THE GARY HERZIG STORY

‘I’ve always been drawn to trying to make things better’

Editor’s Note: This profile of Gary Herzig’s life and career, published in Hometown Oneonta Feb. 6 of this year, has new currency after Oneonta Common Council named him mayor on Tuesday.

By JIM KEVLIN • Special to allotsego.com

ONEONTA – To help pay his way through Queens College, Gary Herzig drove cab nights and weekends.

“In New York City,” he said of the experience, “you see, on the one hand, extraordinary wealth – on the other hand, extreme poverty.”

That sensibility informed his career, from Inner City teacher, to Oneonta Job Corps director and, for the past two decades, an Opportunities for Otsego administrator, most of that time as chief operating officer.

“I’ve always been drawn to trying to make things better,” he said in an interview Saturday, Jan. 31, at Capresso, after the news that he was running for mayor broke the afternoon before on www.allotsego.com.

A member of the city’s Housing Task Force, Herzig said the issue that caused him to announce his candidacy in the Nov. 3 elections, is the city’s housing dilemma:  “There’s a shortage, yet there’s a growing number of abandoned houses.”

Former mayor John Nader, who recruited the late Mayor Dick Miller in 2009 to replace him, said he is “very enthusiastic” about Herzig, adding, “I had encouraged him to run.  I don’t know of other people who are interested in running at this point, and I’m focusing my energies on Gary as much as I can.”

“The range of things he’s been involved in for the past several years make him an ideal person to step in and be mayor at a challenging time for the city,” Nader continued.   “His work on the  housing plan, his work on the comprehensive plan – in all those capacities he’s done extraordinarily good work.”

He predicted Herzig would have “a good rapport” with Common Council.

“A new mayor, because there’s obviously been a hiatus that no one could have anticipated, needs to have the ability to listen to various parties, a significant degree of patience and, ultimately, some vision on where the city needs to go,” the former mayor said.  “I think he has all those things:  Gary has hit the trifecta.”

Herzig said that as soon as he made up his mind, he approached the city Democratic Committee, which, while not yet ready to endorse him, encouraged his candidacy.

Council member David Rissberger, county Democratic Committee vice chair who heads what he termed an “ad hoc city committee,” concurred.  He said he’s heard of two other Democrats interested in running, and didn’t want to preempt anyone this early in the year.

If the city has been in a “hiatus” from politics since Mayor Miller’s sudden passing last Oct. 25, Herzig’s announcement – last week, he sent a letter to potential supporters – reopens the conversation.  “We’re in his debt,” said Rissberger.  “I think he is a very good candidate for mayor.”

The county Republican chair, Vince Casale, said he’s heard of a “number of people” interested in GOP backing, both to run for mayor or Common Council.  But he pointed out the acting mayor, Russ Southard, is a Republican, and the party is waiting until he decides what to do.

Originally, Southard, Sixth Ward council member and deputy mayor under Miller who was designated “acting mayor” by his council colleagues, had said he didn’t intend to run for the job permanently.  Since assuming the duties, however, he is now considering it.

Gary Herzig, on moving to Oneonta in 1975, first taught at Camp Grace in Masonville, then ran his own Delhi-based contracting firm, House Warmers, making homes more energy efficient.   He joined Oneonta Job Corps in 1984, teaching some of those contracting skills; elevated to director, he started a child-care program that for the first time allowed single mothers to get OJC training.

When the defense contractor ITT (ATT’s predecessor) lost the OJC’s U.S. Labor Department contract in the 1990s, Herzig joined 200-employee OFO, assisting in the administration of the weather-proofing, Head Start, homeless-shelter, WIC and other programs, including a program aiding victims of violence or sexual assault.  “OFO has an excellent record with all of our funding sources,” said Herzig, who has already advised OFO he plans to retire in 2016.

When he joined OFO, he was already involved in city government, working with Mayor David W. Brenner on City Hall/Job Corps collaborations.  Mayor Kim Muller appointed him to the Board of Assessment Review (he is now chair), Mayor John Nader asked him to serve on the Comprehensive Master Plan committee and Zoning Task Force, and Mayor Miller put him on the Housing Task Force that grew out of a 2011 Housing Summit at Center Street School.

“I don’t want to lose the momentum these people have developed,” said Herzig, who is also vice chairman of the city Planning Commission.

He and wife Connie, a Cooperstown Central phys-ed teacher (the two met while teaching at Job Corps), raised a daughter, Sasha, now an attorney in New York City.  Along the way, he has pursued photography and sailing on Otsego Lake, racing Thistle class boats; the zero-degree morning he was interviewed, Gary said he and Connie planned to ski for an hour or two later that day.

A 20-year Rotarian, he is president of the club’s charitable foundation, and also chairs the CDO Workforce Board.

He is particularly energized right now by the city’s collaboration with Housing Visions of Syracuse to replace six abandoned houses with 61 units of “high-quality affordable housing” on Clinton Street, noting he had introduced Mayor Nader to the Housing Visions concept and Ben Lockwood, its vice president/business development.

On other issues, he supports the city-manager system – “that frees up the mayor to look for strategies to address our bigger issues.”  He supports moving toward merger with the town, saying that “throughout the state, there’s a recognition that consolidation is a more efficient way to do things.”

In his letter to supporters, he raised concerns about “challenges which, left unchecked, threaten the stability of our future. Without new revenues, our current deficit spending will erase our reserves.”

Despite the challenges, the qualities that drew him to Oneonta 40 years ago still hold him today.  “It always feels like a welcoming, inclusive community,” Herzig said of the city he hopes to lead.  “You don’t get a sense of the haves and have nots when you live in Oneonta.”