The city of Geneva is gearing up for the upcoming mayoral election in November, and so are candidates Steve Valentino and Jan Regan.
“I’m all in,” said Valentino, the Republican mayoral candidate. “I’m motivated. I’m excited about it. I started my campaign last weekend, knocking on doors.”
“I’m just anxious and eager to kind of make sure people really understand where I’m coming from and what’s important to me,” said Regan, who is the Democratic mayoral candidate.
Valentino is the Democratic incumbent mayor, but after Democratic committee support went to Regan during the primary election, Valentino will be running on the Republican ticket in November’s election.
“This election is majorly different,” Valentino said. “Not getting endorsed by the Democratic committee was a challenge. I had a lot of people come to me saying, ‘Steve we really need you out there. We need you to press forward. We need you to win this election.’ So it kind of invigorated me and allowed me to focus a little harder on this election season coming here in November.”
Regan feels confident with support from the Democratic committee, but now candidates are thinking bigger than their party.
“The primary was strictly reaching out to Democrats, so that’s step one,” Regan said. “Now we’re looking at Republicans and what we call blanks or independents, people who do not have a party and were unable to vote in the Democratic primary.”
Both candidates are bringing outside experience inside their campaign.
Valentino works at Thermo Fisher Scientific, a biotechnology company in Rochester.
“I’ve had to work with a lot of people, a lot of customers and a lot of different businesses in the marketplace,” he said. “So I try to leverage all that information on networking capabilities and the ability to work cohesively with different groups of people.”
Regan uses her love for photography to connect with both the city of Geneva and its residents.
“I think photography just opens up the experience and appreciation for where you are,” she said.
While the candidates are focusing on different issues like Regan working to lower the city’s high tax rate and Valentino’s desire to bring more economic development to the city, they both agree on the need for stability in the city council and continuing to move Geneva forward.
“If you don’t continue to move things forward, if you regress, things can fall apart fairly quickly,” Valentino said. “So that’s what I want to prevent the City of Geneva from happening in the future.”
“I think we’re really ready to take off and start with our feet on the ground running,” Regan said.
