BERNE — Where Berne’s 2021 election was a heady mix of fierce partisanship and baseless accusations, this year, Republican-backed candidates are entirely uncontested after the town’s Democratic Committee opted not to endorse a slate of its own, to some criticism. 

Incumbent Albert Thiem was first appointed to the Berne Town Board in 2022 to fill a vacancy, and is seeking re-election, while Joseph Martin is making his first run during a stint as planning board chairman.

Jeffrey Harvey is running to be one of two part-time town justices; he was appointed to fill the vacancy left when longtime Berne judge Alan Zuk moved out of town.

Albert Thiem

When Thiem was appointed, he told The Enterprise that he was “not happy with the division I see in this country,” and feels that “we all need to work together to make it a place that our children can be proud of and enjoy the same freedoms that we grew up with.”

His appointment lasted until the end of 2022, and was reaffirmed by voters in an election that year to fill out former board member Bonnie Conklin’s term, which expires this year.

Although Thiem was raised on Long Island, his family has owned property in Schoharie County for 50 years, he said. Thiem himself moved to Berne with his wife and triplets in September 2020.

“It was always my dream to move upstate and get away from the Long Island area,” Thiem said.

On Long Island, Thiem had been a heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning technician who worked for the Nassau County Board of Cooperative Educational Services, and he had, prior to that, owned a heating and cooling company for a decade. He’s now retired.

Thiem has attended non-government meetings put on by local Democrats, in a group called Berne CHAT for Community Hilltown Action Team, who hope to identify and help address problems in the town on their own.

Joseph Martin

Joseph Martin was appointed to the Berne Planning Board in 2020 and named chairman soon after.

Martin is president and owner of C. Springer Welding Works and Marina in the Port of Albany.

He told The Enterprise in an email this year that, as a town candidate, he is “forward thinking and forward moving,” and doesn’t “get hung up on obstacles.”

“I’m excited to get out and start doing the work, meeting with residents and hearing where I could do better as a community member and hopefully a Board member,” he wrote.

“My time with the Town so far, it’s fairly clear that we all agree to conserve our farm land and open spaces and I couldn’t agree more.

His family, from Malone in Franklin County in northern New York, near the Canadian border, is “rooted in farming,” Martin said, adding that he spent summers on his uncle’s farm; his grandfather and his great-grandparents, “and beyond that,” he said, had been dairy farmers.

“So of course that’s one of my main focuses, how do we conserve and thrive on our land,” he wrote.

Martin also said that he hopes to expand senior services, and “bridge the gap between residents and resources” across the board.