MANLIUS – After nearly a dozen years at the helm of the Manlius Town Board, Supervisor Ed Theobald has announced that he will not seek reelection this fall.
Theobald said that the decision was made prior to his last run for office in 2019, but he had kept his intentions not to run between his wife of 43 years, Bridget, and himself.
“We decided at that time that it would be the last time I would run,” Theobald said.
Theobald has been a mainstay in the Republican party in the town of Manlius since the 1980s, when his coworker at the time, former Manlius Supervisor Dick Lowenberg, urged him to join the town GOP committee. Later he became a trustee in the village of Minoa before turning his attention to the town board.
When he was elected supervisor in 2009, Theobald said he brought some of the same lessons he had learned working in his father’s drug store as a boy.
“One thing I had learned from dad, was the importance of the customers to the business,” Theobald said. “The first thing I did when I met with the department heads was I stressed to them the importance of treating the town residents, our taxpayers, with respect and as customers.”
That philosophy, he said, has helped make the town of Manlius responsive to the needs of the residents throughout his tenure.
Theobald said his priority as supervisor was to maintain the town’s fiscal strength while ensuring that Manlius continues to provide strong services, well-maintained infrastructure, and high-level police protection. To do that, he said, the town needs to encourage a growing tax base through both business and residential development.
Theobald said he had pride in his ability to work with members of both political parties, something that has been tested in this last term as the makeup of the board went from a six to one Republican majority to a five to two Democrat majority. In the past year, the board has moved forward on a number of initiatives the Democrats campaigned on in 2019, including the development of a comprehensive plan and a proposal for a community solar array on the town landfill on Bowman Road.
“I had made the decision [to] work together [with the Democrats]. Let’s try to accomplish these things you want, with the understanding of where I stand on these things,” Theobald said. “When it’s time to campaign and be political, you do it then, and when it’s time to govern you govern.”
“If you focus on what’s needed first, and accomplish those things financially, then we can look at other opportunities,” he added.
One opportunity he would like to see pursued is a new town municipal building. While new fire stations have been built in all three villages in the past 15 years, the town continues to lease space in the village of Manlius municipal building for the police department.
“Our town of Manlius Police Department who are also our first responders, they’ve been in the same building, a former elementary school, since 1985,” Theobald said. ”It’s poorly located. I really hoped that we could get a new municipal building that encompasses all of us, including the police department.”
A new municipal building would allow town employees and the police department to work under the same roof in a more central location and increase the size of the courtroom for both convenience and safety reasons, he said.
“We’re paying around $100,000 in lease payments for all these years, which I think could be used better. We have our own building which could be sold,” Theobald said.
Progress on the initiative to develop a new municipal building slowed during the pandemic, he said, “but we’re still working on it. Obviously, it will be after I am gone.”
Theobald credits his father, a Republican, with encouraging his interest in politics and his mother, a Democrat, with giving him his sense of humor. As a child, he remembers watching the 1964 Democratic convention with his dad while on vacation in the Thousand Islands. Watching the rough and tumble of convention politics in the ‘60s sparked a lifetime interest in the democratic process, he said.
But now, after a dozen years at the helm, it’s time to step aside and let someone else be supervisor. Theobald, who continues to work full time as a financial advisor, said he hopes he and his wife will be able to use some of the additional time to travel.
In recent weeks, both the Manlius Republican and Democratic committees have met and nominated slates for the November 2021 election. On the Republican side, former councilor and current planning board member Rich Rossetti has been nominated for supervisor. On the Democratic side, Councilor John Deer has been nominated.
Asked what advice he would give to his successor, Theobald said, “stay open minded and listen before you speak. You have to learn to work with everyone.”