LEN CARSON, R-DISTRICT 13
Experience In EMS, Business
Will Guide County Legislator
Editor’s Note: This is the sixth of seven profiles, one each on the seven new members of the Otsego County Board of Representatives elected Nov. 3, that will be posted each Wednesday afternoon up until they take office Jan. 1. Next week, Dan Wilber, District 10 (Towns of Burlington, Edmeston, Exeter, Plainfield).
By JIM KEVLIN – for www.AllOTSEGO.com
ONEONTA – Should it be any surprise that “the possibility of public service” caused Len Carson to run for the Otsego County Board of Representatives in District 13, representing Ward 5 (outer Chestnut Street) and the city’s fabled Sixth Ward?
As a teenager, he became
an Eagle Scout. Even before graduating from Laurens Central School in 1983, he was a volunteer firefighter in his hometown. Soon, he joined the Air Force, training at Elgin AFB in Florida.
On his return, he was soon a call fireman for the Oneonta Fire Department. And he was soon back in the service, joining the New York State National Guard and partaking of the its firefighter training. At home, he joined the OFD fulltime, serving a quarter-century before retiring earlier this year.
Even while rising to captain in the department, he expanded his public involvement, accepting an appointment to the Oneonta Municipal Airport Committee, continuing on the task force appointed to rethink the facility and, finally, becoming one of four commissioners who collaborated with the Oneonta Job Corps to complete in the past month the first renovation of the terminal since the 1960s.