(Editor’s Note: The Herald emailed the Town of Stanford Republican Committee to seek interviews, but their candidates declined to respond. Their views and positions may be found here.)
Wendy Burton – Candidate for Town Supervisor
Wendy Burton seeks to continue her work of the past four years as she runs for a third two-year term as Town of Stanford Supervisor. Campaigning on a motto of Community Not Politics, Burton says, “It’s been a core belief for me that on a local level there is absolutely no room for politics, for political parties. We’re simply a community of people who’ve chosen to live in this beautiful rural town.”
Her path to Stanford began with a childhood in Great Neck, Long Island, followed by an art degree from Brandeis University. She was called away from work at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City to join her brother in California, working for labor activist Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers. She found activism “exhilarating, but exhausting” and moved on to build a career in publishing. She met her future husband, photographer Jeff Brouws, at the Frankfurt Book Fair in Germany. The couple married and eventually found themselves in Dutchess County, first in Red Hook in the late 1990s and then Stanford in 2006.
Public service is a family tradition for Burton’s family. Her father was a deputy mayor, her mother was a health care volunteer, and her brother was a civil rights attorney, so it was only natural for Burton herself to try her hand. She ran on the Democratic ticket for a Stanford town council seat in 2017 but lost by 57 votes. Undeterred, she successfully ran for Town Supervisor in 2019, and immediately tackled a looming budget shortfall. “I had to learn quickly but I had a lot of help”, Burton says. “A lot of people mentored me. After the first bumpy year, all of us were working well together. To this day Paul Coughlin [Republican council member at the time] is a dear friend of mine. That was just another thing that illustrated that on a local level, politics don’t matter.”
With the budget under control, Burton has turned her focus to the town’s Comprehensive Plan, with an eye to meeting Stanford’s specific local needs and ambitions. The current plan is outdated and unsatisfactory, she points out, “It’s full of tremendous loopholes, vagaries, and contradictions. I’ve tried so hard over the past four years to get it rewritten and passed because it’s the pathway to rezoning.”
Zoning, Burton says, is crucial to addressing the plight of Stanford’s current and future residents. “There are kids that would like to stay, but leave because they can’t afford to live in Stanford anymore. Seniors are on fixed incomes. The crisis is all over the country, all over the state, but all we can try to do is fix it as best we can here. I think there are some wonderful proposals in the Comprehensive Plan that could ease a little bit of that housing pressure,” she stated.
Asked what she would like to accomplish with another two-year term, Burton immediately points to the Comprehensive Plan and the zoning efforts. She goes on to say, “I hope the biggest change I facilitate is the true coming together of this community. So many people have said to me, ‘I have had a house here for years but I’ve never felt part of this town.’ These people are coming to the party now. I don’t mean the Democratic Party, I mean the town party.” In terms of town affairs, she adds, “I think we need to continue improving our infrastructure and I hope good, sound, open financial management continues – we’ve made a huge leap forward in things being public.”
Burton, 72, says the Stanford Democratic slate reflects both the future of the town and her community approach. “Julia [Descoteaux] and Eric [Haims] will bring so much to the board. Julia is the hardest working citizen I’ve ever met, and Eric is an NOP [No Party Preference] – I didn’t just look for Democrats. I looked for someone with the skill set to make this board strong. I’m very hopeful the three of us get a chance to join forces with the rest of the board and do right by the community, and for that I truly am excited.”
Burton, now retired from publishing, lives with Brouws on Hunns Lake Road.
Julia Descoteaux – Candidate for Town Council
Julia Descoteaux is running for Stanford Town Council member because she wants to help create and maintain a welcoming, affordable environment for families such as her own. Raising a 7-year-old son, Peter, she said she knows firsthand the issues of finding suitable housing, education and recreation. Two seats for four-year terms on the town council are up for election this November. If she wins, one of the issues Descoteaux wants to address is the gradual aging of the community, saying, “We need young families here. How do we do that in a way that is Stanford?”
Descoteaux, a Democrat, built a career focused on communication and outreach, and is eager to apply those skills. Descoteaux fell in love with the Hudson Valley in the early 2000s as a traveling representative for Toyota Motor North America. She moved on from Toyota but never forgot the region. Married in 2013, she and her husband, David, bought a home in Stanford in 2016, and moved here fulltime in 2020.
For Descoteaux, the struggles facing young families highlight the importance of the town’s proposed Comprehensive Plan revision which will guide the creation and amendment of local zoning laws. She said she has read the 135-page draft and recognizes the fundamental tension within it, “How do we maintain the rural character of our town, with its beautiful vistas and natural resources, while respecting owner property rights?” The plan has proved contentious but Descoteaux remains optimistic. “It will get passed, and I think that will then set off the next round of, ‘OK, now we’ve gotta update the zoning.”
