Editor’s note: This campaign statement was provided by Adam Kagan. His is running on the Democratic and Serve America Movement party lines.

This November, I’m asking you to elect me Town Justice. As someone who has written laws and practiced law for almost 15 years, I have the skills, energy and background to serve today’s Pelham.

Over the last 8 years, I’ve been honored to serve as a Deputy Mayor, Trustee, and law-enforcement liaison, member of the Village Planning Board, and a Little League coach. I am running for Town Justice now to ensure our court is fair and accessible for all in our community, and to provide a more balanced court using all tools available for the local administration of justice.

I believe the work my colleagues and I have done on our Village Board demonstrates my ability to balance the needs and rights of individuals with the community’s. I am proud to have worked with Assemblywoman Paulin and Senator Biaggi, changing State law to provide local law enforcement with access to handgun registration data while still respecting privacy rights. I’m also proud of supporting environmental initiatives like community choice aggregation (group power purchasing) and Solarize Pelham. And I’m proud of increasing transparency by making our televised meetings, supporting materials, and budgets available on the Village website. These initiatives required recognizing the needs of many parties, and flexible thinking to achieve the best outcome for our community while navigating complex rules and regulations–skills essential to a Justice.

Though the law may be black and white, we rely on judges to interpret the shades of grey in each circumstance (just ask people who received a parking ticket they thought they didn’t deserve). A key component of our judicial system acknowledges that different people, with different backgrounds, bring perspective to those interpretations. However well-intentioned, people of homogenous backgrounds are limited by the collective blind-spots of their common experiences.

For nearly 50 years, Pelham has elected an unbroken chain of exclusively Republican justices. I thank all four for their service, but one-party rule over the course of decades drowns out other voices. My background in bi-partisan local government and affiliation with the SAM (Serve America Movement) party represents a new voice in Pelham and a new choice on the ballot. Not everyone believes political affiliation matters, but those who dismiss the value of diversity are often those whose experiences are the least diverse. Today’s Pelham is more diverse than yesterday’s. The Democratic and SAM parties I affiliate with respect that diversity and are a reflection of my values, choices and experiences, just as my Republican and Conservative party opponent’s affiliations are a reflection of his.

I also differ from my opponent in my embrace of modern legal tools and research. My opponent’s campaign statement proudly proclaims he does not need a computer or legal annals to arrive at a determination, instead relying on his personal legal experience. It is precisely this thinking that reinforces unconscious biases developed over a decades long career. It also ignores the valuable training on the most recent best-practices provided by New York State for all new Town Court Justices.

As my kids and I knock doors all over Town, I’m learning many people do not realize Town Justices do not have to be attorneys. More than half the Town Courts in New York have non-attorney judges who receive training and serve their communities with distinction. Though I am an attorney, I am not arrogant enough to think attorneys with decades of experience automatically arrive at better Town Court decisions. To me, this reflects a conviction by our founders that Justices should be judged individually, not stamped from the identical molds of their predecessors. My skills, temperament and local experience better reflect the makeup of our community today and for the next 4 years. I ask for your vote on November 5^th.