NEW ROCHELLE, NY — At a series of events last week in Bedford, Yonkers and the Sound Shore, local business owner Joe Dillon launched his campaign against long time incumbent Senator George Latimer in New York’s 37th Senate District. A Georgetown and Columbia graduate, Dillon has over twenty years of experience in both the public and private sector.
“I’m running because I’m concerned for our kids,” Dillon said. “I’m concerned about the New York they stand to inherit. Put simply, I’m worried about how achievable the American Dream is in New York today.”
The candidate was joined by various local elected officials during whistle stops at the Katonah War Memorial, Paideia School 15 in Yonkers and in southern New Rochelle. “In order to revive and preserve opportunities for success in New York, my campaign will be based upon a very simple premise: If it creates jobs, lowers taxes, and improves education, I’ll vote for it, no matter who proposed it, Democrat or Republican,” he said.
“New York is last where we should be first and first where we should be last,” Dillon said. “For example, we are number one in taxes…New York is last in job creation in America…New York is the most difficult, most expensive and regulation-laden state in which to do business. You don’t make New York business-friendly with schemes where the government picks winners and losers. You do it by letting businesses breathe. At the same time you create a friendly corporate tax environment in which all businesses everywhere in New York can grow.”
Dillon is a small business owner who has worked with emerging markets around the world as well as the World Trade Organization. He is a former Treasury Department official who has also worked at Visa and American International Group and as an independent consultant who advised the Bush and Clinton White Houses.
“A lot of politicians talk about the importance of creating jobs and putting our people back to work, and that sounds like rhetoric, but I come from a different perspective,” Dillon said. “I know first-hand the value of a job and the personal dignity and peace of mind one provides. That’s because I lost mine and a twenty year career during the financial crisis. As a result, I am personally in touch with the challenges many Westchester families have faced during the past few years. I have faced those same worries myself.”
He continued, “I know first-hand hard times not only require hard choices, they require focusing on the exact things that need to get done and the conviction to go make it happen. I took responsibility, made the sacrifices and did the hard work which was necessary to come back, and I did just that. I’ll take that perspective with me to Albany, and allow it to guide me as I carry out my pledge to Westchester voters which is that I will honor the public trust and take on the entrenched interests, fighting every day for our district, not as a Republican, Democrat or Independent, but as a citizen public servant, entrusted by all the people of Westchester to do the right thing.”
Dillon said he would focus on overhauling education, making New York economically competitive once again and cleaning up the most corrupt state capitol in America. “We must also finally remove politics from the process of education funding,” he added.
“No more holding school aid dollars hostage,” Dillon said. “When elected I will not only vote to end Common Core, but I will demand a complete overhaul of our education system and how we fund it. Westchester students – and Yonkers school kids in particular- have been shortchanged for years by a school aid formula that benefits upstate districts at our expense.”
Dillon lives in Yonkers with his wife Rachel and their three sons, Charlie, Hugh and William. The district includes Bedford, Eastchester, Harrison, Mamaroneck, North Castle, Rye Town, Bronxville, Port Chester, Rye Brook, Rye City, Larchmont, Tuckahoe, East Yonkers and parts of New Rochelle and White Plains.