ROTTERDAM Government gains new blood Officials lay out priorities for new public roles BY JUSTIN MASON Gazette Reporter Reach Gazette reporter Justin Mason at 395-3113 or jmason@dailygazette.net.
As Rotterdam officials planned for the coming year of business, they welcomed four new faces to important roles with the town and county governments. John Silva and Michael Della Villa were inaugurated as the two newest members of the Town Board, while Craig Surprise was sworn in as Rotterdam’s new assessor. At the county level, Angelo Santabarbara was sworn in as the town’s newest representative to the Legislature and replaces fellow Republican Carolina Lazzari, who lost during November’s election. Rotterdam is part of District 4, which also includes Princetown and Duanesburg. Silva was inaugurated this week as the lone Democrat on an otherwise Republican-dominated board. But he said being a member of the opposition party doesn’t necessarily mean he needs to oppose everything the majority proposes. Silva said his main priorities have more to do with the welfare of the town than party politics. He plans to focus his efforts on lowering taxes, ensuring equitable assessments and the town’s infrastructure. “I view the role of municipal government as nonpartisan,” he said. “It’s what is best for the town and using common sense on issues.” In his first year, Silva would like to inventory the infrastructure and develop a long-range plan for growth. Likewise, he said the town should develop a long-term solution to ease taxes. “It’s not sexy, but it’s where we should be concentrating our time and attention,” he said. In contrast to Silva, Della Villa joins the board’s Republican majority. In his first weeks on the board, he plans to get himself up to speed with local government. “It’s going to be a learning curve,” admitted Della Villa, who also serves on the Schalmont Central School District’s Board of Education. Della Villa plans to focus on economic development and bringing in sound businesses to help offset the residential tax burden. More specifically, he said the town should plan to attract businesses to areas ripe for commercial development, such as the Hamburg Street corridor. Della Villa also intends to focus on young people’s needs in two school districts. He said his positions on both the school board and Town Board could lend insight. Board members unanimously approved Surprise’s six-year appointment Tuesday, replacing former Assessor John Macejka Jr. Surprise will take office at a time when residents are still stewing from the effects of the 2007 revaluation. During the coming months, Surprise said he intends to review the data produced during the revaluation. In the short term, Surprise said via e-mail, “My goal for the 2008 year is to make the assessor’s office more taxpayer-friendly and accessible.” Santabarbara rang in the New Year by being inaugurated as a District 4 representative on the county Legislature and a member of the Republican minority. Santabarbara also serves as chairman of the town’s Industrial Development Agency. “I want to work with everybody to do what is best for District 4,” he said. As a member of the minority party, Santabarbara said he’s ready to build consensus. He likened his experiences as a civil engineer with the obstacles of working with the opposition party. “There’s a lot of challenging problems in my field that are all open-ended,” he said. “So you try to communicate to people why your answer might be the best one and come to a common ground.” Santabarbara said his top priority in the coming months would be to cap the rate of county taxes to the rate of inflation. He said the tax burden felt by the county is becoming a major concern with lower- and fixed-income residents of his district. “Some people can’t afford it anymore,” he said. “We have to do something to get these taxes down.”
Posted on: 01/10/08 Written by: Ross Marvin, Spotlight Staff email: marvinr@spotlightnews.com
The two newest members of the Rotterdam Town Board said they have plans to put aside political affiliation and work as a team to improve the town.
Democrat John Silva and Republican Michael Della Villa, who were sworn into office on Tuesday, Jan. 1, are relative newcomers to Rotterdam town politics. But both men have spent time as public servants.
John Silva, 52, moved to Rotterdam four years ago to serve as president and CEO of Hometown Health Centers.
Silva served for six years on the board of selectman in Hull, Mass. The board of selectman is the executive arm of town governments in Massachusetts. In Massachusetts, selectmen are not endorsed by a political party.
“I ran as a resident in Massachusetts and not a Democrat,” said Silva. “I hope to take the partisan stuff out of Rotterdam’s government and employ a common sense approach.”
Silva said he would try to get the town board to focus on putting labels aside to take a united approach to town issues. He also said he wants to focus on essential issues like infrastructure and property reassessment instead of getting caught up in personnel and departmental issues.
“When I was running for the board, I knocked on every door. I think I’ve got an idea of where the people of Rotterdam are coming from,” said Silva. “We’re not keeping pace with the broadening tax base so we need to focus on infrastructure before we start building more condos.”
Silva said that being a newcomer to town politics has some major advantages.
“I’m kind of an unknown quality to both Democrats and Republicans,” he said. “I’m not necessarily labeled or aligned so I can focus on the issues.” Silva lives on Maida Lane with his wife of 32 years, Helena. The Silvas have three grown sons.
Unlike Silva, Michael Della Villa, 44, is a lifelong resident of Rotterdam and a graduate of Schalmont High School. Della Villa now serves as the president of Schalmont’s Board of Education, a position he has held for the past two years. Della Villa, who has served the board for four years, has two years remaining on his term. He said he will remain on the board for the remainder of his term but will step down as president at the board’s organizational meeting in July 2008.
Della Villa said he’d been approached to run for office for the past three or four years, but decided that now was the time to take advantage of an opportunity to serve on the town board.
“I decided it was time to give back to the community,” said Della Villa. “Rotterdam is a great place to live, and I decided to run for office hoping that
I can add value to the town.”
Like Silva, Della Villa believes the town board should work together as a team of residents rather than as a partisan group.
“We need to define our goals and a strategy for Rotterdam and then work together to achieve those goals for the benefit of our residents by having consensus on the goals for the town and support for decisions,” said Della Villa. “These actions should be non-partisan.”
Increasing economic development, keeping taxes low and strengthening Rotterdam schools are some of the initiatives Della Villa plans to explore as a board member. According to Della Villa, commerce, education and senior care are all interrelated issues that affect the community.
“We need to take care of our seniors as they worked hard to take us to where we are, and we need to take care of our children because they are our future,” said Della Villa. “We need to have strong school systems because they will support our businesses.”
Della Villa lives off of Dunnesville Road with his wife, Debbie, who is the director of OLA Nursery School. They have three children.
Della Villa is the co-president and Partner of RockIT Science Solutions, a Latham-based technology services company.
Mr Silva has his work cut out for him if he plans on improving infrastructure in Rotterdam. For starters the town desperately needs sewers, a water tank for the junction, and a few areas in the town need relief from the many years of flooded basements due to lack of a storm water management program. It's also about time Rotterdam breaks down and spends some of it's tax money on a qualified town engineer to look out for the residents of the town. We have people working for the town who have a title and are not qualified or educated in the field of that title and not doing their job. It's going to be very hard if not impossible to accomplish these goals and hold taxes down. We're going to have to make some hard choices for what we want.
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