25-year-old Wellsville woman will be the next Town of Wellsville Board member
By Andrew Harris
Shortly after graduating from Bolivar-Richburg Central School in 2018 Justine Dodaro was like most high school graduates. Starting college, getting a job, acclimating to life as an adult, negotiating a major milestone in life. Then a big plot twist, a very big one: Covid-19.
In the years that followed the entire world changed forever, human behaviors changed, society changed, and not necessarily for the better. Social media and artificial intelligence crept further into life and the algorithms spell took us all, but especially many young people, down a dark rabbit hole.
Justine moved to Wellsville during Covid, fell in love, and met some new people with a job at the David A. Howe Public Library. While great things were happening in life, Dodaro couldn’t shake the feeling that things were not going well in general.
“I just felt this sinking feeling, this constantly increasing loss of control,” explained Justine when we sat down to talk recently.
When the Town of Wellsville recently announced the new property assessments, Justine saw a great reason to be more involved in local government. Property owners turned to the library for help in understanding the forms, the process of contesting the assessment results, and for help understand why they suddenly faced a much higher tax bill. Justine saw that businesses, families, senior citizens had the same sinking feeling as her, the same disillusionment, the same fear of losing control.
At some point within the last year, she got sick of that feeling and decided she had to take action, to take some control back. In the search for direction, she had regular chats with her boss at the library, Executive Director Nic Gunning, a current Town of Wellsville Board member. Justine explains that Nic planted a seed that almost immediately took root:
“Nic pointed out that a town election was coming up and suggested I investigate running for an open board seat. He encouraged me to look into the requirements to be on the ballot this November. The more I considered running for office, the more I realized this was something I could do. Within a few days I was out gathering signatures to get on the ballot!”
The Allegany County Board of Elections and local political leaders provided direction and advice. Her door-to-door petition efforts got lots of positive reaction and over 170 Wellsville voters provided the necessary signatures.
Suddenly Justine was on the ballot, suddenly she felt less anxiety and more control. Not only was she on the ballot but is one of two local ladies on the ballot for two open seats. She and longtime board member Patricia Graves will be elected to the Town of Wellsville government next month de facto.
When we started to talk politics, Dodaro explained that she was raised in a Republican family but considers herself a political moderate. She hasn’t been impressed with the current president, or the former president. She doesn’t feel our state government is representative of the people of Allegany County and Wellsville NY.
At age 25, Justine will be one of the youngest members of local government in my lifetime. In an aging population, she will be decades younger than the majority of the population she serves and years younger than any other member of the town government. Justine hopes that brings some excitement, and less anxiety to the next generation of Wellsville leaders.
Dodaro considers her age and inexperience in politics an advantage and an opportunity.
“I have lots to learn, I’ll be looking at the landscape with a new pair of eyes and will be offering a new perspective. I think that is exciting, empowering, and I hope Wellsville feels the same way.”
