Meet The Candidate: Sundy Schermeyer For Southampton Town Clerk

SOUTHAMPTON, NY — Suffolk County residents are heading to the polls Tuesday to elect local representatives and make their voices heard.

Residents will weigh in on the race to represent one of the 18 legislative districts in Suffolk County, vote for Suffolk County District Attorney and Sheriff (both are running unopposed) — and choose their local town elected officials.

On the South Fork, three candidates are running for the town clerk's seat long held by Sundy Schermeyer — Republican, Conservative — who is running again to retain her position. Challenging Schermeyer are Mark Bernardo, a Democrat, and Peter Collins, who is running on the Working Families line.

Name

Sundy A. Schermeyer

How old will you be as of Election Day?

63 years old

Does your campaign have a website?

Schermeyer4townclerk.com

What city or town do you live in?

Remsenburg

What office are you seeking?

Re-election to Southampton Town Clerk

Party affiliation

Republican

Education

Bachelors in Public Administration, Business and Accountancy

What is your occupation?

Incumbent town clerk

Do you have a family? If so, please tell us about them.

I have been asked many times in this campaign if I am related to surfer Michael Schermeyer, aka “Shred,” who made Shred Styx surfboards many years ago and the answer is YES, he is my husband! We have two grown children that we raised in Westhampton Beach.

Did anyone in your family work in politics or government?

My hrandfather Arma “Ham” Andon was a popular Westhampton Beach Village Mayor in the 80s and 90s

Have you ever held a public office, whether appointive or elective?

Westhampton Beach Village Planning Board, Southampton Town Clerk

Now we'd like to ask a few questions about your reasons for running and your general views on politics and government. First, why are you seeking this office?

This is an administrative position that I have worked diligently over the years to improve public access and provide an open government that welcomes constituent input in a professional format. I have prided myself in running a NON-partisan office free of politics serving all of the people of Southampton. Currently working with our IT Department to roll out several projects upgrading systems and implementing new technology to better serve our residents.

What are the major differences between you and the other candidate seeking this post?

I am the only qualified candidate in this race with vast relevant experience, institutional knowledge and proven results year after year of delivering quality services to the residents and taxpayers of the Town of Southampton. Anyone unsure of who to vote for should watch the debate on 27east.com, it will make it clear as to which candidate is best equipped to represent our constituents.

What other issues do you intend to address during your campaign?

Current successful projects include the town clerk’s office taking over FOIL requests for land management. We are now taking appointments five days a week at the HB Annex greatly reducing waiting lines in Town Hall. This current FOIL process has been very well received by the public. We are processing approximately 350 FOIL requests per month.

As the NYS and Southampton Town licensing agent, we have kept ahead of technology, recently rolling out a new online permit application system, with CC payment options that were recently approved by the state.

Our next project will further modernize how the town government interacts with our constituents with a new innovative board-wide meeting management system to deliver easier access to residents while increasing accountability of town government.

What accomplishments in your past would you cite as evidence you can handle this job?

There are many projects that we have accomplished over the years, some of which are listed below, that had major impacts in moving the town government from a paper to digital format in departmental daily workflows that made significant improvements in the efficiency and effectiveness to the town’s overall public service.

- Modernized town clerk’s office, making government more user friendly, designed software to expedite licensing online, take credit cards and digitized procedures to provide more effective constituent service.

- Introduced a town-wide electronic document management system, creating work flow and retrieval systems designed to best serve each individual department. This system promoted efficiencies that save significant taxpayer dollars annually while improving many departments interactions with residents and taxpayers.

- Implemented successful online town-wide bid process with more than 3,000 vendors, now participating in the bidding process including local contractors and creating better pricing opportunities for town contracts.

- Initiated state-of-the-art records management software to manage the town’s archives, barcoding record boxes and file systems for much faster access and retrieval for internal departments to be more effective and efficient when responding to public.

- As records management officer, oversee 16,000 cu ft. of archival records for 37+ departments. Also manage and have re-organized active land management files and plans for over 50,000 parcels, identifying core documents and upgrading the FOIL process to expedite records retrieval for public access. Records Management continues to scan thousands of core building files and plans annually that are uploaded into our Geographic Information System for use internally and by the public

- Manage staff of 12 in two offices, Town Hall and Hampton Bays Annex.

- Oversee legislative activities and filings for the town oard.

- Secured 100K+ in grant funding for records management.

- Guardian of Town Historic Division, digitized entire collection preserving thousands of ancient documents, historic books and maps for preservation and public access for online research.

- Created town’s historic cemetery searchable website with over 600K unique hits to date and the list goes as we never stop improving access to provide an open and transparent government for our constituents.

- Managed 12 town special district elections.

- Awarded the Best of New York by the Center for Digital Government for increased efficiency and public participation.

- Recognized by the U.S. Department of the Interior for historic preservation efforts

- Scored 100 percent receiving an A+ from the Press Club of Long Island on a FOIL report card.

Is there anything else you would like voters to know about yourself and your positions?

I am designated a NYS Registered Municipal Clerk, have saved hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars, leading the town into the digital age and have been recognized for my leadership and achievements having served as a New York State Town Clerk’s Association District Director for Long Island and as President of the Nassau/Suffolk Town Clerk’s Association.