My name is Kim Kratzenberg. I have served the Town of Forestport as its Clerk to the Planning & Codes Office for the past 18 years, as many of you know. I have always taken great pride in our Town, having been born and raised here, the daughter of Hubert and Pauline Wandover.
After graduation, my husband Bob and I married and chose to stay in the Town of Forestport to live and raise our sons, Bob and Kyle, and to earn livings and invest our hard earned money.
We believe in this Town.
This campaign season has been unusual with my office and clerk’s position becoming politicized at times, and my family’s name appearing on Topix, a frequently distasteful website.
Though I am not running for office, I feel the need to respond and introduce myself to anyone that may not know me.
I do my best to be professional. I give 110 percent at my job and always follow all required rules and regulations. I have never said no to a request to help out friends, neighbors and sometimes people I don’t even know in their time of need. I believe we have many good people working for the Town of Forestport and in local government.
Again, I take great pride in our Town.
I consider myself flexible, having worked with four different Town Supervisors, four different Code Enforcement Officers and a wide array of Town Board and Planning Board Members.
This Town and the Planning & Codes Department are continually faced with ever changing rules and regulations from other Agencies—DEC, APA, DOH, Canal Authority, New York State Codes, the list goes on and on.
The Planning & Codes Department has worked very hard and has prided itself in having a good working relationship with many other Agencies, which have their own rules and regulations. Our department only administers and enforces what is required through our local rules and regulations and the New York State Codes.
We do our best to guide the public through what is sometimes viewed as a maze of governmental agencies by providing the people with contact names, numbers and the necessary forms.
My office continually helps people with as much paperwork as possible but as with anything else, there is a process.
There have been countless times that I have met applicants and/or contractors after hours and on the weekends, at either my home or their properties, because they could not make it into the office during regular business hours.
I call upon personal contacts at some of the outside agencies to help speed up the process. When it’s been helpful I have gone to the homes of seniors to notarize papers and help speed the process.
I personally know what our Town is capable of, my Family having experienced it firsthand. My Family, The Wandovers, lived in the Village in a big, old, white Victorian house on White Lake Street, when my sister, Katrina, was diagnosed and dying of Leukemia. Through her illness there were many days that my parents didn’t know where the money was going to come from to buy groceries, pay the electric bill, pay the property taxes, put gas in their car or give their children even the simplest of a Christmas.
Many days my Mom prayed that their old unreliable car would get her and my sister to the hospital for her chemo treatments.
Just when things seemed their darkest, someone from this great community sent a card with a check or money in it, delivered a dinner to our home, delivered Christmas presents to two little girls who still believed or took my younger sister and myself into their home and treated us like their own.
This town, which I proudly call mine, does take care of their own.
Not only myself but many other fine people have worked hard to make this Community so amazing. A Community that we take great pride in and will always call Home!
Sincerely,
Kim Kratzenberg
Town of Forestport
