Candidate Profile: Hagadus-McHale Runs For Mt Pleasant Town Board

PLEASANTVILLE, NY - In 2021's general election, residents of the Hudson Valley will be voting for local officials. In anticipation, Patch asked candidates in the contested races to answer questions about their campaigns and will be publishing candidate profiles as election day draws near.

Francesca Hagadus-McHale is seeking election to the Mount Pleasant Town Board in November. A teacher of foreign languages, she served on the council for a year in 2018-19 after a special election, the first Democrat in 30 years to do so.

Hagadus-McHale and Evan Echenthal are challenging incumbents Laurie Rogers-Smalley and Thomas A. Sialiano.

Learn more about her here.

Check out Patch's full Q&A with Francesca Hagadus-McHale:

Why are you seeking elective office?

I wish to provide greater transparency, accountability and energy to the Town of Mount Pleasant Board

The single most pressing issue facing our nation/state/community is _______, and this is what I intend to do about it.

Smart development that preserves our open spaces.

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

I have experience outside the small portion of the Town of Mount Pleasant that the other candidates feel they represent. There has been consistent disregard for the fact that we are one Town, rich in its diversity found in its villages and hamlets.

In what way has the current board or officeholder failed the community?

My opponents have been less than transparent in their activities. Work session agendas are not published in advance and emails are not shared with the entire Board. The truth about the scope of a project is not always told to the residents affected.

It is my conviction that a Town Board can only be effective if it is a balanced Board. A Town Board should be able to define problems, debate solutions and arrive at a consensus. If a Town Board is not balanced, it risks becoming insulated from the diverse population of the Town and solutions become rubber-stamps. As a Mount Pleasant Town Board member, it is my intent to bring that balance by honoring tradition and embracing diversity.

Describe the other issues that define your campaign platform

Active and focused on finding solutions

Take actions on residents' issues in a timely fashion

Expand communication and outreach

Actively engage Federal, State and County resources

Smart projects that fit the needs of Mount Pleasant

Hold the line with taxes and expand the base through sustainable growth

Celebrate our history and welcome new residents

Leverage the strength of different life experiences and points of view.

Enhance the fabric and dynamism of our community

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

In a Special Election in 2018, I was the first Democrat elected to the Town Board in 30 years. I lost re-election to a four-year term by some 300 votes in a Town that has more than eleven thousand Democrats as opposed to eight thousand Republicans. My experience in that year of service provided me with an insight to the workings of the Town Board and what needs to be changed.

The best advice ever shared with me was:

I have always been an activist, supporting human rights and justice. My mother survived the Holocaust but lost everything, as a teenager. She taught me how to analyze situations and character, and how to inspire others to do good, despite the darkness that life sometimes reveals. I have brought that to my teaching and my political life. I ask myself, what is the next right thing to do, and how I can continue to bring it forward.

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

I was born in the United States and moved to Mexico with my family when I was six years old. My father went to medical school in Mexico City. I attended the French school in Mexico until age eleven when we returned to the USA. I finished middle school at Pocantico Hills School in Mount Pleasant, which, at the time, fed into Sleepy Hollow High School. My parents moved to Bedford after my father's Residency at Westchester Medical Center, so I graduated from Marymount Secondary School in Tarrytown. I went on to Georgetown University where I studied Languages and Linguistics. I lived and traveled all over the world and came back to Westchester to start teaching French and Spanish in Chappaqua in 1982. I taught there for 32 years, before retiring and teaching as a long-term leave replacement all over Westchester County. My husband and I bought our home in Pleasantville in 1993 when my oldest son, Timothy, was born. We have raised him in Pleasantville alongside his younger brother Thomas whom we adopted from Poland in 1999.

SEE ALSO

• Election 2021: New Systems For Early Voting In Westchester
• Candidate Profile: Laurie Rogers-Smalley For Town Council
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