Republican George Kaye fights to stay on Town Board

NORTH EAST — Local voters will find a familiar name listed on this year’s election ballot as Republican incumbent Councilman and former town Supervisor George Kaye has decided to run for the open seat on the North East Town Board.

Born and raised in the town of North East, Kaye has channeled his strengths as a leader and his love of community to serving the town through several local boards throughout the years. Following two years of service on the town’s Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA), he served four years on the Town Board as a councilman and then four years as town supervisor.

“I think it’s difficult to understand everything about the town without having served some capacity within local government,” Kaye said.

This past January, Kaye was appointed to fill a vacant seat on the Town Board, which was created when then Councilman Chris Kennan was elected as town supervisor. The board unanimously voted for Kaye to fill Kennan’s seat and carry out the councilman responsibilities for the remainder of the year. Now, the last year of Kennan’s term must be filled, which is the position that is up for vote come Tuesday, Nov. 3.

When asked about his return to the councilman position after serving as a supervisor, Kaye said, “To be honest, there were several projects that I started as supervisor that I didn’t have time to complete and I felt my experience and knowledge of those projects would serve a useful purpose and be helpful to the current Town Board.”

Reminiscing about what he considers his greatest accomplishments during his time of service to the town, Kaye immediately called to mind the creation of the 2019 Town of North East/Village of Millerton Comprehensive Plan, which he hailed as “a guideline for how we wish the town to be in the future.” 

Along with commending the Comprehensive Plan Update Committee for its hard work and commitment, Kaye added he was “greatly honored” by the committee’s decision to dedicate the updated plan to him.

Looking down the road at impending town projects, Kaye said he is currently working on two major projects for the town: the completion of the joint town/village highway garage, which has been years in the making, and the formation of the Zoning Review Committee, which will ultimately make recommendations to the Town Board to update the town’s zoning codes. 

As of this time, he said the first two phases of the highway garage project have been completed and the town is moving into its third phase. As for the Zoning Review Committee, he said the committee aims to revise, update and help “to guide the town into the future with zoning codes that are more in keeping with what the town is today, not what it was 20 or 30 years ago.”

Kaye commented on what he hopes for local politics: “I would hope that people would leave aside what is going on in national politics. I would say we are a small town, we love that small town flavor and feeling and we don’t need to bring national politics into a local election.”