Rockland Candidate Profile: Foley For County Legislature

NYACK, NY — Rockland County has several contested races in this fall's election, including the Legislature. Nyack Patch asked candidates in the contested races to answer questions about their campaigns and will be publishing candidate profiles as election day draws near.

James Foley of Grand View on Hudson is running for Rockland County Legislature in the 17th District. His opponent is incumbent Nancy Low-Hogan. She will appear on the Democratic and Working Families lines on the ballot. Foley will be on the Republican and SAM lines.

Foley, 52, is a psychotherapist. He said he has had direct experience of the hazards of Rockland politics. "The corrupt, and to be frank disgusting Ramapo Machine, has proven to be vengeful, particularly in creating professional and business consequences for those who speak against that corruption," he told Patch. "When I spoke against this corrupt machine years ago, some persons made concrete and significant efforts to have me lose my professional license as well as my employment."

Are you running for office in 2019? Contact Lanning Taliaferro at lanning.taliaferro@patch.com for information on being featured in a candidate's profile and submitting campaign announcements to Patch.

Previously on Patch:

• Orangetown Candidate Profile: Kenny For Town Supervisor
  
• Rockland Candidate Profile: Wolfe For County Legislature
• Clarkstown Candidate Profile: Tannenbaum For Town Council Ward 2
• Rockland Candidate Profile: Diederich For District Attorney
• Rockland Candidate Profile: Vivian Street For County Legislature

The single most pressing issue facing our community, and what I intend to do about it.

The corruption, lawlessness, and overbuilding emanating out of Ramapo is an existential threat to Orangetown and Clarkstown.

I plan on using every possible part of our county government against these abuses, as well as using my public office to appeal for help from other layers of government to assist in stopping this abuse.

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

My opponent has been compliant with the Ramapo machine's wishes, and silent in the face of that machines misbehavior, for seven and a half years.

She has recently found a very small voice against these issues, this when I emerged as a formidable opponent and a obvious threat to her holding that seat.

In office, I will be resisting all of the corrupt Ramapo machines efforts at controlling or harming Clarkstown and Orangetown, I will offer that corrupt machine no political cover, and I will in fact use my seat to broadcast any misdeeds by that machine rather than remain silent.

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

My opponent has been silent in the face of public corruption, public school looting and the general mistreatment of Rockland residents that is threatening to consume Orangetown and Clarkstown.
This has been a absolute failure as to what should have been the behaviors of the person in that seat.

The man who was President of the East Ramapo School Board, Aron Wieder, who looted that public school district, and who sold the buildings off at a discount to his friends' “private schools," was voted Rockland County Legislature Majority Leader by my opponent, this after that looting by him was well known to those even remotely connected to Rockland politics.

My opponent voted against Israel’s right to exist.

My opponent voted to ask for the release of Domestic Terrorist and essentially triple cop killer Judith Clarke.

My opponent is chair of the Rules Committee, and by her own admission, ruled out putting term limits up for a real vote until after the election.

My opponent killed a memorializing resolution meant to support Legislature Laurie Santulli who was a victim of a bizarre hate crime.

Describe the other issues that define your campaign platform.

Each county in NY is responsible for coming up with its own water. It is not the state's job to solve that problem.

Rockland will with absolute certainty run out of water if the overbuilding continues.

It is also a fact that there are frequent sewage treatment plant overflows into the Hudson, measured in millions of gallons.

I have no interest in drinking desalinated sewage, nor do the voters I speak with.

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

As an experienced and licensed psychotherapist I am accustomed to hearing distorted versions of reality that need correction if the person is to function well.

Our current leadership in the Rockland County Legislature is distorting reality and speaking about matters in a self serving way.

We need someone to show up in the Rockland County Legislature and speak to what is real, rather than a self serving distortion of what is actually occurring.

The best advice ever shared with me was …

“Play the tape till the end." Meaning if you are about to do something, slow down and think about how that will actually play out.

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

I go back six or more generations in this county. We are here so long I can’t find out who was the first person in my lineage to move to Rockland.