Shawn Cullinane

Cullinane said he would focus on improving the district’s financial health through tax reductions, particularly at the state level, and economic development. “The state is not doing anywhere near enough to support our downtowns,” he said. His work experience beautifying Lindenhurst and “streamlining bureaucracy so businesses can be open and ready to go” will translate to the Assembly, he said. He is also concerned with “crime and law and order,” he said, especially with heroin use across Long Island and what he said was “gang violence” on the district’s borders.

Cullinane, 63, of Lindenhurst, is running on the Republican line. He has served as Lindenhurst’s clerk-treasurer for 16 years and as clerk for 12 years before that. He is seeking his first term in the Assembly. He served three terms on the Lindenhurst Memorial Library board of trustees and has run unsuccessfully for the Suffolk County Legislature and Babylon Town Board. Before his job with Lindenhurst, he worked as assistant to Babylon Town Board; before that, he worked as a member of the stagehands union in New York City. Cullinane graduated from SUNY Oswego in 1976 with a bachelor’s degree. He received a law degree from the Touro College Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center in 2000. He is married with three children.