Aymar-Blair would forgo seat if elected
Beacon City Council Member Dan Aymar-Blair, a Democrat who represents Ward 4, will announce that he is running for Dutchess County comptroller on Saturday (Feb. 10) at a campaign event at LaGrange Town Hall.
The comptroller is the chief accounting and auditing officer for the county. The seat will be contested in a special election in November; it is held by Gregg Pulver, a Republican and former chair of the county Legislature who was appointed in December by then-County Executive William F.X. O’Neil.
Pulver said on Thursday (Feb. 8) that he plans to run to keep the position. He succeeded Robin Lois, a Democrat who resigned to become New York State’s deputy comptroller of local government and school accountability. The winner of the special election will fill the remainder of Lois’ four-year term, which ends in 2025.
Aymar-Blair, who manages special education operations for the New York City Department of Education, said on Tuesday that he has 20 years of experience in government finance and operations, including a previous stint as the New York City department’s senior executive director of operations for teaching and learning. “Pretty much every aspect of operational financial challenges — I’ve seen it,” he said.
Aymar-Blair said he has watched Republicans “mismanage the county” through tax increases and irresponsible spending. “It’s very obvious there needs to be a watchdog in place,” he said. “It would have been irresponsible for me not to step up.”
He was elected in November to his third, two-year term on the Beacon council. If elected as comptroller, he would vacate the seat, leaving Mayor Lee Kyriacou to appoint someone to complete the term.
Aymar-Blair must still submit a nominating petition with voters’ signatures before he is added to the November ballot. The Dutchess Board of Elections has not said how many signatures will be required.
“The comptroller maintains a system of internal controls to ensure the appropriate securing and use of funds, including assisting internal and external auditors.”
Because this job of controller involves auditing of internal and external parties, accounting tasks, financial reporting procedures for Dutchess County, this is a position to be held by a licensed professional from the field of accounting or finance. As far as I know, Councilman Blair is a licensed, registered architect in the state of New York, not an accountant. In the three terms that Aymar-Blair has been my council member I’ve found him to be misleading, evasive and deceptive in our interactions.
“The Comptroller is directly accountable to the taxpayers and voters of Dutchess County; as such, the Comptroller’s Office is not an agency of the executive or legislative branches” (dutchessny.gov). One cannot express strongly enough how important it is that this job is filled by a field related professional and not just be a party placeholder slot.
I think you’re misinformed. Dan is not an architect. I believe his experience has been heavily involved with financial accounting in the public sector. He has shown time again that he’s committed and capable to making tax dollars working for Beacon, and Dutchess County would be very lucky to have his skill and dedication to service. The only down side to him becoming Dutchess comptroller is that Beacon would lose him as a council. We’d be hard-pressed to find someone to run whose better for the job.