Vote New York

A former White House staffer with experience in politics and information security announced Friday that he is running for Monroe County clerk, while the incumbent, Republican Cheryl Dinolfo, said she will seek re-election.

Democrat Thomas Hasman, a 35-year-old city resident, said the clerk’s office needs a chief information officer, and he would be that person.

“As a resident of Monroe County, I have grown increasingly concerned with the direction and leadership of Monroe County,” Hasman said. “Monroe County needs new leadership.”

Dinolfo, 48, said she would continue to push for greater online access to services of the clerk and expanded hours for clerk services.

During Hasman’s announcement, held at Monroe County Democratic Committee headquarters, committee Chairman Joseph Morelle attacked Dinolfo’s practice of encouraging people to renew their vehicle registrations in person at the clerk’s office, so the county can retain the revenue, instead of renewing their registrations online or by mail, which can be more convenient but sends all of the revenue to Albany.

“That’s not how the clerk’s office needs to be run,” said Morelle, who is also a state assemblyman.

Dinolfo touted her “Renew Monroe” program as a way the county can keep tax revenue, instead of sending it to Albany, and said she plans to expand it. She has lobbied for the ability of counties to accept license and vehicle registration renewals online, but the state won’t allow it because it wants the revenue.

“I’m proud to launch Renew Monroe,” she said.

Revenue from renewals of Department of Motor Vehicle and passport documents made through the Internet and by mail goes to Albany. Those made in person at a local office stay with the county, about 12.7 percent of each transaction, Dinolfo said.

Hasman criticized a $10 increase in the vehicle registration fee inserted into the Fairness, Accountability, Innovation and Results Plan, which went into effect at the beginning of the year, and Dinolfo’s silence on the increase.

Dinolfo said anytime fees go up it’s “unfortunate” but said County Executive Maggie Brooks is controlling spending however she can, and the source of the county’s budget problems are mandates from Albany.

The county clerk’s office will return nearly $8 million in surplus revenue to the county’s general fund during Dinolfo’s tenure, she said.

County clerk operations, from DMV services to passport applications to recording real property transactions to maintaining legal filings, are generally sources of revenue for a county’s other functions.

Hasman called the clerk’s office “hardly glamorous” but said that his background “uniquely qualifies” him for the job.

He worked for the National Security Council in the White House as a staff assistant, then as a special assistant during the Clinton administration.

Since 2000, he has worked as a security analyst for SRA International from Rochester. The company is based in Arlington, Va., and Hasman works on the company’s federal contract for Smart Border Alliance/United States Visitor and Immigration Status Indicator Technology, known as US-VISIT. He specializes in the protection of computer systems from cyber-threats.

He is a sector leader for the Monroe County Democratic Committee and worked on Morelle’s campaign in 2006. He also worked in Democratic politics in Virginia.

Hasman was born in Rochester, grew up in Webster and graduated from Bishop Kearney High School in 1991. He earned undergraduate degrees in political science and sociology from State University College at Oswego and a master of arts in government from Johns Hopkins University.

He was accompanied at the announcement by his wife, Linda, and their 1-year-old son, Samuel.

One of Dinolfo’s major accomplishments was being instrumental in helping defeat Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s plan to issue drivers licenses to illegal immigrants.

At the county Republican committee’s convention on Thursday night, state Sen. Michael Nozzolio lauded Dinolfo for providing Republican state lawmakers with expertise on the issue.

Hasman called the matter “a dead issue.”

“The voters are against it, everyone was against it,” he said.

A former practicing lawyer, Dinolfo lives in Irondequoit. Her husband, Vince, is an Irondequoit town justice, and they have three children.

A graduate of LeMoyne College and the State University of New York at Buffalo law school, Dinolfo was appointed to the clerk’s post by Gov. George Pataki in 2004, after the incumbent, Brooks, was elected mid-term to the county executive’s office, and was elected the same year against Democrat Bob Cook with about 62 percent of the vote.

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