Resort owner, school board member O’Halloran dies
David O’Halloran, the owner of the Pinegrove Ranch and Family Resort and a member of the Rondout Valley school board, has died, the Pinegrove manager and town of Rochester supervisor said Wednesday.
O’Halloran, who also was a former member of the Ulster County Industrial Development Agency board, died Tuesday at age 56. The cause of death was not immediately available, and Pinegrove Manager Paul Craft declined to provide details.
Rochester Supervisor Carl Chipman, a longtime friend of O’Halloran’s, said it was his understanding that O’Halloran died while boating during a vacation in the Bahamas. O’Halloran posted photos Sunday on Facebook of himself and his family in the Bahamas.
“I had just called him on Friday and he texted me, and ... he goes, ‘I’ll call you on Tuesday,’” Chipman said.
Chipman said O’Halloran always was generous to the community.
“I don’t know of a time he didn’t donate to something, and for so many organizations he gave use of his place all the time,” the supervisor said.
On Facebook late Tuesday, Chipman posted: “Today my heart is greatly saddened. I lost a friend and our community lost a true patriot and a benefactor. Rest in Peace, David.”
O’Halloran, long active in local politics, was appointed to a vacant seat on the Rondout Valley Board of Education in 2012 and was elected to three years terms in 2013 and 2016.
School district Superintendent Rosario Agostaro credited O’Halloran with the idea of selling Rondout Valley’s former Rosendale Elementary School to the towns of Rosendale and Marbletown for use as shared municipal office space.
“He was just able to come up with solutions to problems that were unique at times and creative, and really just able to look in advance at win-win situations for us all,” Agostaro said. “The repurposing of Rosendale Elementary School was one prime example. ... It was a huge savings to the taxpayers in our communities to have two of our municipalities conduct business in that site.”
O’Halloran lived in the Rondout Valley school district for nearly 30 years and was an advocate for programs aimed at improving its graduation rate.
“He worked tirelessly,” Agostaro said. “His biggest focus, and it’s been shown, was working on academic achievement and academic performance in our district.”
O’Halloran was on the Ulster County Industrial Development Agency board from 2009 to 2014.
He co-owned the Pinegrove resort with his wife, Donna, as was a vocal supporter of allowing video lottery terminals in businesses such as his, an effort that
ultimately was unsuccessful in the state Legislature.
In 2013, O’Halloran, a longtime fisherman, appeared on the reality TV show “Shark Hunters,” which featured him and his crew catching a 197-pound
mako shark in the water off Long Island.
O’Halloran was a 1979 graduate of John A. Coleman High School in the town of Ulster and earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from SUNY Albany in 1983.
His is survived by his wife and two children.
Funeral information was not immediately available.