Putnam’s Legislative Dist. 7 Primary Thursday

This Thursday, Sept. 13, Republican voters who reside in Putnam County Legislative District No. 7 will head to the polls to choose which candidate they want to represent them as the Republican Party candidate in the general election in November.

Two candidates will appear on the ballot: Joseph Castellano, a 16-year resident of Southeast, and Norman Marino, a 42-year resident of Mahopac.

Legislative District No. 7 is currently represented by Legislator Dan Birmingham, who will be vacating the seat at the end of the year, and includes portions of Carmel, the Hamlet of Mahopac and Southeast and the Village of Brewster.

Joseph Castellano

Castellano, who is running for elected office for the first time, received the official endorsement of the local Republican, Conservative and Independence Parties heading into the primary.

He has worked at the Westchester County Clerk’s Office since 1996 and currently is the program coordinator for the legal division.

“I worked my way up from the bottom and now I oversee a staff of 25,” he said.

Since 2004, Castellano has been a member of the Town of Southeast Zoning Board of Appeals.

“I have always had an interest in law and government,” he said of his inspiration to run for the open seat on the legislature.

He said his many years working in county government would afford him an easy transition into the role as legislator and that his management experience would be an asset on the legislature.

“Based on my professional background, what I bring is a good understanding of how county government works,” he said. “I have leadership capability and I will be very accountable…it’s important for people to know where their tax dollars go.”

Castellano said that one of the greatest challenges of county government heading into the future would be to continue to serve and assist county residents while identifying financial efficiencies.

“Part of our responsibility is to provide services and find better ways to provide those services, so we can cut tax dollars wherever possible,” he said.

As an example, Castellano said, in his professional capacity, he was part of Westchester becoming one of the leaders of the electronic filing of court documents in New York State.

“It radically changed how our court documents are filed,” he said. “There are ways of saving a tremendous amount of money.”

Castellano said he would seek to upgrade technology at county agencies as a means to ultimately save money.

Castellano said he has been reaching out to residents and officials in the Town of Carmel to better understand the issues that are important to them and he promised to be an very active participant if elected to the county legislature.

“I want to be responsive to the constituents. I’m a very hard worker,” he said. “I will be there 100 percent of the time.”

Norman Marino

Marino is a retired New York City Police Department detective and served with the department for 15 years. He went on to own a title searching company and also worked as a licensed private investigator and a certified fraud examiner.

Marino is not a newcomer to local politics. He was a member of the Carmel Town Board from 1997 through 2005 and mounted an unsuccessful bid against Bob Pozzi for Carmel Town Supervisor and later against Dan Birmingham, challenging him for the legislative District No. 7 seat.

Marino said he was proud to be part of a town board that he said had a record of zero percent tax increases. If elected, he said he wanted to do the same on the county level.

“I can do the job. I have proven that I can do the job,” he said of his years on the town board and why he was inspired to run for the county legislature. “I have a record that proves I can do the job.”

When he became the president of the Lake Casse Homeowners Association, he said it was in poor fiscal shape and in arrears on its taxes. He said he worked to turn the private entity into a town park district, later helping other lake communities do the same.

“I’m proud of that. I worked out a plan with the legislators to forgive the back taxes,” he said.

A proponent of transparency and open government, Marino said he pushed to have television cameras installed in the meeting room at Carmel Town Hall and said he would like to see all county legislative committee meeting video-taped. Today, the committee meetings are audio-taped and posted to the county’s website.

Marino said the biggest challenge the legislature faced was to control spending and was critical of the recent project to construct sidewalks.

“Every citizen I’ve spoken to thinks it’s a tremendous waste of money,” he said, adding the same could have been achieved by painting lines on the road.

Marino said the county legislature needed to do more to fix the roads and abate traffic congestion.

Marino said he would be forthright with constituents and treat the part-time legislative position as a full time job.

“This is something that I am truly dedicated to. I believe in service to people that is uncorrupted,” Marino said. “I will tell people the truth, that is why they should elect me.”