The race for the Sullivan legislature — DISTRICT 5

After redistricting last year, District 5 now includes: the western half of the Town of Delaware with the hamlet of Callicoon, all of the towns of Callicoon and Fremont, and portions of two election districts in the western part of the Town of Liberty.

Election Day is on Tuesday, November 4.

By DAVID HULSE

		TRR photo by David Hulse Joan Kern (Click for larger image)	TRR photo by David Hulse Rodney Gaebel (Click for larger image)

Joan Kern

A life-long community activist, Joan Kern says she wants Sullivan County to carefully plan the economic growth that is coming.

Kern is the Democratic and Working Families challenger for the District 5 seat in the county legislature.

Originally from Hempstead, LI, she now operates a bed-and-breakfast, Laserayna, in North Branch. She is divorced after a 38-year marriage and has raised five children, three of her own and two foster children.

Kern holds degrees in journalism, regional planning and a Ph.D. in natural health sciences from Adelphi University, Clayton University and SUNY Old Westbury College.

She is the founder and director of the Community Planning Council which, according to her campaign literature, spurred changes in laws, provided local grants and has fostered renovation, revitalization and historic designation.

Representing one of the principal areas of agriculture in Sullivan County, Kern says she wants to preserve the best of it as the county grows. “People say suburban sprawl can’t happen here, but it can. They said the same thing on Long Island.”

She says the county needs stronger protections for agricultural districts. “Farmers say the current ones are laughable,” she added.

“My district has a lot of agriculture and not a lot of parks. If the agriculture is gone, we won’t even have parks [for open space],” she said.

Farmers need protections to avoid having to sell off property for housing developments, which Kern says do not represent progress. “Those houses don’t cover the tax burden that the people in them generate. People like me do,” she said.

On Long Island, she developed petition campaigns against the inequity of property tax support for education, which eventually led up to the Pataki administration’s STAR program.

If elected Kern will work for an Empire Zone-type program for agriculture, more activism in the legislature for reform of New York’s Medicaid funding program and fairer handling of individual residents’ concerns. “You have to remember you work for them,” she said.

Rodney Gaebel

As the only member of the old Board of Supervisors to seek election to the new legislature in 1995, Rodney Gaebel is the senior legislator in county government.

He has chaired the Public Works Committee since he took office.

As a Republican-Conservative, he is the majority leader and is seeking a third, four-year term as District 5 legislator.

Gaebel is a life-long Youngsville resident, who is married, the father of two sons and a daughter, and the grandfather of five.

He first got into government serving the Town of Callicoon on the zoning board of appeals and on the town’s youth program.

Upon the retirement of the late Ludwig Grupp, Gaebel was elected Callicoon Supervisor, where he served two, two-year terms.

Gaebel is widely reputed at the government center for his plain speaking and the hours he puts in on the job.

Why did he stay on when all of his supervisor colleagues departed?

“I always enjoyed both jobs and I thought the Town of Callicoon was in great shape with [then deputy supervisor] Greg Semenetz.

“The county posed a much bigger challenge. We had a $10 or $11 million deficit and the economy was at rock bottom. It intrigued me,” he said.

Gaebel says his pledge before his first election was to bring honesty, integrity and a full-time commitment to the job. “I’ve done my best to uphold that and retain a common sense approach you don’t see in most governments. I’ve always been up front in the things I believe in and support,” he said.

“We’ve made great strides in the economy in the past eight years. We eliminated the deficit and turned in a surplus. For a county that was rated financially near the bottom in 1992, we’ve risen to the top five or six.”

After all this time, he says the job still intrigues him and he feels he has something to more he can add to it. Should the day come when he can’t look at himself in the mirror and say that, “they won’t have to vote me out, I’ll quit.”