Editor’s note: This statement was provided by Adam Kagan, who is running for town justice on the Democratic Party and SAM Party lines.

This week brings to a close my campaign to be your next Pelham Town Justice. I’m grateful for the energy of the volunteers who helped make this campaign possible and for the opportunity to meet many new neighbors along the way. But most of all, I’m grateful to my wife Melissa and my children Josie and Henry, for their patience and support.

I want to thank my opponent for his service to the community my family calls home. As an attorney myself for almost 15 years, I know the value of experience and I know his has served him well. I am not running for Town Justice on the premise that experience doesn’t matter. But I do believe experience is greatly enhanced by perspective. Towns all over New York send new judges to the bench every year with far less legal experience than either of us, because they want their cases heard by compassionate, reasonable neighbors with experiences and backgrounds more like their own. My experiences as a newcomer in this community eleven years ago, then as a little league coach, planning board member, village board member and now deputy mayor provide perspective and insight into the people and needs of our community today in a way that years of legal practice alone does not.

‪This Tuesday, I hope you’ll elect me to be our next Town Justice. My name will be on the Democratic Party line and the SAM party line. Whichever party you belong to—or if you don’t belong to any of them—I hope you’ll conclude my perspective, temperament and local experience are better suited to hear town court cases in our community now and for the next four years. Thank you.‬