Knickerbocker Facing Challenge from Capicotti for Mayor in Buchanan
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Three seats on the Village of Buchanan Board of Trustees will be up for grabs next month, including the mayoral position.
Incumbent Mayor Theresa Knickerbocker, who has served a total of 20 years on the board, is seeking a sixth two-year term on March 19, but is facing a challenge from Deputy Mayor Anthony Capicotti.
Knickerbocker, who has been mayor since 2014, and Capicotti, who has been a trustee for three years, both pointed fingers at each other for not communicating well.
“It’s just been ugly,” said Knickerbocker, who maintained Capicotti and trustees Steve Laker and Dan Stewart, who are running for reelection, have formed a majority trio on the five-member board. “They don’t speak to me. They don’t respond to my emails.”
“There’s no transparency. No true communication,” Capicotti claimed of Knickerbocker. “It’s not running as a board. We want to be efficient. We want to be cohesive. We just want to be heard. We’re not in the decision making.”
Knickerbocker said she has effectively led the village through the most trying time in its history—the closure of the Indian Point nuclear power plants, Buchanan’s largest employer and revenue generator, and the subsequent decommissioning.
She said the cleanup of the site and its future use is fueling her desire to keep leading the village. She also emphasized being mayor was a full-time job despite its part-time designation.
“My biggest concern is Indian Point. That is our future over there,” Knickerbocker said. “We need to really stay on top of this. We can’t have other people telling us what to do.”
Capicotti, a married father of five, has worked as a Local 137 Operating Engineer for more than 30 years and has followed in the footsteps of his well-known deceased father and uncle in coordinating the spectacular fireworks display at the annual Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Society Italian Feast in Verplanck, said the village is dragging its feet in its negotiations with Holtec International over a new pilot agreement and stressed the decommissioning delay over dumping toxic wastewater has been detrimental.
“It took a lot of jobs away from a lot of good people,” he said. “The scope of the work was approved. Now it’s no good. It’s tough.”
Knickerbocker will be running on The Resident’s Party line with former Trustee Richard Funchion, who was ousted after 12 years in 2022, and former Planning Board and Police Reform Committee member Awilda Baez.
Capicotti, Laker and Stewart will be on the Republican line and an independent line. They had also sought the Conservative line, but an apparent unauthorized caucus appears will prevent them from securing that line.
Rick has more than 40 years’ experience covering local news in Westchester and Putnam counties, running the gamut from politics and crime to sports and human interest. He has been an editor at Examiner Media since 2012. Read more from Rick’s editor-author bio here. Read Rick’s work here: https://www.theexaminernews.com/author/pezzullo_rick-writer/
