WURTSBORO – Bob Whitehead has his critics. They say he's too intemperate, or that he has been known to speak injudiciously. Whitehead, himself, doesn't disagree with these assessments, however.

"I've been called all kinds of names," he says.

But these critics also know that he has a good heart; and, despite his somewhat pugnacious style, he only has the best of intentions when it comes to the Village of Wurtsboro, the place he has called home for the last four decades.

"I thought it was the Garden of Eden when I moved here 42 years ago," he says.

Whitehead, an independent candidate, has decided to throw his hat into the ring for the third time, in order to resist the "Republocrats," as he calls them. Whitehead feels that the two parties have a stranglehold on the village, which leads to a situation in which fresh ideas rarely see the light of day. He would like candidates to run for office based upon the merit of their ideas, rather than their affiliation with a political club.

Growing up in the notorious horseshoe section of Jersey City, New Jersey, Whitehead was never one to back down from a fight. He also spent time in Germany, serving in the legendary First Infantry Division — also known as The Big Red One — during the Korean War. He has seen his share of conflict over the years.

Whitehead moved to Wurtsboro in 1967 with his wife and three kids, partly because the country-living would be less taxing on the couple's fragile health — Whitehead's wife was born with a congenital lung defect, and he has suffered from neurological problems since suffering a head injury as a teenager. Sadly, Whitehead's wife died from pancreatic cancer just a few years later, leaving him with three teenage boys to handle on his own.

And it was Whitehead's disability that led him, in a somewhat roundabout fashion, to seek public office. As it turns out, Whitehead's neurological problems — which are tied to an inability to hold his tongue on occasion — entitled him to full disability. He felt, however, that the federal government was giving him money for doing nothing; so, he began doing volunteer work in an effort to give something back to the community. He went around to all the neglected corners of Wurtsboro and started to clean them up. He swept sidewalks, picked up cigarette butts, mowed gone-to-seed lawns, and generally worked to keep Wurtsboro looking spic-and-span. On any given day you might have seen Whitehead, broom or rake in hand, as he would go about his assumed duties as the village's unofficial, one-man beautification committee.

It was this volunteerism that brought Whitehead to the attention of village elders. They encouraged him to run for the position of trustee; and, in 1995, he won election to the village board. Two years later he was elected mayor for the first time, serving until 1999. He then stepped down for two years — from 1999-2001 — but ran again and won another term in 2001, serving until 2003.

Whitehead is proud of all he accomplished during his tenure. In fact, he is a beneficiary of his own foresight, as he now lives in the Horizons senior-citizen rental complex on the northwest end of the village, a project that he helped steward through its construction.

"I can take you around and point out all kinds of things," Whitehead says, regarding the various projects, large and small, that he worked on both before and during his tenure as mayor.

Another major accomplishment of Whitehead's was the renovation of the standpipe on the north end of Sullivan Street, a project that, at the time, was long overdue.

"It was in imminent danger of collapse," he says.

Interestingly, if elected to a third term Whitehead would again oversee a major water project in the village — including, if all goes to plan, the replacement of the aforementioned standpipe.

But he has had a few disappointments. Whitehead cites the reconstruction of Sullivan Street as one project that got away. Unfortunately, he claims, this reconstruction never came to full fruition during the administration of Mayor Edward Handford — Whitehead claims that Handford let the project wither on the vine. However, he doesn't fault the current mayor, Mickey Maher, who was a trustee during the Handford administration. Whitehead feels that then-Trustee Maher's more tempered voice got drowned out by Handford and fellow trustee John Klein.

"She was too nice," Whitehead says of the woman he hopes to replace.

Whitehead feels very strongly that such projects begun under one administration should continue under the next, so he has every intention of continuing the current water-system renovation if Wurtsboro voters choose him again.

Election Day will be on Wednesday, March 18, due to a conflict with St. Patrick's Day celebrations on the Tuesday of that week.

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