Election Guide

The only certainties in the 2023 election are that Philipstown will have a new justice and Dutchess County will have a new executive and district attorney.

There are no contested races in Beacon or Cold Spring. In Philipstown, there are three candidates (including two incumbents) for two seats on the Town Board, and two newcomers vying to become town justice, but the incumbent supervisor, highway superintendent and clerk have no opposition. In the only countywide race in Putnam, the district attorney will win a third term without a challenger.

Early voting begins Saturday (Oct. 28), and Election Day is Nov. 7.

Early Voting

For Beacon
Fishkill Town Hall, 807 Route 52

For Philipstown
North Highlands Firehouse, 504 Fishkill Road

SAT 28 9a–5p
SUN 29 9a–5p
MON 30 9a–5p (Philipstown)
MON 30 Noon–8p (Beacon)
TUES 31 Noon–8p (Philipstown)
TUES 31 8a–4p (Beacon)
WED 1 9a–5p
THURS 2 Noon–8p
FRI 3 9a–5p
SAT 4 9a–5p
SUN 5 9a–5p

Absentee Voting
The deadline to request an absentee ballot by mail or other means has passed, although you can apply in person at the county Board of Elections through Nov. 6. Absentee ballots must be postmarked by Nov. 7. Note: Voters who have been issued an absentee ballot may not vote in person on a machine, regardless of whether the ballot was submitted. However, a voter who requested an absentee ballot but did not return it can complete an affidavit ballot at the polls.

Registration
Applications to register to vote in the 2023 general election must be received by the Board of Elections by Oct. 28. To verify you are registered and locate your polling place, visit voterlookup.elections.ny.gov.

Results
Check highlandscurrent.org after 9 p.m. on Nov. 7 for unofficial results.

PHILIPSTOWN

After nearly 30 years on the bench, Stephen Tomann did not seek re-election as town justice. Two attorneys in private practice, Randall Chiera and Angela Thompson-Tinsley, are competing to succeed him. Chiera is running on the Republican and Conservative ballot lines and Thompson-Tinsley on the Democratic and Team Philipstown lines.

This is the first contested election for the position since Tomann won a three-way race in 1995. The justice serves a four-year term.

Questions for Candidates: Town Justice

The three candidates for Town Board are incumbents Judy Farrell and Bob Flaherty and challenger Neal Tomann.

Farrell, who will appear on the Democratic and Team Philipstown lines, was appointed in 2019 to replace Nancy Montgomery, who had been elected to the county Legislature. Farrell won the seat later that year and is seeking a second, 4-year term.

Flaherty, who will appear on the Democratic and Conservative lines, was appointed in 2015 when Dave Merandy was elected as Cold Spring mayor. Flaherty was elected that fall and is seeking his third term.

Neal Tomann, whose name will be on the Republican and Conservative lines, is a member of the Philipstown Planning Board and ran for the Town Board in 2021, when he was third in a four-way race behind Jason Angell and Megan Cotter, whose seats will be on the ballot in 2025.

Questions for Candidates: Town Board

Supervisor John Van Tassel is running unopposed for a second, 2-year term and Highway Superintendent Adam Hotaling is running unopposed for a 4-year term after being elected in 2022 to finish the term of Carl Frisenda, who retired for health reasons. Tara Percacciolo, the town clerk, is running unopposed for a second, 4-year term. All three are Democrats.

COLD SPRING

Mayor Kathleen Foley and Trustee Eliza Starbuck are running unopposed for their second, 2-year terms. Cathryn Fadde, the owner of Cathryn’s Tuscan Grill, did not seek re-election to what would have been her third term; her seat will be filled by Aaron Freimark, a senior vice president at Imprivata, a healthcare technology firm. All three candidates will appear on the Forge Ahead line.

Questions for Candidates: Village Board

The other members of the board are Tweeps Phillips Woods and Laura Bozzi, whose seats will be on the ballot in 2024.

PUTNAM COUNTY

Robert Tendy, a Republican who has been district attorney since 2015, is running unopposed for a third, 4-year term. He ran unopposed in 2019, as well.

There are three open seats on the Putnam Legislature, to represent Putnam Valley, Kent and Mahopac.

In Putnam Valley, incumbent William Gouldman, who will appear on the Republican and Conservative lines, is seeking a fourth term, his last because of term limits. He is being challenged by Maggie Ploener, a massage therapist and artist who will be on the Democratic and Working Families lines.

In Kent, incumbent Toni Addonizio, who will appear on the Republican and Conservative lines, is also seeking her fourth and final term. She faces Kathy Kahng, a Democrat who owns CityRax, a firm that works on public space projects. She also serves on the Putnam County Land Trust board.

In Mahopac, Amy Sayegh will appear on the Republican and Conservative lines for her third term. She is running unopposed.

