now or five years from now."
Q: How will you use your expertise to help the Town Board make decisions? "Let's look at the highway department. You treat it like a business. They have highway trucks, but they are doing snow plowing and all the other things that a highway department does, and they need the equipment to do it. This should have been looked at a long time ago rather that at the point where the trucks are falling apart. Had I been on the board two years ago, I would have talked to the guys in the department and looked at the trucks. It wouldn't have taken a mechanic to see that the sides are falling off and the rust is coming through. They look like old trucks. If this is on the agenda of a Town Board meeting, you don't wait for the department to give you information, it is a town board member's job to get the information. If someone doesn't provide it, call him or her up.
"One advantage I offer is that I work downtown, with my business on Maple Avenue, so I can go at 2:00 in the afternoon to see a highway truck for a meeting that night. I can be at the highway department to talk about what we need and why we need it, and whether there is a way to repair the trucks.
"Governments have to get financing, and only a certain number of companies do government bonding. You are always trying to get the best interest rates. It all depends on the financial condition of the town. If the town has a good credit rating and is in a good financial condition, you're going to get a lower interest rate. That is part of the package. Then you look at what the terms are going to be. Do you buy a new truck now and take care of it better? Maybe they didn't do a good job taking care of the trucks 15 years ago. I assume we get bids for maintaining all the trucks. I never think you should take the lowest bid just because someone is the lowest bidder. The law may require that, but if it doesn't, you want to get the best value for your money, which means buying a quality product for the least cost. Take the price of the truck. What is the interest rate on the bond? Do a quick amortization schedule on it. Say it is going to cost $40,000 a year to buy a new truck and compare that to what it is going to cost to do something else like outsourcing or repairing. It may be easy to do this today, you'll find a company to do something for X dollars. But what does this do to everything else, to the morale of the department? When you are dealing with employees there are a number of factors to review.
"My job would be to present the numbers and analyze them with the other four members of the board, to decide what the bottom line is, come to a decision, and come to the meeting and announce the decision.
"Once again, there are more than numbers to deal with. Look at the mix of people we have, the volunteers, the talented professionals who have volunteered to advise the Town Board. We have good people on the Planning Board. They are all volunteers, and they put in a lot of time.
"I will do my best to help the five of us come to a conclusion, and whether I like the decision or not, we will walk out of the room and know precisely what decision we have made, and we will have reached a consensus as to how we will present it to the town. Recently this has not happened. For example, the Town Board sent a letter to the county to support the affordable housing. My understanding is that at the time it was discussed, everyone was in agreement when they drew up the letter, but when the board was before the public it became a three to two vote instead of a five to nothing vote. They sent the letter to the county with only a bare majority behind it. When I get on the Town Board, if something is agreed upon in executive session, we will present it to the public in the same way. As soon as something changes, I will not sit back, I will bring it out in the open. Because it is a waste of time to hash things out in executive session, come to a decision, and then adopt a different attitude. I will try hard to hold people to what they say, to make them accountable for their actions, and I expect people to do the same thing with me. If someone says I have said this and then I do something different, I want you to tell me about it right away because the conflict would not be intentional. If new information comes forward however, we'll talk it over.
"When someone comes before the board with a plan, I will have an open mind. I don't care who is proposing the plan or what it is. I will look at the plan and ask: How does it benefit the town? What do we have to do to make it work? Do we need to give any variances? How does the plan affect everybody else in the town? Is it good for everybody or will it cause a problem down the road? Gathering information is an ongoing process, but at some point, based on what you know, you have to go to the next step. It can't take years."
Q: What else have you been involved in? "I have two children in the Byram Hills school district, in 5th and 8th grade. I'm on the Byram Hills Athletic Advisory Council with Athletic Director Mike Guilino, and we meet once a month. He presents ideas and we discuss them. Then we get the information out to the community."
Q: Why should someone want to move to North Castle? "The number one reason is that our school systems are great. Byram Hills is great, and so are Valhalla's schools for North White Plains residents."
Q: Do you think we need to change the way the town is managed? "A Town Manager or Administrator would be expensive. If you take all the salaries from five board members you still couldn't hire someone competent, much less pay for everything else that comes with the job. And who hires the person? Does the Town Board hire her or do we have to get an outside committee to hire her?
