When Don Bartles first began serving Pine Plains, Ronald Reagan was president and the top box-office draw was Crocodile Dundee. It was 1986. This week, Bartles, 79, took his seat on the Pine Plains Town Board for the final time.
In a conversation in his family’s kitchen, a softball’s toss from the town recreational park, Bartles reflected on his nearly four decades of service to Pine Plains.
Small-town life is in his blood. He grew up on a street named after his family— Bartles Landing Road on Silver Lake, in the Town of Clinton. He attended a one-room schoolhouse. “There were only two of us in my grade, so it was easy to be at the top of the class,” he recalled.
After serving in the U.S. Army in Vietnam, Bartles moved to the Pine Plains area with his wife, Kathy. Then he began serving in the town. “That’s just what you did,” he said. Along the way he racked up some impressive statistics: 37 years on the Town Planning Board, eight years on the Town Board, participation in countless committees and volunteer organizations. “I served under six supervisors here,” he said.
Asked what he particularly enjoyed about his years of service, Bartles said, “When I was on the planning board we were able to work cooperatively with applicants, helping people realize a dream or an idea. That felt good.”
He cited bringing Stewart’s to town among his achievements: “They’ve been very supportive of the community. They gave so many jobs and a training ground for the kids. That, and the town recreation area. It’s beautiful.”
Bartles is also proud of having been a diligent financial manager and leaving the town in good fiscal shape: “I’d read everything,” he said. ”I would always be the one saying ‘Where is the money coming from?’”
It doesn’t take much prompting for the stories to spin out, stories about when Pine Plains was more vibrant. “Everyone was on the fire and ambulance teams,” Bartles recalled. “You might have a mishap and wake up in the ambulance with Gerry Chestney, the funeral director, holding your hand. He was on the ambulance crew. Or we had people wake up in the ambulance with ministers holding their hands. They were on the crew as well. It was quite a shock to some people.”
The town today remains “a work in progress” Bartles said. “We need more blue-collar jobs. We don’t have enough people in town to support the emergency services.”
Bartles insists the can-do spirit remains strong in Pine Plains. “Look at the Friends of Stissing Lake,” he said. “They’ve done amazing things working cooperatively.” He pointed to the town’s coordinated response to the Covid epidemic as another cooperative achievement. “Nasir Mahmood [the town’s pharmacist] and volunteer nurses including my wife got thousands vaccinated,” Bartles said. “There is this unwired internet in Pine Plains of people coming together to help each other in need.”
There were disappointments, too. “It’s hard to get good ideas through in Pine Plains,” Bartles said. “People want the benefits of progress but they don’t want change.”
Along the way, there were plenty of indelible moments. “Like the time a skunk walked through the room while the Town Board was meeting,” he said, which happened at the now-gone Independent Order of Odd Fellows building. “It was panic. That image is burned into my head. There was a dent in the side of the Town Hall where someone had driven into it. That place was not habitable.”
Many hundreds of meetings later, it’s the camaraderie that Bartles remembers. “All of us had the town’s best interest in mind,” he said. “Sarah Jones [who also leaves the Town Board this week] is a progressive liberal and I’m a conservative Republican, but we worked together beautifully. We echoed each other. I’m proud of how we got along.”
Still, he regrets the wrong turn he says the national Republican party has taken: “I am just glad my father is not around to see what’s happened to his party.”
Asked what advice he’d give the incoming board members, Bartles didn’t hesitate: “Number one is: have patience. We really need a sewage district. I can rummage in my basement and find you plans for such a district dating back to the 1960s. Number two is to remember we are a democracy. The majority rules, and you have to be prepared to lose some as well as win some.”
As for unfinished business, he added, “I would like to see the Fire District not defined by town lines.”
Next week, true to his modest manner, Bartles moves on. “I’m hearing people say ‘thank you,’” he said. “Someone said I was the voice of reason. I appreciate that.”
One does not end 37 years of community service cold turkey. “I will be a consultant to the Town Board,” Bartles said with a smile.
There is one truth that cemented his decision with Kathy to remain in Pine Plains. He has some difficulty talking about it. “I have a handicapped son,” Bartles said. “He is 47 but still a kid. This was the perfect place to raise him. From the beginning, everyone from the most impoverished folks to the elites, everyone accepted my son here. Ronnie Osofsky always took him on his tractor. Dr. Doug Hart would take him all over the place on vet calls. He was safe here. We are so grateful for that.
“I felt like I owe this community.”