Jerry Vattamala

As a town resident with a young family and aging parents, Vattamala said he hopes to promote and boost both youth and senior-friendly programming to make services more accessible. If elected, he would work on improving the government’s “responsiveness to the needs of the people in our community.” Parks and infrastructure need more consistent maintenance, he said, adding that Jericho Turnpike in Garden City Park needs greater beautification efforts for its sidewalks and medians. He’s running to “change things at the local level,” he said.

Vattamala, 37, of Garden City Park, is running on the Democratic, Working Families and Women’s Equality lines. He was raised in Garden City Park. He graduated from the University at Binghamton with a bachelor’s degree in computer science and then received a law degree from Hofstra University. He is a civil rights attorney with the New York-based Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, where he litigates voting rights and constitutional cases across the country. He is also an adjunct law professor at New York Law School and has a private practice specializing in elder law. He previously practiced commercial litigation at Proskauer Rose LLP, where he worked on the World Trade Center insurance recovery case, among other high-profile cases. He is married with two children.