"Most of the decisions we make involve financial issues, but not all of them. Sometimes you are posed with a question like Westwood, where the issue was not financial but involved location. The question was whether the recycling yard should have been moved from Middle Patent to behind Town Hall. Take the money out of it and look at the pros: you've got work done for the highway department with a new road in the yard; and the cons: it is right behind Town Hall in the middle of town. You sit down and analyze the issue, whether it is money or ideas, whatever it is, take all the factors, look at them and make a decision in a reasonable amount of time.
"If I get elected I'll make decisions, and four years from now if I run again, if you say that I made some bad decisions, don't vote for me. I will not do things to just get reelected in four years.
"There is a need for someone like me, a business person, a financial person, especially in this weak economy where we have to make sure we spend every dollar in town as efficiently as possible. North Castle is a lovely little town with great schools, and I want to keep it that way."
Kerry Lutz Runs for the Town Board
June 30, 2011 Kerry Lutz has lived in Armonk for 21 years. A native of Short Hills, New Jersey, he will turn 54 this summer. In 1990 he built a home on Carpenter Way with his first wife, who passed away in 1998 from breast cancer. His three children attended Byram Hills schools and his youngest son just graduated from the high school.
When his wife was sick, a lot of people he didn't know carpooled his kids around, bought them clothes and other things he wasn't there to do when he was caring for his wife. He would like to contribute to the town that has given so much to him. "I realized it was time to give back now. His second wife, Lee Golden, who is also widowed, started a family crisis outreach program for the Byram Hills PTSA. Lutz supported her as they helped a number of families and saw the satisfaction that she received from it.
"I thought that at some point when my family and professional demands eased up, I'd like to give back." Lutz was interviewed by the North Castle Republican Party for in a bid for the Town Council in 2009, when the committee chose instead to endorse John Cronin and Diane Roth.
Lutz attended Pace University in Manhattan as a full-time night student. He learned a lot from his fellow night students."They inspired me because a college degree was a ticket to a better life for them; they really wanted the degree. I grew up in a upper middle class home where everyone went to college, no matter what. In Short Hills it is a foregone conclusion that everyone attends college, similar to Byram Hills."
"During the day, I worked full-time in a family business which printed legal briefs and documents."
Lutz decided since he was dealing with lawyers, a law degree would help the business. "I attended New York Law School full-time and also worked full-time for the family company. My brother and I were partners, but we sold the company, Lutz Appellate Services, in 1998 after 35 years.
"I practiced law for three years, mostly commercial and corporate litigation work. I wasn't fulfilled because the legal system doesn't move at my pace. The same problem exists with the government. I think a better job can be done by getting things through the system more quickly."
Lutz says he could be a rudder for the Town Board that seems to lack direction. "Having an attorney on the Town Board would be a good thing. We haven't had one since Gerry Geist. In addition, I understand business. It is important to understand the hurdles to bringing businesses to town. My job as an attorney is to keep my clients out of litigation. But here, we have our backs to the wall, and the only way to stop the county's affordable housing plan for the Cockren Property is to litigate. The inability for the town to make proper decisions to avoid litigation is an instance where I could have helped. Other similar cases included the Trump property, where the town became involved in a lawsuit against the Nature Conservatory, only to withdraw and spend a significant amount of money in legal fees. Another example is "The Dump," the legal settlement with Westward Recycling. Lutz says legal analysis and a lawyers perspective will be useful.
"The town must be more efficiently run, and the infrastructure of the town needs to be better cared for. We need a Town Manager. I'm against having just a Town Administrator because it would only create another layer of bureaucratic obstacles. We need someone who can hire and fire, with approval from the Town Board. A manager can hold each department head accountable, and in turn they need to hold each employee accountable. Labor relations are complex, and so is the maintenance of infrastructure. With the town on an unsustainable financial course, we need new approaches to expenses like retirement benefits. I won't accept any benefits. To me, serving on the Town Board is a public service, and you shouldn't accept the little perks. Part-time employees don't deserve pensions, I don't think it is fair. And town employees receiving six-figure salaries should contribute to their health benefits."
