To the Editor:

The stakes for this November’s election could not be higher as there is a huge void to fill in the supervisor’s office at Town Hall.

The next supervisor of the town of Guilderland cannot be merely a good person or competent at the job — he needs to be great. The times now demand it.

The reason for this is simple: The new supervisor will be filling extremely large shoes and I don’t envy either candidate in trying to do so.

After 16 years, Ken Runion is leaving the office that he has largely redefined during his stay there. He has raised the bar in a way that only truly great leaders do and, as a consequence, he has also raised the stakes considerably, as anyone who has the courage to follow him will surely find out.

Mr. Runion was and is not perfect, and I know of no one who over the years had more disagreements with him than I did. But I need to publicly acknowledge his great dedication to the town and his extraordinary talents, whether they had to do with legal issues, planning and zoning issues, finance and accounting issues, or political issues.

Like any great manager of a great team, and the town employees have been a great team, he has been able to keep the intensity and work rate at an incredibly high level over a long period of time and they have achieved an extraordinary amount of success. Getting to this level is one thing; keeping it there for 16 years is another thing.

If you look at great teams in history, you do not want to be the person who follows in the footsteps of a truly great leader. The odds are not in your favor of succeeding and, at this critical juncture in time, we need someone who will not merely hold the line but one who can build on past successes while moving the town into the future.

So what is needed now is an extraordinary choice for supervisor and, fortunately for us, there is such a choice in this year’s election.  His name is Peter Barber.

Anyone who has witnessed Peter Barber’s time as chairman of the zoning board, his work on rewriting the zoning code, and his work as a town attorney, can attest to his incredible intelligence, organizational skills, patience, and (most importantly) his openness and fairness.

Being the supervisor of the town of Guilderland is an extremely difficult job made all the more difficult by the passing of an era. But, in the end, it is all about commitment, character, and talent.  Mr. Barber has these in abundance.

Bruce Sherwin

Guilderland