2 incumbents, 1 challenger vie for 2 board seats
The Nov. 7 election for two seats on the Town Board has two incumbents and one challenger.
The incumbents on the ballot are Democrat Bill O’Neill and Republican James Ross. The challenger is Democrat Christine Kane, a first-time candidate.
The two top vote-getters will serve four-year terms starting in January 2018.
Christine Kane
Kane, 57, of 9 Lasher Road, Tivoli, is executive director of Audubon International and chairwoman of the town Planning Board. She has lived in the town for 34 years, and she her husband, David, have two children.
“I think we need to keep focused on advancing our land-use regulations to encourage economic development,” Kane said of her priorities for the town. “Red Hook has recognized its very strong agricultural heritage in a lot of its planning documents, and I’d like to see us continue that so we can keep the quality of life that we have here.”
Kane also would like the town to acknowledge that it needs to address the opioid epidemic.
“Red Hook, unfortunately, is definitely seeing the effects of it here, so that’s something we need to focus on and provide opportunities to train people” to deal with the problem, she said.
Kane, a 1978 graduate of Stissing Mountain JuniorSenior High School, holds an associate’s degree in math and science from Columbia-Greene Community College, a bachelor’s degree in forestry from the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry and a master’s degree in nonprofit management and philanthropy from Bay Path University.
Bill O’Neill
O’Neill, 79, 16 Spencer Drive, Red Hook, is seeking his third term on the board. He is retired from the Dutchess County District Attorney’s Office as chief assistant district attorney and from his private law practice.
O’Neill has lived in Red Hook for most of his life. He and his wife, Jean, have seven children.
“The priority right now is to preserve our natural resource of water from commercial extraction, to preserve our natural resource of top soil from extraction by farmers, and then to preserve our natural resource of forest timber by controlling commercial extraction of timber,” O’Neill said of his goals for the town.
O’Neill also would like to develop regulations to govern the development of commercial and residential solar energy. He said the town could work with Bard College to develop alternative energy sources.
“They (Bard) want to build a hydro plant somewhere along the Sawkill Creek as it goes into the Hudson River, and we want to work with them trying to bring about a local hydroelectric power system that will engage the energy grid so that we have less [reliance on] fossil fuels,” he said.
O’Neill also is focuses on possible zoning changes in Upper Red Hook.
“Right now it’s zoned [for] business along Route 9 as it goes past Upper Red Hook,” he said. “But Upper Red Hook itself along Old Route 9 is really a hamlet, a little community, so we want to ... preserve more of the character of the hamlet and prevent expansion of commercial strip malls.”
O’Neill, a 1956 graduate of Red Hook School, holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from Brown University and a doctorate from Duke University Law School.
He is a member of the Red Hook Alumni Association.
James Ross
Ross, 66, 12 Prince St., Red Hook, is seeking an eighth full term full term on the board. (He also served two years of a four-year term in 1979 and 1980.) He is a dentist in private practice who has lived in the town for 58 years.
Ross said the town needs to work at being “kinder to business.”
“We should all work hard to simplify the approval process [of applications] before the Planning Board and zoning board,” he said. “Sometimes I feel that we could simplify it for the average applicant or person that comes before our boards.”
Ross also would like to continue working on finding ways to share municipal services with the village of Red Hook.
A 1969 graduate of Red Hook High School, Ross earned a bachelor’s degree in biology and chemistry from Hartwick College in Oneonta, a master’s degree in biochemistry from SUNY New Paltz and a doctorate from SUNY Buffalo in 1984.
He is a member of Monumental Lodge 374 in Tivoli.