Louis J. Desso

For Rensselaer County Legislature

he theme of my platform is going “Back To Basics.” Going back to basics simply means using some good old fashion common sense to ensure our government is both responsive and provides real value in the delivery of services it offers to its residents. Ultimately, lowering and controlling your taxes can only come about by creating efficiencies, eliminating waste, and raising revenue through new businesses and job creation. Here’s how we go about doing that:

Consolidate or develop cooperative arrangements where overlapping or duplication of services exists among departments or political jurisdictions. For example, could certain heavy equipment be shared between the County and Towns / Villages, instead of each Town / Village purchasing their own equipment which ends up being under deployed and costly?
Focus on offering only those services that are vital to its residents – eliminate those that bring little or no value to the tax payers. For example, residents have expressed a great interest in accessing public sewers; what is the feasibility of providing such a system? These are the types of vital services that we should rely on government to provide.
Purchasing and bidding practices should always be about doing business with vendors and contractors that are "best of class" and provide the greatest value for our money – anything less results in poor or inferior quality and always ends up costing more in the end.
Small independent businesses are the backbone of our nation providing over 60% of the jobs and rely very little on Uncle Sam for incentives and hand-outs; yet we do very little to attract and retain these types of business. In the long term, it is vital that we attract and nurture small business enterprises that will create stability and job growth in our local economy. We need to offer realistic financial incentives, funding sources, location assistance and streamline the bureaucratic process that inhibits their growth.

As your representative, I pledge to give each public issue my full consideration, follow my principles and use my best judgment in representing the community as a whole. Additionally, I promise to hear all voices, provide an opportunity for everyone in the community to be involved in the decision making process and most importantly, make the hard (sometimes not so popular) but right decisions on your behalf.

Thank you for this opportunity.
God Bless.

Louis J. Desso

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