The Legislature has nine members who serve 3-year terms; Nancy Montgomery, who represents Philipstown and part of Putnam Valley, is its only Democrat.

BEACON

Democratic candidates are running unopposed for all seven seats on the City Council, including for mayor. There will be new faces representing Ward 2 and one of the two at-large seats, as Justice McCray and George Mansfield did not seek re-election.

They will be succeeded by Jeff Domanski, director of climate strategy at Arch Street Communications and former executive director of Hudson Valley Energy, and Pam Wetherbee, the operations manager at Hudson Peak Wealth Advisors, who served on the council from 2013 to 2017.

Questions for Candidates: City Council

McCray was elected in 2021 and served one term; Mansfield, who recently sold his east end restaurant, Dogwood, served seven terms.

The incumbents who will return for their second, 2-year terms are Molly Rhodes (Ward 1), Wren Longno (Ward 3) and Paloma Wake (at-large). Dan Aymar-Blair (Ward 4) will be seated for his third term.

The mayor, Lee Kyriacou, is also running unopposed for a second, 4-year term. Before his election, Kyriacou served nine terms on the City Council, beginning in 1993.

DUTCHESS COUNTY

With the departure of the county executive, William F.X. O’Neil, and the retirement of the district attorney, William Grady, both Republicans, there will be newcomers in those seats.

O’Neil was sworn in Jan. 3 to succeed Marc Molinaro, who left when he won a seat in Congress. O’Neil had been deputy county executive since 2012 but said he would not run for the top position.

Instead, the Republican candidate is Sue Serino, whose district when she served in the state Senate from 2016 to 2022 included the Highlands. After redistricting in 2022, she lost her seat to Democrat Michelle Hinchey. Serino, who is a real-estate agent, lives in Hyde Park.

The Democratic and Working Families candidate is Tommy Zurhellen, a Navy veteran who grew up in the Bronx and Putnam County. For the past 19 years has been an associate professor of English at Marist College; in 2019 he walked across the country to raise awareness about veteran homelessness and suicide.

Grady, a Republican who has been the district attorney for 40 years, announced in 2019 that he planned to retire. Two of his deputies, Anthony Parisi, a Democrat and former public defender who is the major crimes bureau chief, and Matt Weishaupt, a Republican and former police officer who is the chief assistant D.A., announced last year that they planned to campaign for the job.

Brad Kendall, the Republican county clerk, is seeking his fifth, 4-year term. His challenger, as in 2019, is Kenya Gadsden, a Fishkill resident and former member of the Beacon school board who will appear on the Democratic and Working Families lines. Kendall won in 2019 with 55 percent of the vote.

In the county Legislature, which has 17 Republicans and eight Democrats, Nick Page, a Democrat whose district includes three wards in Beacon, is running unopposed for a fourth term. Ward 4 is part of the district represented by Yvette Valdés Smith, a Democrat in her first term. She is being challenged, as she was in 2021, by Ron Davis, chair of the Town of Fishkill Zoning Board of Appeals, who will appear on the Republican and Conservative lines. Valdés Smith won in 2021 with 54 percent of the vote.

There is also a race for one of the four, 10-year seats on the Dutchess County Family Court. The incumbent, Joseph Egitto, whose name will appear on the Republican and Conservative lines, was elected in 2013 and appointed in 2018 as supervising judge.

He is being challenged by James Rogers, who has the Democratic and Working Families lines and is a former president of the Legal Aid Society, deputy state attorney general and deputy labor commissioner. He is currently director of business development for the state Office of Cannabis Management.

STATE COURT

There are eight candidates for four seats on the state Supreme Court for the 9th Judicial District, which covers Dutchess, Putnam, Orange, Rockland and Westchester counties.

The seats are held by two incumbents, Francesca Connolly and Charley Wood, who will appear on the Democratic and Conservative lines, and two Rockland County justices who have reached mandatory retirement age.

The six newcomer candidates are John Ciampoli, Karen Ostberg, John Sarcone and Susan Sullivan-Bisceglia on the Republican line, and Larry Schwartz and Rolf Thorsen on the Democratic and Conservative lines.

Despite its name, the Supreme Court is not the highest court in New York. That is the Court of Appeals. Instead, it is a trial court that operates at the county level.

Justices serve 14-year terms. The Supreme Court justices in Putnam County are Gina Capone (elected in 2019) and Victor Grossman (2013). In Dutchess County, they are Christi Acker (2017), Thomas Davis (2021) and Maria Rosa (2012).

PROPOSALS

There are two statewide proposals on New York’s ballot. The first would allow New York’s 57 small-city school districts, including Beacon, to borrow up to 10 percent of the value of the taxable real estate in the district, rather than 5 percent.

The second proposal would extend for 10 years the authority of counties, cities, towns and villages to remove borrowing for the construction of sewage facilities from their mandated debt limits.