"Our town's location is ideal, with I-684 crossing Route 22, it's the best location in Westchester north of 287. It is important that we attract new businesses to town. Business Park Drive is a prime example. The buildings must be rezoned so that we can have a medium-sized box store. We should also have more that one shopping district in town.
Lutz would like to see projects move through the system more quickly with joint hearings of the Town and Planning Boards. It is not acceptable, Lutz says, for a project to take 10 years to get approved and then have the economy stall, as happened with Armonk Square.
"That is why I'm running, I could bring a sense of urgency to the process that is lacking now. Such as for the cell tower in North White Plains. We recently approved a license for one of the carriers to put equipment on an antenna. But the town should be proactive and reach out to all the carriers, offer an incentive such as one month's free rent, and get them all there now rather then wait for them to apply. It would bring significant income into the water district. We need the service. It's a public utility. People like me transact a third of our business communication with mobile services. We have some void areas with no service. This is injuring our town and remedying it should be a priority. We don't want a cell tower going up in the middle of a residential area that would injure property values. Instead, we need to explore the possibility of permitting shorter aerials spread around town, with a hired consultant to help us achieve universal access."
To get to know the candidates, Lutz would like to see three debates between now and election time. "Not a scripted debate like we saw in the last election." He'll take any question, and doesn't want the filter. "I'm not afraid to answer questions, wherever they may lead. Maybe that makes me a bad politician, I hope so."
He would like to see a debate among the three Republicans for Town Board: himself, Steve D'Angelo, and Matthew Rice, before the primary, then two or three more debates when the final candidates are running.
Steve D'Angelo's Door-to-Door Campaign for Town Board
August 10, 2011 Steve
D'Angelo is campaigning for North Castle's Town Board. He is going
door-to-door to meet as many of North Castle's registered Republicans as
he can before the September 13 primary. Steve is a personable, easy guy
to talk to. "People get to know me face-to-face and spend time to
talk,"
D'Angelo says,
"they ask questions and we have some good conversations."
"I try to have a good attitude on things and an open mind," D'Angelo adds. "I ask them: What are the things in the town that bother you? People say they are unhappy with the way town business is conducted. Casually, we talk about town issues. People mostly want to talk about the supermarket in Armonk. I provide them with information and tell them about the August 17 public hearing for Armonk Square's proposal for a supermarket." He says often they mention that the street they live on needs to be paved. He tells them about the town's plan to survey the roads and present a ten-year road improvement plan.
Professionally, D'Angelo works as a CPA in his own firm in downtown Armonk. On most days you can see him talking to people on Main Street. "On the books, a Town Councilman is part-time, but my intention is to put in full-time hours. There is a lot more to this job than showing up to Town Board meetings. I'll make sure things happen in between meetings.” Not everybody works on every project. D'Angelo says, but if a board member evaluates a project and presents his findings to the board, then the Town Board can make better decisions. D'Angelo says there are too many Town Board meetings where councilmen aren't prepared, but preparation is essential. If elected he would like to see councilmen "prepare themselves with pre-meeting study or small conferences that do not violate the open meeting law so that we may have informed civil discourse to reach our decisions."
D'Angelo says his goal is to be prepared for everything and to have no pre-conceived notions about the issues. He says the town's comprehensive plan is an important tool that should be reviewed before all development, and board members should talk to professionals but also use common sense to determine what is best for the majority of the town.
D'Angelo wants his campaign to be about solutions and how we get there. He believes Armonk Square would be a better location for a new supermarket than Business Park. From what he's seen of Armonk Square's plan, he says it looks like a good proposal, but details still need to be worked out, particularly the supermarket's truck loading area and how the large trucks will affect downtown traffic. Coordination between the Planning Board and the Town Board makes for better decisions on development, D'Angelo says.
In November, D'Angelo should be running on three major lines, which is the maximum number allowed by the Board of Elections. If he wins the Republican primary, he would appear on the Republican Party, Conservative Party and Independence Party lines.
D'Angelo will also appear on the line of the recently formed Alliance Party. The bi-partisan group has endorsed four candidates to represent the town for the next two to four years: Stephen D'Angelo, Supervisor William Weaver, Councilman Michael Schiliro, and Town Clerk Anne Curran. Should D'Angelo win the Republican primary, he will be listed on the Republican line as part of the Alliance.
