Sloan, Lindau to Call it Quits on Cortlandt Town Board in 2013
Forty percent of the Cortlandt Town Board will change hands next year with longtime councilpersons John Sloan and Ann Lindau-Martin opting not to seek reelection in November.
Meanwhile, Supervisor Linda Puglisi confirmed she will be running for a 12th two-year term and is not expected to be challenged for the second consecutive election.
“It will be a big change,” Puglisi said of the departure of Sloan and Lindau-Martin. “We’ve obviously worked well together and had many accomplishments together. It’s sad for me to see them go and I wish them the best.”
Sloan is currently serving his 16th year on the Town Board. Prior to that he was on the Planning Board for 10 years, sitting as chairman during a time when the town imposed more stringent environmental regulations on developers.
“I’m not indispensable. It’s time for me to get involved in something else,” Sloan said. “People want local government to be plain vanilla and responsive. We don’t seem to have the controversies and divisiveness that other municipalities seem to have. Major issues have been allayed and it’s become somewhat boring in a sense.”
Lindau-Martin, who remarried last year, is in her 20th year on the Town Board. She served two years on the Croton Board of Trustees prior to joining Cortlandt’s government.
“I just kind of decided it was time to do something different, travel and be a little more free,” she said. “I certainly worked hard. There’s time you need new people to come in and try. There might be some ideas that we had not thought of. Why not give other people a chance?”
Both Sloan and Lindau-Martin said they were proud of the town’s stable financial record, including saving money by eliminating the Cortlandt Police Department in the late 1990s and relying on protection from the State Police and Westchester County Police.
“I really worked to make our police plan work. I think that proved to be a good thing in the end,” Lindau-Martin said. “We don’t seem to have suffered a great deal with any high crime wave or anything.”
Sloan said his information technology background has helped bring Cortlandt into the 21st Century. He and Lindau-Martin are hoping to have some say before they depart in the development of the property across from the Cortlandt Town Center, the town’s major shopping hub that has been somewhat of a disappointment to Sloan.
“Would I have done something differently with the Town Center? Yes,” he said. “I think the Town Center certainly could have turned out to be unique, instead of a shopping center with big box stores and a parking lot. It really isn’t the center of anything.”
Running for reelection with Puglisi are Town Clerk JoAnn Dyckman and Receiver of Taxes Mary Breining. Puglisi is also looking forward to her board running mates that the Democratic Committee selects in the spring and would welcome Republican representatives if voters so choose.
“Whoever they are I’m looking forward to working with them,” Puglisi said. “I’ve worked with Republicans on the Town Board. For most of my time it’s been members of both parties. All five of us we’re always thinking of new ideas and plans. I think that has been the success of our Town Board.”
Rick has more than 40 years’ experience covering local news in Westchester and Putnam counties, running the gamut from politics and crime to sports and human interest. He has been an editor at Examiner Media since 2012. Read more from Rick’s editor-author bio here. Read Rick’s work here: https://www.theexaminernews.com/author/pezzullo_rick-writer/