Glen Cove City Council Candidates: Meet Marsha Silverman

GLEN COVE, NY — Glen Cove voters will head to the polls Nov. 5 to cast their ballots for mayor and city council. Patch reached out to all the candidates via email and/or Facebook to hear where they stand on important issues affecting the community.

Here are the responses for those who participated. The answers have been lightly edited for clarity.

Marsha Silverman

• Age (as of Sept. 1): 48
• Town of residence: Glen Cove
• Position sought: Glen Cove City Council
• Party affiliation: Democrat
• Family: Roni Epstein, wife
• Does anyone in your family work in politics or government? No.
• Education: Master's in business administration in finance from Stern School of Business at NYU; bachelor's degree in economics from Haverford College
• Occupation: Financial analytics, corporate finance and budgeting & planning for 27+ years at Experian, CitiGroup and American Express
• Previous or current elected or appointed office: Glen Cove City Councilmember since Jan. 1, 2018.
• Campaign Website: ReElectMarshaSilverman.com

The single most pressing issue facing our (board, district, etc.) is _______, and this is what I intend to do about it.

Good government. Transparency, accountability and fiscal discipline are the most pressing issues facing Glen Cove, and my platform in the 2017 election as well as this election was and is to be an independent voice for the public interest. Despite being a minority member of an extremely partisan city council as the only Democrat, I am proud that I successfully sponsored and enacted legislation to increase fiscal discipline, transparency and accountability. While some progress has been made, much more needs to be done to better protect taxpayers and the community and I am committed to pursue additional legislation in my next term.

What are the critical differences between you and the other candidates seeking this post?

I have over 25 years of extensive financial budgeting and planning expertise for very large budgets which none of the other candidates possess. I have also acted as a high level manager and understand how to execute solutions to complicated problems through the use of empirical data and analytics.

If you are a challenger, in what way has the current board or officeholder failed the community (or district or constituency)?

The current majority of the council driven by purely partisan interests has failed taxpayers and our community in that they have acted in an unduly partisan manner by dragging their feet on and failing to promptly pass fundamental legislation and policies I have proposed that protect taxpayers and the public.

Describe the other issues that define your campaign platform.

My platform is to install fundamental policies and protections in the areas of fiscal discipline and stewardship of public resources, create transparency to enable the public to understand and be made properly aware of the actions taken by their representatives, and to allow for more open public discourse on issues to enable the true stakeholders of the community have a say in what goes on where they live. This means making development decisions that take into account the environment, social services and resources to ensure these services are not constrained. To make sure all voices are heard equally.

What accomplishments in your past would you cite as evidence you can handle this job?

I have been able to drive the passage of fundamental policies and protections that surprisingly the city did not have. To improve transparency I proposed that all minutes to city council meetings be permanently published on the city website. I proposed and pushed the city council to ultimately pass a measure to augment the vetting process for contractors and service providers seeking to do business with the city. This process could be improved by being more formalized but it has at least been put in place. I proposed and we passed a sorely needed asset management policy. The city owns much infrastructure that was surprisingly not properly accounted for and now we can begin to do that. I proposed both a long-term budgeting and planning as well as a procurement policy but both have received pushback from the majority. I will continue to fight for these and other common sense and critical measures. As a single voice on a very partisan council I am proud to have successfully brought needed changes to our local government on behalf of the public and will continue to do so.

The best advice ever shared with me was ...

Find the common ground; if you don't have a seat at the table you are probably on the menu.

What else would you like voters to know about yourself and your positions?

I will not sell out to special interests — I remain committed to working as an independent voice on behalf of the public and will work for good government.