ORANGE – Kathy Reinig picked Orange as her home in 2000.
That’s when she was searching for affordable old Victorian homes and “interviewed” their neighborhoods, walking up and down the streets talking with people. She says it wasn’t long before she learned Orange was the friendliest town she could find, even before realizing Orange bills itself as “The Friendly Town.”
Seventeen years later, Reinig has decided to run for re-election to continue serving on the Board of Selectmen for a third term. Reinig is finishing her second three-year term and faces opponent James Cornwell in the March 6 town election.
Reinig said she ran for the Board of Selectmen because was in dire financial straits at the time and she had made a habit of attending meetings of the local library trustees and the finance committee.
“It has been a lot of work, but it is very rewarding,” she said. “I think that we have been making progress.”
Reinig said she is running for re-election to help manage some major building projects slated for Orange.
“We have to figure out how to create a system that allows us to afford them,” she said. “If we can’t afford all of them, we have to prioritize.”
Reinig said her top priority is the town’s wastewater treatment facility, followed by getting all the town’s elementary school students into “one building that is built to standards of modern education.”
“Kids are our future,” she said.
Reinig’s lowest priority, she said, is Wheeler Memorial Library because it serves its purposes as it is. The Orange Board of Selectmen voted in January to sign the library designer contract and the application for the grant that will help make the work possible. Residents voted on Dec. 10, 2016, to allow the town to apply for a state grant to fund an expansion. Library Director Jessica Magelaner said she hopes to secure a $5,285,727 grant to offset the renovation’s projected $9,941,365 cost. Johnson Roberts Associates of Somerville is officially the project designer.
Reinig also wants to consolidate the offices that carry out the town government’s duties and functions. She said people interested in starting businesses are burdened by having to go to Town Hall, the Orange Armory, the fire department and the police department to complete necessary paperwork.
“That is so unfriendly,” she said. “If we can get all of us into one building, everything will run so much more smoothly.”
Reinig owns a data analysis company called KJ Reinig Associates, which she operates out of her home.