CHEEKTOWAGA – Village of Sloan resident Carol “Sandy” Przybylak is running for the Cheektowaga Town Council, and she has the backing of the Green Party of Erie County.

Ms. Przbylak will be listed on the ballot during the November 2019 general election. Three council seats will be up for grabs as the terms for Linda Hammer, Christine Adamczyk, and Gerald Kaminski are expiring.

“We’re for people, planet, and peace. My platform for Cheektowaga, however, will be incentives for people to use clean energy. I hope to petition to try to change Cheektowaga from an at-large six council seat board to a ward system,” said Ms. Przbylak. “Five of the seven current council members all live the southeast corner of Cheektowaga.”

She also says the focus in Cheektowaga has been economic development but the focus should be on the residents.

“The residents have to have homes that don’t flood and incentives to stay in Cheektowaga,” she says. “I would like to see a green voice on the town council. Its been a Democratic stronghold for many, many, years and I think that I bring an environmental focus to the board. I think the sanitary sewers are a huge environmental issue.”

Ms. Przbylak ran for election to the town board under the Green Party ticket in 2017. She received 639 votes according to the Erie County Board of Elections.

Her announcement was made during a rally at Potts Banquet Hall Friday night with Green Party Gubernatorial candidate Howie Hawkins.

Mr. Hawkins, a Syracuse native, is a socialist who believes self-organization, independent political action, and international solidarity by the working class and oppressed people for full political and economic democracy is the way to build a society of freedom, equality, solidarity, peace, and ecological sustainability.

His running mate for Lt. Governor Jia Lee, is a New York City special education teacher.

“We got problems, and I’ve been involved in movements since the anti-Vietnam movement where we started out as a minority, and we ended up winning,” Mr. Hawkins says. “We’ve made a difference, and we’re climbing the ladder. We got the ballot line in 2010, last time [2014] we got 5%, and it was the most for any party on the left in over 180 years.”

His bid was locally endorsed by the Buffalo Teachers Federation. Historically, the teacher’s union has had bad feelings against Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo. In 2010, they endorsed Working Families candidate Zephyr Teachout.

Hawkins is crisscrossing the state saying he’s the “Plan B” candidate for those who oppose Mr. Cuomo.

The party is also fielding candidates for Comptroller, Mark Dunlea; and Attorney General Michael Sussman.