Recorder News Staff
MOHAWK -- At its board meeting earlier this month, town officials voted to appoint Curt Woodcock, a retired school principal with 30 years of educational experience, to serve in the role of town justice.
Woodcock's appointment fills the vacancy left by the sudden departure of the town's former justice, William Peeler. Peeler resigned his seat last month in order to mount a campaign for mayor of the Fonda.
Woodcock served as an administrator, assistant principal and principal in Johnstown for 11 years, before taking the position of high school principal in Whitesboro, located outside of Utica. He served there for 13 years before his retirement.
His decision to seek the appointment to the town's justice court, Woodcock said, was one rooted in his desire to continue serving the public.
"When I retired I had a lot of things on my to do list per se, and the to do list is getting a little shorter now," said Woodcock. "So, I've been thinking about how I can give back to the community in some ways, and I thought this might be a way of doing that."
Woodcock said he hopes, above all else, to bring a sense of fairness and justice to the bench.
"I certainly want to be someone who's unbiased and fair and look at all sides before I would make a decision," he said.
Mohawk town Supervisor Greg Rajkowski said the board had several options to fill the vacancy left by Peeler, which included asking the town's other justice, Kathleen Buck, to take on the extra workload until a new justice could be elected and trained.
But, because such an arrangement would result in nearly a year's worth of extra work, Buck said it was just not possible.
The other option would have been to hold a special election, but, said Rajkowski, such a solution was not cost effective. Rajkowski estimated that a special election would have cost the town thousands of dollars.
"So, this was the only alternative," said Rajkowski. "It wasn't the best alternative, but, in the interim, it has to be that way."
According to Rajkowski, Woodcock was selected from a pool of eight qualified applicants, all of whom were interviewed by the town board.
"(They were) very good applicants," said Rajkowski. "I was very, very happy with the results of the applicants. They were very knowledgeable people."
"We hope we selected the best candidate," he added. "There's no pre-requisite, there's' no minimum qualifications or anything. It's just who you think would be the best fit on the bench."
Rajkowski said the board chose Woodcock from among the pool of applicants because they considered him to be "the best fit."
"We just looked at his past experience," Rajkowski said. "It was a culmination of his responses and his experience."
Before Woodcock can officially take the bench, he is required to participate in training sessions.
According to Rajkowski, the first phase of training consists of two, three-day sessions. Upon completion Woodcock will be considered temporarily certified, meaning he will only be allowed to preside over certain cases.
Permanent certification will be granted upon his completion of a an additional training session, to be scheduled at a later date.
Rajkowski said he is hoping that Woodcock will be able to receive the initial training some time next month, but that is dependent upon the state's scheduling of the sessions.
"We believe the next session of training will be available some time in March, but it hasn't been posted yet," Rajkowski said. "We just have to go through the court judicial system. They know we have a vacancy. They know that we've appointed another person to fill that vacancy. They will correspond with me."
Because the position of town justice is an elected one, Woodcock's appointment will only run through the November elections.
"This is like a trial period. You have till November to find out if you really enjoy the job," said Woodcock. "Right now, I'm looking at running for re-election, or election. I haven't been elected yet, obviously."
But, he may have some competition.
"We said this to every person we interviewed because of their responses to the interview process," said Rajkowski. "We encouraged everyone to run in November."