Area 6 candidates for Clinton County Legislature set
PLATTSBURGH — Patty Waldron, the only woman on the Clinton County Legislature for the better part of 11 years now is term-limited out after this year. However, both candidates running for Waldron's Area 6 seat in November are women and whoever is elected will get the chance to carry on her legacy.
Jennifer Facteau Rabideau is the Republican candidate and Jessie Furnia is the Democratic candidate in the race for the Area 6 seat, which oversees all of the towns of Black Brook and Saranac as well as parts of the Town of Plattsburgh.
REPUBLICAN
Facteau Rabideau, a nurse practitioner at Plattsburgh Medical Care, announced her intention to run for the Clinton County Legislator Area 6 seat as a Republican early last month.
Facteau Rabideau was appointed deputy coroner in 2020. She previously owned her own business, Small Town Health Care.
She said she is a fourth generation Saranac resident, and a Saranac Central, Clinton Community College, SUNY Plattsburgh and Stony Brook University alumna.
She also hopes to graduate with her doctorate in June from Frontier Nursing University.
'I probably see about 24 patients a day when I'm in the office, and I have had multiple opportunities to get an idea of both what the public needs and wants, and then from my coroner work with Chad (Deans), I'm getting an idea of how county government is working, and I want to be a part of that,' she said during her announcement at the Butcher Block in early March.
'Since Mrs. Waldron is terming out, I see this as an opportunity to maintain a woman's voice in the county legislature, and additionally, as a mother of young children, support and make decisions as a county legislator to benefit the young families and keep these families in Clinton County for multiple generations.'
Facteau Rabideau also worked at Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital in Plattsburgh for 15 years, 10 of which were in the intensive care unit.
'My whole adult life, I have served the community, whether as a nurse, I was a 4H member, I umped softball and baseball games in the summertime. So now I'm a nurse practitioner and I'm also the deputy coroner,' she said.
'I want to bring all of these experiences to the legislature, and serve the people of Clinton County in an albeit different approach, but in this more public service oriented capacity.'
DEMOCRAT
Furnia also announced her candidacy for the Area 6 seat in March.
She was born and raised in the town of Black Brook. She graduated from AuSable Valley High School, Clinton Community College and SUNY Plattsburgh.
Furnia has run her own business, the Paint with Jessie, in which she travels the North Country 'celebrating friends, family and art,' for the past 13 years.
'I'm a creative outside thinker and problem solver,' she said.
'In my many jobs, I've worked as a counselor. I've worked in the boys home. I've worked within the United States Olympic Committee, worked with athletes, and just have a different viewpoint sometimes and sometimes, just having somebody look from a different direction kind of seems like a bigger picture of things.'
Her mother was also the president of the school board at AuSable Valley years ago and was an inspiration for Furnia to get and stay involved in the local community.
'She taught me to be part of the change and growth I would like to see,' Furnia said.
In Clinton County, there's plenty she hopes to be involved in improving if she is elected in November. She said she would especially like to see the number of border crossings from Canada into the North Country improve so more revenue can come in.
'Right now, I think we're in really uncertain times,' Furnia said, about the decreased visitors from Canada in the past couple months.
'How is this going to affect our tax revenue, and what can we accomplish within our communities? and how is this going to affect the airport? So there's so many different avenues that can be impacted.'
Furnia said the transition of Clinton Community College to SUNY Plattsburgh later this year has also been weighing on her. As an alumna of CCC, she wants to see its campus turned into something useful for the whole community.
'I believe it could be really a big gem.'
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