When you're a village trustee in Williamsville, population 5,235, it's hard to hide from your constituents.
"I get stopped all the time," said Deborah L. Rogers, who is button-holed at Wegmans, school concerts and while walking her dog.
Her profile gets even higher Monday, when she takes over as Williamsville's mayor.
The Johnstown, Pa., native worked in Pittsburgh and Virginia before moving to Buffalo in 2001, because she wanted a fresh start and she had an aunt living in Hamburg.
She met her future husband, Michael, here and they moved to the village in 2003. They have a daughter, Anna, who is 11 and a son, Joseph, 7.
Rogers previously worked as a human resources consultant and is now a stay-at-home mother and active volunteer.
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Her community engagement began when a neighbor suggested she join Williamsville's Tree Board. She has served on village committees, raised money for the Williamsville Library and joined the PTA.
She was named to the Village Board in March 2017, following Trustee Christopher Duquin's resignation.
Rogers said she turned down then-Mayor Brian Kulpa the first time he asked her to consider joining the board. When he pressed her again, she asked Kulpa to detail the duties and time commitment.
"He sugarcoated it," Rogers recalled, laughing.
She didn't face an opponent in her first campaign that June, nor did she face one in the race this month to succeed Dan Delano, who did not seek another term as mayor. (The two trustees and the village justice seeking re-election also didn't face an opponent.)
Rogers said she thinks this low interest in public service is tied to the long hours, constant constituent attention and meager compensation for people already weighed down by responsibilities. As mayor, her salary will rise from the trustee's rate of $6,430.19 to $9,256.42.
"There's nothing glamorous about it," she said.
John Murphy, a business risk analyst at M&T Bank, will take Rogers' place as trustee.
Why did you want to run for mayor?
That's a good question. (Laughs.) And I've got a great answer for that. Because I didn't like the way and the style that our current mayor has. And so I decided at that point I could do a better job and I was going to challenge him. And I went to his office and told him I was going to run for the mayor's seat.
What would you do differently?
Just being open to new ideas from new faces, new voices. ... That's what a good board does, right? We don't take and make local laws in this bubble up here and then just throw it at everybody. If there's ideas that come forward, I want to hear them and I expect that we will discuss them.
What's the key issue you want to address in the village?
So, we call ourselves Walkable Williamsville. We've spent millions of dollars on the Main Street redo. And when you walk off the Main Street as a family, to one of our parks, you can be sadly disappointed when you get there. Because with the exception of Garrison Park, South Long Park and Island Park are in major need of a face-lift. The equipment is falling apart. They've been the forgotten parks, if you will. And I want to put them back on the map and make them very viable, family-friendly parks.
What do you think of the recently completed work on Main Street?
When I walk down Main Street I think it looks much prettier than what it did. The sidewalks are all the same, they're even. It looks cleaner. I love the bulb outs at the corners. ... But as far as the actual calming of traffic on Main Street, has that project helped? I personally haven't seen that. I still see people running red lights. If the objective was to really calm traffic, I think it fell short.
Are you worried about the retail climate in downtown Williamsville?
The places that offer services, like a salon, a restaurant or bar, that's stuff you're going to need to go to actually get. The stuff that I can go and purchase online – clothing, accessories – those are the types of retail establishments that I think are struggling. But you have to look at the national level, what's happening there too. I don't think anyone can blame the Village of Williamsville.
You're the only woman on the Village Board. Have you experienced gender discrimination in politics?
Are there people out there who probably feel a woman shouldn't be mayor? Absolutely there are, without a doubt. It is a bit, and I hate to use this because it sounds so cliché, like an old boys' club. I go to the (New York Conference of Mayors) conference and I look around and it's maybe 10% women sitting in the audience, the other 90% are men. So there are more women now in politics, but we have a far cry to go if we even want to say it's 50-50. We're just not there.
Did you want to appoint a woman to replace you?
I will tell you though, originally when I started thinking about who I was going to appoint, when I decided I was going to run, I did reach out to several women. However, they all told me no. And the reason was they just couldn't commit the time, because of family and children and life in general.
