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While former Kent Town Supervisor Maureen Fleming made the decision to run for Putnam County Legislature several months ago, she only recently officially announced her candidacy.

“I am running for the Putnam County Legislature in District 5 because the people of this county deserve better,” she said. “People are leaving the county primarily because of the tax burden placed upon them. Yet, the Legislature continues to spend with abandon - on Tilly Foster Farm, the Putnam County Golf Course and on the salaries of elected official - some to obscene levels.”

Fleming said that in 2017, legislators voted to give themselves 14 percent raises for the following year, which she said is “unconscionable... In 2020, the majority of the Legislature voted themselves another raise while cutting $108,000 from the sheriff’s department for road and river patrols,” she continued.

Fleming, a Democrat, served as Kent town supervisor from 2014 to 2021, before being term-limited out of office.

“In my eight years as supervisor of the Town of Kent, I put forth eight budgets with no tax increase,” she said. “Under my leadership, we did more with less: We built an all-abilities playground, improved town infrastructure and programs, instituted improvements in our website and made town offices more accessible to the public. We made government transparent, televising all Town Board meetings and providing agendas more than 24 hours before our meetings, (and) we did away with the time limit on public speech and allowed the public to speak on any issues that concerned them for as long as they needed.”

When it comes to county government, Fleming said Putnam would be better served by having more balanced representation from both political parties on the Legislature, which currently includes one Democratic lawmaker and eight Republicans.

“This is not a one-party county,” she said. “The number of residents in both major parties is leveling out in the county, yet the Legislature is totally imbalanced. Thousands of residents are members of other parties and no party at all.”

Fleming said that, currently, the lack of bipartisanship shuts down discussions and has led to rancor and a lack of civility. “For eight years as town supervisor in Kent, I worked with four board members who were members of a different party and we got things done,” she said. “I want to do the same on the Legislature.”

If elected, Fleming said her main priority will be to “put a lid on the out-of-control spending” in the county and adjust the budget accordingly.

“We can no longer raise taxes on our residents by 2 percent every year and celebrate that we are staying below the (state mandated property) tax cap,” she said. “We have had a budget surplus in the county for the last three years and it hasn’t stopped the Legislature from raising our taxes every single year.”

Fleming also said the legislative process needs to be more transparent.

“In Kent, we combined work sessions and meetings and allowed public comment throughout,” she said. “We responded to the public and let people speak on any topic they wished. We televised all our meetings. This is not how our Legislature operates. Public participation is vital to our democracy and we need to invite our residents to be part of our process and to respect their opinions and actually consider them.”

Fleming is running against Republican Greg Ellner in the general election Tuesday, Nov. 8.

For more information about the election, including voting times and locations, visit www.putnamboe.com.