Selectboard Candidate Statement – Charley Rose

My name is Charley Rose and I’ve been a resident of Worthington for 20 years, the last 9 of which I’ve spent as a member of the Worthington Selectboard.

I initially got involved in the community working to help bring highspeed broadband to Worthington and the other hilltowns. Having been a professional broadcaster in radio and public television for almost 40 years, I felt my interest, knowledge and skills in broadcast technology could be of assistance.

Because of my work on broadband, then-selectboard members Evan Johnson and Dick Wagner asked me to consider running for the board. Because I believe strongly in the importance of community and reaching decisions through consensus-building, I decided to run. That was almost 10 years ago.

I have also used my experience to provide technical assistance and some IT support to the town by setting up PA systems and/or projectors for many town organizations and public meetings. I also manage all the town email accounts and provide some IT support to assist the town’s IT personnel.

In my time serving the Town of Worthington, some of the achievements I’m most proud of include:

• Researching, negotiating, and implementing our first Reverse 911/emergency notification system in 2018.
• Using my professional background to enable Worthington to be one of the first towns in the area to have the capability for meeting remotely when everything shut down in 2020. I continue to improve these capabilities to make remote meetings even more accessible to community members.
• Redesigning and assuming administration of the town website to improve communication and provide valuable information to the community in an easily accessible way and a timely manner.
• Serving on and eventually leading a committee of 5 neighboring towns exploring how to cooperatively provide emergency services more efficiently and most importantly, in way that would increase public safety for all of us.

Since retiring from fulltime employment in 2017, I have devoted even more time to serving the people of Worthington by:

• Serving as Worthington representative to the Hilltown Community Ambulance Association
• Representing the town on the Hilltown Resource Management Cooperative, a group of 10 towns that work together on waste management and recycling contracts. I am also working to set up a contract to compost the town’s organic waste.
• Serving as Selectboard liaison to the Worthington School Committee and attending all school committee meetings
• Serving as selectboard liaison to the Fire and Rescue Department
• Helping to coordinate signups and publicity for the Council on Aging and working to build a senior center.
• During the pandemic, I organized and, with generous financial donors and the generosity of Hunt Chase and his family at the Rabbit Hole Tavern, administered the Meals for Those in Need Program that delivered hundreds of meals to residents for a year.  I also worked with The Survival Center and Goshen Food Pantry to setup a special food pantry here in Worthington.

I work regularly with every town department and have working relationships with area representatives, both state and federal.

If reelected, I hope to be able to continue to improve the access to selectboard meetings and offer live streams and cable access in the future, as well as for other town committees and boards.

I am simply asking if you would like to continue to allow me to employ my life experience and skill set in service to the town.  My career has been spent in Communications, Customer Service, Fundraising and Management of projects and people. 

While I am not a strongly religious person, I am proud of my Jewish heritage and the system of ethics it taught me and which I try to live by.  There is a concept in Judaism called Tikkun Olam.  It is Hebrew that literally translates to Repair the World.  It’s all about making the place you are, better than you found it.  I hope to continue to fulfill that teaching.   

Worthington’s own Russell H. Conwell’s famous essay, Acres of Diamonds, had as its central idea “that one need not look elsewhere for opportunity, achievement, or fortune; the resources to achieve all good things are present in one’s own community.”  I couldn’t agree more!

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