Pace Picking Up For County Executive Race

David Fried was one of several names that surfaced back in October when speculation began about who would run for Scott Vanderhoef's position of County Executive. Vanderhoef's decision not to run comes at the end of his 19th year as county executive.

Fried, 33, resigned Friday from his position as Spring Valley Village Justice to run for the position. By state law, judges are not allowed to run for political offices.

Democrat Fried joins Democrat Suffern Mayor Dagan Lacorte, Democrat County Legislator Ilan Schoenberger and Republican Legislator Ed Day in the race. He's making his formal announcement on Sunday at his family’s tire store in Spring Valley.

Fried is from Spring Valley, where his family owns a small business, Tire Warehouse & Auto Center. He will make his formal announcement on Sunday at 3 p.m. at his family's business.

"I think the county is moving in the wrong direction. Vital services and programs are being cut at the expense of maintaining high-paying administrative positions and political patronage," said Fried. "I don't think that the public wants to see services cut, people laid off without some real innovation put into how looking how county government should improve." 

In the past Fried has worked for Bill and Hillary Clinton for three years. Later Fried served as a member of the county Legislature from 2003 to 2007. He ran for the open State Assembly seat in 2006, but lost to Ellen Jaffee. Fried was then elected in 2008 to the part-time position of Spring Valley justice.

"I always believed that a campaign is a job interview," said Fried. "I believe that the way to proceed in this campaign is to show people actual ideas on how I'm going to save their tax money dollars and cents with very specific approaches."

Also heating up on the campaign trail is the recent endorsement of Lacorte by Laborers Local 754. As the only construction trade union local whose territory is exclusively Rockland County, the union announced an early endorsement of Lacorte on Thursday.

“Mayor Lacorte understands that our members, the working people of Rockland County, can’t afford to live here anymore,” said Stephen Reich, the union’s Business Manager, “Dagan Lacorte has been an effective Mayor and he has the experience and energy to fix Rockland’s broken county government. We are proud to endorse his campaign for change.”

Laborers’ Local 754 has served Rockland since 1926, building the highways, roads, bridges, hospitals and schools that serve the community. Local 754 has 350 members.

“In just one week, our campaign for change has attracted support from hundreds of Rocklanders who understand these serious times call for executive leadership, leadership independent of business as usual politics in county government,” Lacorte said, “The working men and women of Local 754 join our broad coalition to make Rockland proud again.”

“We are fully committed to this race,” Reich said, “Our members will be in neighborhoods across Rockland carrying Dagan’s message.”

As Suffern’s Mayor, Lacorte passed a budget below Governor Cuomo’s property tax cap, reduced the full-time payroll, expanded programs for seniors and froze his own pay.

Mayor Lacorte’s fiscally responsible, bipartisan leadership reduced Suffern’s debt service, while increasing investments in roads and sewer. Mayor Lacorte also stood up for the environment and for small business, filing suit against an oversize Mahwah megamall. Local 754 is affiliated with Laborers International Union of North America.

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