Judge, board member are running unopposed
WOODSTOCK, N.Y. >> Appointed incumbents are running unopposed for town justice and a Town Board seat in the Nov. 6 election.
Town Justice Jason Lesko, 52, of 105 Upper Pond Road, Bearsville, is running on the Democratic line to serve the final year of retired Justice Franklyn Engel’s term.
Lesko was appointed to the judgeship in November 2017, the month after Engel retired.
Lesko has lived in Woodstock for 20 years and is a private-practice attorney.
He earned a bachelor’s degree from Hamilton College in Clinton in 1988 and a law degree from Brooklyn Law School in Brooklyn in 1994.
He is a member of Sons of American Legion Post 1026.
Of being a town judge, Lesko said: “I think you have to be very keen in seeing each case as its own case that has a unique set of circumstances, facts and people. You can’t treat any two cases the same, and you have to be very cognizant of ... someone who has untreated mental health issues or someone who’s struggling with addiction. ... They’re factors to the prosecution, and they are also important factors for defense counsel.”
Reginald Earls, 37, of 144 MacDaniel Road, is running on the Democratic and Working Families lines to serve the final year of Jay Wenk’s term on the Town Board.
Earls was appointed to the board after Wenk died this past June at age 91.
Earls is a staff development specialist at Omega Institute in Rhinebeck and an organist at the Dutch Reformed Church.
He earned a bachelor’s degree in social work from East Carolina University in Greenville, N.C., in 2006 and has lived in Woodstock for 12 years.
Earls did not return a reporter’s call for comments.