About 90 elected offices will be on the ballot in Wayne County this year, from that of district attorney to those of village trustees. The Lakeshore News will follow all the contested races, along with those that are of great import to individual municipalities, or the county.  
Three Wayne County municipalities are scheduled to hold Republican primaries thus far: the Town of Savannah and the Town and Village of Sodus. Registered Republicans will be able to head to the polls on Sept. 13 to put their candidates on the ballot. The Wayne County Democratic Committee and Conservative Party select those whom they want to put on the ballot at “caucuses,” or meetings of the party faithful. They must present the names of those whom they have selected to run in the general election to the Wayne County Board of Elections by September 20.

Village of Sodus Board of Trustees:
Three aim for two seats

Two seats on the Board of Trustees are slated to be on the ballot in November. Mayor John Miner is not running for reelection, and incumbent Dennis Taber is up for re-election. Two newcomers, Lynne Littlefield and Jared Laird, are vying for board seats, as well. By law, the two who take the most votes will appear on the ballot.  

As registered Republicans heavily outnumber Democrats and Conservatives in the village, the results of the primary could determine who takes office in January. Trustees serve for four years, and are paid an annual salary of $3,353.

Dennis Taber
 Dennis Taber points to his record on the Board of Trustees when asked why voters should return him to office for a second term. Taber says he was the driving force behind the termination of the Village of Sodus’s contract with Severn-Trent Environmental Services, the company that was running its water and sewer facilities.  

“We brought the management of that facility into village management,” Taber says. Though the village paid Severn-Trent $30,000 in August to discontinue the contract, Taber says the action will save $97,000 this fiscal year, and $127,000 next year.

Taber also points with pride to other steps the Board has taken to fix parts of the village of Sodus’s infrastructure during his time on it, including repairs to its sewer system. “We’ve fixed about 4,000 feet of sewer line,” he says. “We’ve repaired numerous drainage projects by putting in more catch basins and drainage areas in the roads.”

Taber, who is the Board’s liaison with the Village of Sodus Highway Department, says that if reelected he hopes to improve road maintenance in the coming years, he says.  “I’d like to increase the continuous maintenance of our road infrastructure, with more drainage construction projects to continue to maintain our roads,” he says.

Taber is CEO of Hickory Ridge, Inc, an Albany-area development firm, though describes the firm is “not very active,” and himself as “semi-retired.”  The 47-year-old is married, and the father of three.

Littlefield says she is running for the Board of Trustees because she doesn’t like some of the actions it has taken in recent months.
“With events that have been going on lately in the village, I’d like to see if there’s a little bit I could do,” she says.
Moreover, as a Trustee, she would be the eyes and ears of residents on the Board, Littlefield says.
“I can let people know if something happens; I can clarify it better,” she says.
Littlefield is particularly disturbed by one step the trustees have taken-the removal of Kelley Allen from his seat as village mayor. The Board accused Allen of not satisfying the residency requirement for holding office, and then successfully sued to remove him from his position. Instead of doing so, the village “should have had some kind of recall vote,” Littlefield says.  
Allen left office in April, and is running as a Republican to be on ballot for mayor again.
Littlefield is a newcomer to politics, but not to the service of others. She has worked as a special education teacher assistant for the Sodus Central School District for 30 years, and served for the past six years on the Board of Directors of the Sodus Lioness Club, she says. The 55-year-old is married, and a grandmother.

Jared Laird
Laird says he hopes to bring a capacity to listen to the Board of Trustees. “I’m interested in hearing what the people in Sodus are saying, what their concerns are,” he says.  

One issue Laird says is on many villagers’ minds is the Board’s decision to lay off members of the Village of Sodus Police Department. Citing the need to save money, village trustees laid off three part-time police officers. 

“We’re down to one full-time officer, now,” Laird says. Asked how he would help the Village of Sodus deal with such concerns, Laird said he would work to help keep “the crime and the drugs off the street.”
Laird has worked for the Wayne County Highway Department for about nine years, and considers his blue-collar status an asset to his race for the Board.
“I can relate to a lot of the people in the village,” he says.

The 36-year-old is married, and the father of two boys.