Fresh Faces, New Energy

Perhaps it's just a coincidence, but over the last few months new leaders have stepped up at several of the town's important organizations. They are not all newcomers to Putnam Valley, but they are new in their leadership roles and they are bringing palpable energy to their positions, along with a commitment to revitalize their organizations and more deeply engage their communities.

Read on to learn more about the new leaders of the Commission for the Conservation of the Environment, the Democratic Committee of Putnam Valley and the Putnam Valley Grange.

Beth Gorman moved to Putnam Valley in 2022 after being recruited for a senior management position at Regeneron in Tarrytown. She and her husband searched for a new home within a 30-mile radius and chose Putnam Valley for its access to nature without also being too remote. Having grown up in Utah on a dairy farm and later studying geology in college, Gorman says she's always been "an earth-focused person." Fortunately for the town, she also wants to be an active community member. So, after joining the Commission for the Conservation of the Environment (CCE) as a member early last year, Gorman was elected to be its chair in December.

For those not familiar with the Commission, it's a town-appointed body charged with helping the town protect its environment. It is perhaps best known for having created a Natural Resources Inventory (NRI), a comprehensive planning document that took several years to research and get approved. The NRI helps guide the town's planning and zoning considerations and can be a necessary first step for certain grants the town may want to seek.

Although only two months into her new role, Gorman is staking out a broad vision for the CCE that encompasses water quality and the risks of contamination to lakes and wells, septic issues, and policies for land conservation that would protect the town's extraordinary natural assets while also allowing for sensible growth. One of her immediate goals is to launch an Open Space Inventory, the natural follow-on to the NRI. The CCE has identified a nonprofit that will give the town a grant to get the work done, and Gorman is eager to work closely with the Town Board to ensure that this initiative wins approval.

To aid her in her efforts, Gorman has also been seeking to reshape the Commission by adding new members. There is one remaining seat on the board, and she's hoping to recruit a candidate who brings marketing and social media expertise, as one of her goals is to build greater awareness and visibility for the CCE.

"This is a beautiful, pristine area full of amazing wildlife, vegetation, lakes and streams," says Gorman. "We have a great responsibility to take this seriously, or we're going to lose something really special."

Gorman can be reached at bgorman80521@gmail.com

In December, Tom Pendleton was elected chair of the Putnam Valley Democratic Committee, the local arm of the Democratic Party that recruits candidates for town and county positions and aims to turn out the party's local voters in election cycles. A 20-year Putnam Valley resident, Pendleton has been a member of the committee for the last two years.

Although he's never previously held a political position, Pendleton enjoyed a 45-year career developing youth programs for nonprofits and New York City's Department of Education. He believes the skills he gained managing staff, running a $42 million department and building alliances will help him be effective in his new role.

He can already point to some success. Since taking over as chair, the number of people attending the committee's monthly meetings has more than doubled, and his efforts to expand the general reach of the Democratic Party by offering social gatherings that are open to all are gaining steam. More than 30 people have been attending monthly get-togethers at Pancho & Gringos, and, as Pendleton likes to point out, it's not always the same 30.

Pendleton is currently focused on recruiting one more candidate to run in the November election, when two Town Board members and the Town Supervisor, who are Republicans, are up for re-election. He is also determined to have at least one member on the Democratic Committee from each of the town's ten election districts. The committee currently lacks representation from District 1, the boundaries of which can be seen by clicking here.

Pendleton's theory is that if each member focuses on the 300 to 400 Democrats who are registered in their district, "that's how you start having a real relationship and it's the most effective way of building support." He also wants to register more Democrats with weekend homes in Putnam Valley who haven't moved their voting location here, as is allowed.

Pendleton can be reached at tompvdemchair@gmail.com.

Andrew Wulkan had no intention of running Putnam Valley's Grange. He simply noticed a complaint on Facebook about old chairs that needed to be retired and offered to pick them up. His visit coincided with a monthly Grange meeting at which the then-president announced his resignation. When Wulkan heard people discussing whether the Grange should close permanently, he remembers feeling something to the effect of "not on my watch".

Wulkan, it turns out, is a Grange baby. His father was Yorktown's Grange chair and later helped to develop Putnam Valley's Grange after moving his family here 20 years ago. Son Andrew, who attended Putnam Valley's high school, was raised on Grange activities such as showing his family's pony and selling tickets to the annual fair.

Since last fall, when Andrew Wulkan was named Acting President of Putnam Valley's Grange, he has worked to clean up the building and cobbled together enough funding to get the organization out of debt and caught up on utility bills. He has recruited a secretary for the organization and persuaded his father to return as treasurer. He's now actively seeking to rent out sections of the building for events, and the organization has 700 followers on Facebook. He hopes the Grange will eventually offer agricultural programs again, but says he needs people to step forward to help plan those activities. Somehow, he manages to do all of this while working for Metro-North Railroad and, with his wife, raising their three-year old daughter.

Unless another candidate emerges, Wulkan seems likely to be elected the next president. If so, his longer term goal is to refurbish the Grange so that it can become a popular meeting place for Boy Scout and Girl Scout groups and the 4H community. He wants them to have a free place to meet that isn't in a school or religious building and is politically unaffiliated. "These groups are so beneficial to the youth of this community," he says. He still remembers being elected president of the 4H Club at the age of 12. "That meant so much to me, and the skills I learned doing that job carried me through life." By his early teens, he was on the board of directors of the Yorkville Grange and was subsequently elected to the student government body at SUNY Cobleskill, where he got his B.A. in Animal Science. "I'm trying to get younger people involved," he says. "I'm trying to make it a modern Grange."

Wulkan is seeking more funding to continue fixing up the building and also says he's looking for "boots on the ground". As an example, he wants to buff and wax the floors but first needs help moving a huge table out of the way. Grange dues are $50 a year, of which $27 goes to the state and national organization.

Wulkan can be reached at info@putnamvalleygrange.org.

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