Josephine Reder, new to the political scene, is seeking election as a council member in the Town of Oyster Bay. Reder, a resident of Massapequa for 25 years, believes that her extensive experience as member and president of the Plainedge School Board would bring strength to the town council if she were elected.

Reder was a former president of the Plainedge School board for several years and a board member for 18 years. She was also a member of the Executive Board of the Nassau/Suffolk School Boards Association, where she gained experience representing a large part of Long Island at the state level. While a member of the School Boards Association, she lobbied and worked with state legislators to implement the STAR program, which currently exists in New York State today. Reder also created a consortium of local school districts to plan and share services, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars for local taxpayers.

Reder emphasized her experience negotiating contracts that have been very successful for both management and labor. "I have been involved in many win/win situations," she said. "I believe my ability to work with people across lines and to form a consensus would really benefit the Town of Oyster Bay."

The biggest challenge facing the Town of Oyster Bay today, according to Reder, is balancing the budget with limited New York State aid. "The TOB has a budget of $148 million, $8.7 million of which was supposed to come from the state. They are balancing their budget with anticipated revenue they don't have," Reder explained. "Even before the Sept. 11 World Trade Center disaster, the economy wasn't good. Right away, we weren't going to get the same aid we got from the state in the past. Now that aid probably doesn't exist at all."

Reder believes that the ability to take the budget apart is one of her strengths. If elected, she pledged to do away with the patronage jobs she claims are strangling the town the same way they are strangling Nassau County. "We need to look at all those deputy commissioner positions and determine if they are really necessary. Why do we need so many town attorneys getting salaries plus medical benefits? Why not have an attorney on retainer? Those are ways we can streamline the budget without taking away from people who are actually doing the work," Reder said.

Reder's long range plan for the future growth of the Town of Oyster Bay includes innovative ways of thinking about senior housing, as well as taking a firm stance on the oversaturation of housing that she sees occurring in the town.

Her ideas for senior housing involve converting empty stores in downtown areas to townhouses for seniors, rather than looking for large tracts of land, as is customary. This would really benefit seniors, Reder explained, as they would be living in the middle of town and would no longer need to seek out transportation to get around. "I think we could look at towns across the country, towns right here on Long Island, that have taken part of their downtown areas and turned them into affordable senior housing," Reder said. "The problem is no one is thinking beyond what has always been done. No one has a vision for what could be done."

Oversaturation of housing is another problem Reder sees as threatening the quality of life in the Town of Oyster Bay. Illegal apartments are a stress on the school districts, the environment, resources, garbage pick-up, and water supply. "We are all paying taxes," she said, "so why aren't zoning codes being enforced?" Situations in which one house is taken down and two are built on the same property are also having a negative impact on services, Reder claims.

"Mr. Venditto says the quality of life here in Oyster Bay is so wonderful, and property values have gone up so tremendously. The fact of the matter is it has nothing to do with the town. It has everything to do with the good school districts that exist in the Town of Oyster Bay," she explained. "These school districts are now being negatively affected by oversaturation of housing and illegal multiple dwellings."

Reder highlighted Hicksville, Bethpage and Massapequa as areas where the housing situation is particularly dire. "I think we need to have a certain amount of control, where if someone buys a house, they should have to live in that house, and not be able to just rent it out."

Also on Reder's platform is her plan to promote open government for the people of the town. "Mr. Venditto will tell you they have their roving town hall, and that's wonderful. But no one of any importance is inside who can make a decision or give a straight answer." Reder suggested taking further advantage of Town Hall South, which already exists in Massapequa, for town meetings.

"When I was a school board president, I started something that was very effective. We would have monthly meetings in each one of the elementary schools. They were just dialogues with the community, where everyone could learn what was going on," she said. "Older people especially are not going to travel long distances up to town hall. They want something local."

When asked why she called herself "a new and independent voice," Reder said that, as a Democrat, she is exempt from the political patronage that she sees plaguing the Republicans in government today. "If you look at the Republican Party," she said, "they have their party machine. We are not part of a machine at all. There is no money coming in, we are not beholden to anyone."

Part of her independence stems from the fact that the Democrats do not have anyone depending on them for jobs, Reder said. "Even when I was a school board president, I never promised a job for anyone. I always told potential candidates that I could get them an interview, but I could never get them a job. That's the independence I am talking about."

Finally, Reder said that being a woman would give her a unique advantage in government. "Women wear more hats than men do," she explained. "They work harder and they know how to juggle more things. As a career person, I juggle my career with responsibilities in the home. Men go off to work and they put the kids, the house, out of their minds. Women don't have that luxury."