MAMAKATING – The two villages in the Town of Mamakating will hold local elections on March 19.

In Bloomingburg, the mayor and town board have been at the center of a controversy over the high-density housing project now under construction on Winterton Road, and the village remains sharply divided over this issue. The Rural Community Coalition, a local grassroots organization, has spearheaded the opposition to this project, and initiated a campaign to dissolve the Village of Bloomingburg because of how the village board handled the approval process.

In this election season, however, only the seat of Deputy Mayor Clifford Teich is in contention. His challenger will be Joe Gotthardt, running as an independent on the Rural Heritage party line. A resident of Bloomingburg for fifteen years, Gotthardt has previously served on both the village board and the planning board. He stepped down ten years ago because of family and professional responsibilities, but now feels that it is time for him to get involved in local politics again.

"I'm concerned that the village is going down the wrong path," said Gotthardt. "It's time for me, as a concerned citizen, to step up to the plate."

The Rural Heritage party was formed in August 2011 by a group of twelve candidates in several rural Sullivan County races in order to promote local farming as well as tourism and health care. The party endorses both Republican and Democratic candidates who share the view that county leaders should not wait for outsiders to come in and create economic development. Instead, development should be a home-grown effort, maximizing on the area's unique potential.

Teich agrees on many points with his opponent.

"I'm the one village board member who is against the [Winterton Road] project," said Teich, who has been in local government for fourteen years. "I worked well with him [Gotthardt] in the past but he's running on the same platform. No platform of Joe Gotthardt is different from mine." Teich listed some of his accomplishments in the past fourteen years, including having streets repaved, getting new sidewalks, and securing a large grant from the state for planting trees. He has also obtained private donations for an arch planned to go up over Rte. 17M at the entrance to the village, hopefully in time for the Memorial Day celebrations.

In the Village of Wurtsboro, there are two candidates for mayor and two for trustee: incumbent Mayor Michelena (Micky) Maher, and incumbent Village Trustee Clifford Jessup, both running on the Wurtsboro First ballot line. Challenging them are mayoral hopeful Charles Corrigan and trustee hopeful Timothy Bracci, on the Wurtsboro United ticket.

Teddy Brebbia, who has served on the Mamakating Town Board, has provided a video forum for these four Wurtsboro candidates that can be seen on Facebook (teddybrebbia.mamakatingnews), or on YouTube. The second phase of his online forum is to collect questions for the candidates, to be posted as messages on the Facebook page. These questions will then be sent to the candidates who will have several days to respond.

"It's not about national mainline party beliefs," Brebbia said, noting the independence — and similarities — of the local candidates. "It's about us, it's a family thing; it's about our village."