Charon throws his hat in the ring for Bayville mayor

Bayville Village Trustee Tim Charon, 34, announced on July 1 that he will run for mayor. He posted his intentions on Facebook. “I love Bayville with all my heart, and it has been my honor to serve as Trustee over the last three plus years,” he posted. “I look forward to continuing to be of service to the residents of our great community, granted that people believe in me enough to elect me."

Although the news may surprise some, Charon has been planning the run. “I’ve been thinking for the past year about running,” he said, adding that current mayor, Paul Rupp, said several times during village meetings that he would not run again.

Rupp and Charon won by large margins in June 2014 as members of the newly created Revitalization Party. The Taxpayer Party had been in power for more than a decade, so it was an upset. Back then, there were three open trustee seats, with six people running — three from the Revitalization Party and three from TIP. Charon, new to politics, captured 1,322 votes at the time, more than any of the other candidates.

But he said he will run this time as an independent or, if they will have him, as the Taxpayer Party candidate. “I will only run to bring us all together, and to do so I must sacrifice my own party to meet at common ground,” he posted.

Unifying Bayville is his main objective.

“Bayville is small, and we aren’t voting on federal issues,” he explained. “Bayville needs to be unified in order to get things accomplished. The two political parties’ views are polar opposite.”

He said he plans to reach out to the members of the Taxpayers Party to find common ground. “I don’t agree with them on everything, but if two parties are fighting back and forth, things don’t get done. I will be contacting them soon.”

He said he believes he can unify residents by encouraging a compromise. “I want to bring both sides of the argument into the room — create more open dialogue with residents,” he explained.

Charon has been the voice of reason at village meetings as a trustee, which are often contentious. He said because he is a “good people-person with commonsense reasoning,” he could overcome the adversity.

“There’s a lot of infighting right now at meetings,” he said. “Why can’t we all work together to better Bayville?”

Originally from Glen Cove, he’s lived in Bayville since 2009. He is married to Kim and has a daughter, Madison, 6, and a son, Parker, 4.

As the general manager at Kelco Construction in Brooklyn, Charon has managed over $100 million in construction projects and 60 to 70 people on job sites at a time.

He has plans for Bayville, though he wasn’t ready to release all of them just yet. “I’d like to live-stream all of the public meetings, and everyone — all elected officials — will have microphones,” he said. “And I want there to be coffee and water at the back of the room for everyone. Also, I want residents to receive a newsletter more often than they do now.”

He hasn’t officially started campaigning but will soon. “I want to be out there to hear residents’ concerns, like outside the grocery store like I did last time,” he said.

So far, he said, he’s received a great deal of support. “I think because I have a friendly nature, they think I’d be a good mayor,” he said. “And I do have a lot of good ideas on how to improve Bayville.”