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People: Trustee Candidate: William Fogarty
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| William Fogarty |
February 05, 2007
Second in a series of profiles of the five individuals expected to be on the ballot in the village Mayor and Trustee election on March 20.
It’s a cold Saturday morning and village trustee William Fogarty is headed out to get signatures for re-election to the Cornwall-on-Hudson village board. Fogarty was first elected to the position in 1980, served for 16 years, then returned in 2004 to finish out the term of trustee Tony Ferrero, who died of a heart attack. Every time he goes out to knock on doors in a re-election bid, Fogarty dresses in a suit and tie. “I can’t imagine doing it any other way,” he says.
Fogarty, 62, takes seriously his responsibility to his family, community, and his country and has a track record to back it up. After serving in a U.S. army intelligence unit in Japan, Fogarty, a Newburgh native, settled in the village with his wife and began to work at a bank in Manhattan in 1972.
Today, he is the assistant vice president and senior investigations officer at HSBC, on the trail of internal and external fraud. He got that position, in part, by enduring long hours and long commutes. For more than 25 years, he says “I was going to work in the dark, coming home in the dark.”
But unlike many long-distance commuters, Fogarty carved time out for volunteer work at the American Legion, to act as treasurer of St. Thomas of Canterbury Catholic church and, of course, to serve as a village trustee. He and his wife also raised three children who are now grown.
“If you have the talent and the time, it is always good to give something back to the community," Fogarty says, adding that if people gave back, “we wouldn’t have a lot of the problems we face today.”
During his time on the village board, Fogarty has tried to kept a tight reign on spending and he is not happy to see the $8 million that it currently owes. Much of that debt, he says, results from the water filter plant that was mandated by federal law. “The poor engineering (at the plant) led to a lot of bills,’ Fogarty says, noting that “the equipment for the firehouse, for the Department of Public Works, were also a lot of costs.”
Fogarty is a supporter of the village’s plan to save for these capital expenses in the future. “Only after we have the money will we buy what we have to buy,” Fogarty adds. In a nod to frugality, Fogarty proposed to eliminate the raise for the trustees and mayor in the new budget -- his motion passed.
“It was a principle thing, regarding the salary increase,” he says. “I don’t know if the other trustees would agree with this, but I would run as trustee without pay. I am just offering my services to help the village.”
At Fogarty’s urging, the village has started a program to make annual payments on the principal of several loans, called Revenue Anticipation Notes, or RANS.
“I talked to the trustees and the mayor and we had an agreement to start a five-year program to chip away at the principal and in five years get rid of these things,” Fogarty explains. Only problem is, this year there wasn’t enough money to meet that goal.
Fogarty sees the village water system as a source of future revenue to help reduce the debt load. “We will be able to double the capacity of the water once the filter plant comes on line,” Fogarty says, “and we can have back-up water for Washingtonville and New Windsor, who really need it. They can be our customers and we can still guarantee our water for our community.”
Asked about his vision for the village’s Hudson River waterfront, Fogerty says that he wouldn’t change much there, other than add some more benches and a bathroom. He says it is a ‘gorgeous spot.”
Fogarty is awaiting the final version of the Master Plan Committee’s report before he reads it but he expects to use it as a guide for setting village priorities when they have the money to spend on new projects. He is concerned that any new project be “for the betterment of the entire village, not just a splinter group that has a pet project they would like to do.”
He likes what the Local Development Corporation did by getting the financing for the construction of the Department of Public Works building on Shore Road. He says the process was discussed at open public meetings and that it was a "win-win" situation. “The DPW needed a bigger shop and before you knew it, the building was up and in operation,” according to Fogarty, who noted that “getting the street department out of the center of the village will free up some land” and get it back on the tax rolls.
“I think the resurgence of restaurants down around the village square is bringing that whole section back and it's nice,” Fogarty says. He recalls the challenge of moving the village hall to its current location from the building that is now The River Bank restaurant – a move that was controversial at the time.
As he prepares to make his rounds to ask for the support of village residents, Fogarty reflects and adds, “I hope I have earned the people’s trust. I think I have done a good job and I hope that I am around to continue helping the village.”
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