Descoteaux is working to upgrade the facilities of the Stanford Recreation Center, heading communications and marketing for the ongoing fundraising campaign. “Recreation facilities attract families and keep towns like ours thriving,” she said. That experience raised her awareness of larger challenges: “Housing is an issue in terms of affordability. It became apparent to me as I was doing the rec piece that younger family issues are tied to planning and zoning.”
Of her approach to budget issues, Descoteaux said, “There’s very little that the town controls in terms of true taxes. You’ve got school tax and you’ve got your assessment on your home, and then you’ve got a small amount of town tax. Home prices are going where they’re going, and schools are getting more and more expensive to pay for and fund. Pine Plains has the third largest school district [in the state] in terms of area for busing. That’s the highest cost—transportation. Those things are going to continue to go up.”
Descoteaux continued, “I’m a fiscal conservative even though I’m a Democrat—where I can cut, I will cut, right? And that also means getting inventive about where you find money. That’s in grants. That’s in working with the county legislators. Our county legislator is our partner, his job is to get us county funds and work with us. In business you always have less than you need to do your job. My philosophy is you do as much as you possibly can with the capital that you have, which is your people and the current resources you have available to you.”
Asked what she’d like to accomplish as a town council member, Descoteaux pointed to her Romanian-born parents as inspiration: “It’s like this immigrant mentality—I’m always trying to leave a mark. I would love for us to rebuild our playground. I hope that it’s done within a year, definitely within four. It’s like a love language of mine, seeing the kids so happy about it and the parents feeling comfortable and confident and safe, you know? I would love to see that as a physical symbol of the town.”
A native of Cherry Hill, N.J., Descoteaux attended Emory College in Atlanta on a swimming scholarship and continues to compete in triathlons. (She finished first among women, and sixth overall, at the Stissing Triathlon in June.) After a career in marketing and merchandising, she is now an independent consultant.
Eric Haims – Candidate for Town Council
Eric Haims looks forward to bringing his decades of experience in real estate and zoning to bear on the issues facing the Town of Stanford, as he runs for a council seat in the upcoming election. Haims, a member of the community for 48 years, says, “Given my professional background and experience, I will be an asset to the board. I think I’m really the right person at the right time.”
Haims got an early start in public service. As a junior political science major at the University of Wisconsin, he worked in the press office of then-Governor Tommy Thompson. Though political science was his first love, upon graduation in 1991 he followed his father into the real estate field, working as an appraiser and consultant.
Besides his career in real estate, Haims has served in several related organizations, including 10 years on the zoning board of appeals for the village of Bronxville. This directly informs his first priority, updating Stanford’s 43-year-old Comprehensive Plan: “It’s supposed to be done every 10 years. I commend Wendy [Burton, Town Supervisor] and the board for starting the effort and working very, very hard on it. It definitely needs to be done – we need it to serve as a guide to the town’s future.”
Discussing the difficulties of finalizing the plan, Haims continued, “I think a lot of good comments came out of the public hearing, which the board is taking into consideration. You’ll never satisfy everybody but the objective is to make it right for the town and make it right for the majority of the residents.”
With respect to budgeting experience, Haims cites his service on the National Finance Committee of the Appraisal Institute, a professional organization of 15,000 members. “For four years I helped manage a budget of $30,000,000, and ran my own business for 14 years,” he said. Haims is also intimately familiar with public sector project management, adding, “A number of my clients are government agencies, so I understand the RFP [Request for Proposal] and contracting processes. I plan to be a resource to the board and to the town in general with that depth of knowledge.”
As the only independent candidate in the race for a council seat, Haims sees himself in a unique position. “I was a Republican for the majority of my life, but became an independent a few years ago. Over 30% of the town’s residents are independents, so I think it would be good to have an independent on the board.” Endorsed by the Stanford Democrats, Haims maintains an independent outlook: “I’m the kind of person who will work with anybody. A couple weeks ago I met [Republican board candidate] Joe [McClough] and we had a really good conversation. I also had a nice chat with [Republican board candidate] Adrian [Zetterberg] at Community Day.”
Haims and his family have lived full time in Stanford since 2020, in the house his parents purchased in 1975. He and his wife Charlotte have three adult children and live on Upton Lake. He is in his second year on the board of the Upton Lake Homeowners’ Association and works from home as a real estate consultant. He says, “I love the natural beauty here. I’ve adopted Hobbs Lane and Pumpkin Lane as my roads to clean, picking up roadside trash on my daily walks. I know it’s a small thing, but I think it really helps.”
His connection to the area is reflected in his support for the ongoing renovation of the Rec Center: “I learned to swim there, I have wonderful memories growing up there. My wife is on the Rec Commission. It’s a beautiful piece of property, and with what they’re proposing, it could be really spectacular.”
Haims concludes, “I’m really excited. I’m ready to go to work.”
The election is Nov. 7. Early voting is from Oct. 28 to Nov. 5.