A long-time village Trustee, who spent much of his two terms using his technical expertise to help navigate the village through a series of comprehensive water and sewer problems, announced this week he will not run for re-election in March.

Trustee John Basile, who is serving his eighth year on the Village Board and has been Deputy Mayor since 2009, made the announcement at the monthly board meeting on December 16.

“I’ve got to move on and do other things,” Basile told the board. “I’ll still be around and volunteer when I can.”

“You’ve been a great asset to the Village of Stillwater,” responded Mayor Ernest Martin. “Personally, I don’t know what I’d do without you. Between the water project and the sewer project you have saved this village a tremendous amount of money with your knowledge and your know how. This village will always be indebted to you.”

Trustee Basile began serving on the Village Board in 2007, and has been the board’s lead liaison between the Water and Sewer Departments, and Department of Public Works. During that time, the village has undergone a massive overhaul of its aging sewer system and a shut down of the water treatment plant after PCBs were found infiltrating village drinking water.

The village was forced take on a costly connection to the Saratoga County Water Authority, and joined a multi-municipal lawsuit against General Electric for polluting its Hudson River water source. After many years, these matters came to a head this spring when the village reached a settlement in the GE lawsuit and was awarded more than $4 million to payback federal hardship loans for the water project work.

Basile’s timing of the announcement seems to coincide with these events as both the village’s long-time water and sewer upgrades are finally coming to an end over the next several months.

“We have undergone a lot in the last eight years,” Basile said. “I have learned a lot of lessons that I want to ensure the present and future board members will need to learn. I plan to attend meetings and to feed information to the new members a little at a time.”

Trustee Basile is a retiree from Consolidated Edison Company of NY in 2000 where he served in the positions of Chief Mechanical, Fossil Power and Distribution Engineers in NYC. He was Plant Manager of Indian Point Unit 2 Nuclear Station for seven years and Startup Manager of the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant in the 1970s. A Lieutenant, USN serving on Destroyers, he is a veteran with one tour to Vietnam in the 1960s.

He is an Eagle Scout who earned a Bachelor of Science Degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Kansas in 1962. He and his family relocated to the Village of Stillwater from Putnam Valley, New York in 2005.

Upcoming village elections

The next village elections will be held on March 18, 2015, noon-9 p.m., at the Stillwater Area Community Center. Mayor Martin announced this month he will seek a new four-year term.

Besides Basile’s seat, two other Trustee seats are up for re-election in 2015. This includes the seat currently held by Trustee Judith Wood-Shaw, which carries a new four-year term from 2015-2019. Wood-Shaw has yet to announce her intentions.

The second seat carries a two-year term and is currently held by Trustee Timothy Campbell. Campbell was appointed to the board in August, 2013, following the resignation of Keith Collins. Collins’ original term expires in the spring of 2017. Another election is required by law to fill the remaining two years. Campbell has yet to announce his intentions.

The term of the fourth village Trustee, Ellen Vomacka, expires in 2017, and is not up for re-election until then.