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School board incumbents unopposed

Hudson-Catskill Newspapers

GERMANTOWN — The May 20 vote for the Germantown Central School Board will feature incumbents Ralph DelPozzo and David Forman and no one else. Both are unopposed.

DelPozzo has previously held the position of Board President and Vice-President.

He is the owner of Ralph’s County Reality and Appraisals located on Route 9G in Germantown; he is a licensed New York State Appraiser. DelPozzo has also worked for 24 years as a town judge for Germantown and is currently its assessor.

He and his wife Nancy have five children; four live near-by and visit often with their children, which Delpozzo is grateful for.

He calls himself “an advocate for the tax payer.”

“You can’t have seven people on the board who want to spend a lot and seven who don’t,” he joked.

“A good school board member,” he noted, “is someone who has the benefit of the children at heart and always has the taxpayer in mind. We know education is expensive so its always that fine-line between what you spend, and not having the budget go through the roof.”

Delpozzo is proud of the programs the district has been able to offer to its students, such as Chinese language classes, noting that the board is always looking for increased aid from the state to add more programs which is difficult at a smaller school district like Germantown.

Asked if the lack of opposition for the school board concerned him, Delpozzo said, “I like to believe that sometimes when we’re (running) unopposed most of the people think that we’re doing a decent job.”

He noted that in the last few years the school board has been diverse, encompassing retired teachers, business men and and artists, citing fellow incumbent Forman.

Forman has been a member of the Board Of Education for seven years. He has lived in Germantown for 28 years with his wife Barbara raising four children; two currently attend Bard College and two attend Germantown schools.

Forman has been in the music business for over 35 years as a self-employed songwriter and performer. He has also worked in the movie business for many years, once as a set designer for Robert Downey Sr. He collaborates with his wife, a writer, on many projects. Currently they are working on a musical called “Dollface,” which will be introduced at The Center for Performing Arts at Rhinebeck.

He is a graduate of Hunter College in Manhattan.

Forman feels that the largest issue facing the district is school taxes: “How to make a first-class education available to students without crippling our middle class,” he said.

“I pay a significant amount of school tax, and I know how tough it is for homeowners and senior citizens,” he said, noting that he is happy with the state of taxes at Germantown.

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