But it hasn’t all been good times. A recent controversy involving Aiello and members of the village government came as a result of an article in this newspaper, which quoted Village Board member [and Republican committeeman] Don Hackett saying Aiello did not attend Village Board meetings and did not reach out to trustees to find out their needs, while challenger Chris Allen was a regular attendee since June and promised to try to procure a much-needed fire truck for the village department if elected. After the article was published, Aiello quickly forwarded several emails to this newspaper from January and May of 2013 he’d sent to village Mayor Bill Murphy, offering to meet with Village Board members to discuss concerns. Aiello said he never received a response.
That is, until opening day of the Saugerties Farmers Market.
“The mayor said, ‘I appreciate you reaching out but we don’t have a problem taking care of business and I have a good working relationship with Michael Hein,’” said Aiello. “So I took that as a nice way of saying to me, ‘look, we’re doing okay by ourselves.’”
Murphy acknowledges the conversation at the Farmers Market, but thinks Aiello took the wrong meaning. “I shouldn’t have to go to Hein,” he said. “I should have a legislator that comes to me.” (Murphy said he never received the emails from Aiello. Though in the same conversation he also said he receives innumerable emails pertaining to regular county business from deputy clerk Krista Barringer, and according to the email Aiello forwarded, his entreaty was sent through her address on his behalf. It seems possible the email was sent and missed.)
Murphy, like Hackett, added that he wasn’t endorsing Allen, and would work with whomever the voters elected.
And although Aiello was quick to point out that he had tried to contact the Village Board, and quite recently, he doesn’t really think it’s a county legislator’s place to attend Village Board meetings—no more than it’s a Village Board trustee’s place to attend county Legislature meetings. “It’s not my role to take an active role in village government,” he said. Instead, the county legislator should come into play on issues pertaining to county government functions. For example, during the battle to keep a casino out of Saugerties in the middle of the last decade. “When we instituted a home rule legislation, they needed the county then,” he said.
Aiello, 65, has been married to his wife, Christine, for 42 years. Their daughter, Kara, 36, just gave birth to a grandchild last month, the couple’s first. He’s a Saugerties native, born in Glasco. He graduated high school in 1966. He later returned to school for a bachelor’s in psychology and human services from Empire State College. He served in the army from 1967-73. After returning home, he became a hairdresser, on the advice of his father, a former barber. It was the ’70s and men were wearing their hair long. The old time barbershops were going out of business. He opened the Hair Company in Kingston in 1977, and also owned the Columbia Beauty Shop and Body Garden, which sold hair care products. Later came his Saugerties business. He retired in 2009.
Aiello was courted by both parties following his involvement in the public debate over the Cahill Elementary addition plan. He was an outspoken opponent of the plan, predicting (accurately) that enrollment would decline in the coming decades. “A lot of people encouraged me to run for the county,” he said. “I thought I would be a lot more comfortable at the county level because the people issues seemed more for me—mental health, personnel. I like areas like that because most of my working life dealt with people.”
Since joining the Legislature in 1996, he served on the Public Works Committee, chaired and served on the Personnel and Human Services Committee, served on the Mental Health Committee, chaired the Ethics Committee, and in 2000 was chairman of an ad hoc Economic Development Committee. Currently, he chairs the Personnel and Public Health Committee and Committee to Study Lyme Disease (ad hoc).
Why did he join the Republican Party? Though he describes himself as “strikingly independent,” his politics tend to break down along Republican/Conservative lines. “Being a self-employed person and taking care of myself constantly, you find those ideals along the Republican party,” he said. “I vote on issues based on what I really feel would benefit the issues we’re voting on. I don’t vote on party lines. I think that’s what people like about me the most. People like that I vote on what I feel, not on what the party position is.”
While many feel the controversy over smart meters causing ill health effects is based on pseudoscience—or, more charitably, represents an impossible burden of proof no new technology could meet without a lifetime of trials—Aiello has a different perspective. “I’ve had cancer,” he said. “I don’t want to ever have cancer again.” Though he’s now well, his illness, which came on in 2009, still looms large over his life. At the time he lost 60 pounds and had several complications. Large parts of his intestine were removed. He missed many of the legislative meetings in 2010 and when he first returned, colleagues were shocked at his appearance. “I’m lucky I’m living and I cherish my family and my life,” he said. “Not one person in legislature had an issue with my absence.”
He pulled out a win in 2011, the first election of the Legislature’s new single-member districts, defeating Democrat Virginia Luppino and Conservative Walter Frey.
And while opponent Chris Allen says many in the district have told him Aiello is due to be defeated, Dean Fabiano disagrees. “I think he’ll have no trouble going on to get elected,” he said. “Personally, I expect to see Bobby’s numbers a little better this time. He was taking some heat for missing a lot of time. I never realized he was as sick as he was. But right now, as far as a legislator, he’s everywhere he’s supposed to be.”
Fellow colleague Mary Wawro, perhaps referring to statements by some about Aiello’s attendance, had this to say: “He really invests a huge amount of time and interest in people. I think sometimes when you don’t see somebody around all the time you assume they’re not active and doing things for you. But in the background and on a one-on-one basis, Bob is very active. I think that’s why he has such a strong base. They know if you call him he’s going to try to do something about it.”
