BERNE — For the first time since former Councilwoman Bonnie Conklin resigned from the Berne Town Board in September — too close to election for voters to fill her absence in November — the board is whole again. 

Republican Albert Thiem, 59, was appointed unanimously by the Republican-backed board at the town’s Jan. 1 reorganizational meeting, and corresponded with The Enterprise this week through email about his background and why he became interested in serving the town. 

Although he was raised on Long Island, Thiem’s 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 an 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. 

Now retired, Thiem decided that he was interested in local government, “so as to make it a place that my family would love as much as I do,” he said. 

“Knowing that Berne was soon to have elections and as a Republican,” Thiem said, “I felt it important to start campaigning for the Republican ticket. My wife Helen and I went door to door introducing ourselves to residents of our new community and spoke to them about the people running for election who we had come to know. This was also a great opportunity for us to meet our neighbors.”

On his guiding principles, Thiem said that he’s “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.”

He went on to quote the preamble of the Constitution, pointing to the phrase, “secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity,” and explained that he feels “strongly that the future of this great country lies in the hands of our children, ‘our Posterity.’ It is our job to do the best we can for them!”

Thiem will serve until November, when the remaining term of the position, which concludes at the end of the following year, will be filled by the electorate.