Born and raised in Ellenville, 32-year old Francisco Oliveras is running as a Democratic candidate for village trustee. A police officer in Wallkill, he's worked as a law-enforcement officer since 2003: for ten months in New York City and before that employed part-time as an officer in Ellenville. Prior to his police work, he served in the United States Army for six and a half years after graduating from Ellenville High School. Now that he's back in his hometown, Oliveras sees ways in which he can give back, including establishing more youth programs through organizations like the YMCA, expanding neighborhood walks, and reaching out to the village's large Hispanic community by trying to make village meetings bilingual.

When asked why he's running, Oliveras responds that he's grown tired of waiting for someone to “step up to the plate” and work on fixing Ellenville's problems. “What I've seen in the village of Ellenville is there's a lot of people leaving,” he says. “But it's a beautiful town, it's a beautiful village. Me, I think I've got the potential. I don't know anything about politics, but I believe that nobody's born a politician, you learn how to be a politician. Nobody's taking initiative, so let me go ahead and jump on it.”

By expanding programs with the YMCA and the Police Athletic League (PAL) program in the village, Oliveras believes Ellenville's youth will have a place to go, helping them stay off the streets where they can get into trouble with the law.

“If we had a place where these kids could hang out, do their homework…until a certain time, I would say that would suffice for a place where the kids can come and hang out and feel safe, instead of hanging out on the streets and getting into trouble, and getting arrested for just kind of doing stupid things, you know?” said Oliveras.

Oliveras says that he doesn't believe that kids are really a source of a crime in Ellenville, and that giving them a good alternative to hanging out in the streets will help put this perception to bed. Oliveras would also like to expand the practice of neighborhood walks, during which village board members walk down certain streets and speak with people living in the village. “Knock on their doors… What are their problems? What do they see fit that we should tackle?”

Another issue Oliveras wants to tackle is getting more people involved in the village and its operations. By attempting to make meetings bilingual, and because of his own Hispanic heritage, he believes he'll be able to reach out to the underrepresented Hispanic population. “Me being Hispanic and bilingual, we can bring the Hispanic community together, voice their opinions and see what they think.” Oliveras believes that the majority of Ellenville's Hispanic population, despite the need to know English, knows only Spanish.

“Why are [Hispanics] going to come to a meeting where it's all English and they don't know what we're saying?” To accomplish this, he hopes to speak with Spanish-speaking teachers at the school, enlisting their aid in bringing village meetings to more people. Though he's unsure on the details of such a plan, he is eager to work with the mayor and with others on the board to try to provide support for such an arrangement.

Oliveras has attended village meetings regularly this year, missing only a few, in an effort to familiarize himself with how village government operates. If elected Village Trustee, he said he would make sure that his superiors in the Wallkill police department will give him days off to attend meetings. As for why he's qualified for such a position in Ellenville's government, Oliveras points not only to his service record in law enforcement and the U.S. Military, but also to his reputation among village locals. “Most of the people in the village know me as being ambitious; I set my mind to doing something, and I go ahead and do it…most of the people who know me say, 'if Cisco says he's gonna do something, I know he's gonna do it.'”

COMMENTS about this article (30)