GUILDERLAND — Lee Carman is currently serving his third term in the 29th District of the Albany County Legislature, but said he is running for town board because he feels he could make a bigger impact at the town level.

Carman is a Guilderland native. He left after college to go to Clarkson University, where he dual-majored in management and finance, but he came back after college and married his high school sweetheart. They have raised two daughters in Guilderland.

In addition to serving in the county legislature, Carman works as the vice president of financing at Kinderhook Bank.

“I first got involved in running for office because I wanted to make a difference for the people and constituents of the town I grew up in,” he said.

Even though school, town, and library budgets are not under the jurisdiction of the town board, said Carman, public officials should make residents aware of what is going on.

“I would want to make my constituents aware of anything going on that would affect them financially,” said Carman, “although they would have to make the ultimate decision for themselves.”

“I would have to sit down with the police department and have them share their concerns about security,” Carman said. “They are the professionals, so I’d ask them to show me the plan they had in place, and then we could discuss whether it was adequate or not.”

Carman said he would encourage the zoning and planning boards to appoint members who are professionals in those capacities.

“If we had people with contacts in the business world on those boards, maybe we could stir up enough discussion to know who is looking for what in the Capital Region,” he said. “If we knew which specific businesses wanted to come in, we could point them to where they might fit best.”

“I’m not opposed to doing testing,” said Carman, of the Watervliet Reservoir. “Continuing to provide quality water to citizens is important.”

The town would have to sit down with Watervliet, he said, and discuss whether a good filtration system is enough to negate the risks of contaminated water.

Most importantly, concluded Carman, the town needs to expand the tax base and be open to discussions with small businesses.

“We need to have an open dialogue with people that can have a professional input,” he said. “We need to reach out to people.”