A Hewlett resident and former president of the Five Towns Democratic Club has declared his candidacy for Hempstead Town clerk.
Steve Anchin, a real estate agent and current Democratic Zone Leader of Hewlett, will seek the office currently held by Mark Bonilla, a Bellmore resident who has overseen the Town Clerk’s office since 2003.
“I believe the Town of Hempstead has reached a tipping point, possibly a point of no return,” Anchin said in a release. “We can either save our township or watch it confront a dismal future governed by the same local Republican party that is responsible for the mess we are in today: no job growth, astronomical taxes, deteriorating downtowns in our villages and no vision for the future.”
The town clerk’s office is responsible for issuing licenses, certificates and permits to residents, as well as keeping records.
Allison Gayne, spokesperson of the "Team Murray" Campaign, defended the job the current administration has done.
"Kate Murray and her team are preparing a tax freeze budget for 2012 and Hempstead Town has earned the highest Wall Street credit ratings available," she said. "While many other governments at all levels are in fiscal chaos, we are doing more with less, having reduced Hempstead Town's workforce by six percent over the last decade."
Anchin, who has lived in the Five Towns since 1960, is a graduate of Hewlett High School and father of two. He taught English in New York City and was an assistant to the supervisor of the Town of Hempstead in the ’60s, before going into his family’s wines and spirits company. He also served as a deputy director of marketing for Nassau OTB, where he said he developed a new in-house marketing department.
The Nassau County Democratic Nominating Convention will be held on Tuesday.
Anchin said that 110 years of Republicans in Town office is too much.
“My Republican opponent oversees a bloated bureaucracy,” he said. “I am going to clean up beginning with a forensic audit of the town clerk’s office. I will implement the latest 21st century technologies as well as my extensive experience as a businessman to make the town clerk’s office a cost-effective, up to date and tax saving enterprise, free of patronage, redundant programs and personnel.”
