Anthony Piraino: Candidate profile

Bio

Name: Anthony C. Piraino

City: Sleepy Hollow

Office sought: Village trustee, 4-year term

Age: 64

Family: married, 4 adult children

Occupation: Sales and marketing

Education: Bachelor's degree

Civic involvement: Sleepy Hollow Service Club

Previous elected offices held: None

Issue questions

What are the most important issues facing your community and how do you intend to address them?

We are a small village with limited revenue from business taxes and we must find ways to increase the revenue with business that is complimentary to the image of the village. There are also issues with water drainage in the lower portion of the village which needs to be addressed for the residences and the negative impact to the value of their homes.

What makes you the best candidate for the job?

I am a first-time candidate and really want to have town hall meetings to listen to the issues raised by the members of the community and how the village can better support them and still maintain a lifestyle in a country setting.

Describe your leadership style and explain how you think that will be effective in producing actions and decisions with your village board or city council.

I have always worked to find common ground and respect the opinion of all the parties. Topics and issues should be debated with fact-based information to best determine the steps to improve the situation affecting the tax payers who reside in the Village of Sleepy Hollow.

How would you describe the condition of your community's budget, and what are the most important specific actions the town should take to assure providing the level of services people want?

The budget is solid but needs to be carefully reviewed to insure monies are available for the unforeseen issues. We need to focus on water main leaks as this is a main issue that takes away revenue.

What's one good idea you have to better the community that no one is talking about yet?

Have quarterly "Saturday coffee mornings" with the residence of the village to have an open discussion of the issues that affect them and listen to the likes and dislikes of living in Sleepy Hollow. One issue is to allow the residence to build sheds in their yards. There would be size and style restrictions and possible a yearly permit fee. With the increase in the number of cars in the family, snowblowers, tractors and large trash cans taking up space in the garages, this would allow garages to be used primarily for cars and have more open driveways. I am not in favor of fences in the village and want to maintain the "open spaces."