ROCK HILL, NY — State Senator John Bonacic, who is retiring at the end of the year, was the man of the hour at the 24^th Annual Dinner of the Sullivan County Partnership for Economic Development. The Award “recognizes an individual for business excellence, community commitment, and service to humanity.”

Both of the women who are seeking to fill Bonaccic’s senate seat were among the guests at the packed event at the Sullivan Event Center in Rock Hill on October 4.  Jen Metzger, a council woman from the Town of Rosendale and co-founder of the nonprofit Citizens for Local Power, is running on the Democratic and Working Families lines.  Annie Rabbitt, a former state assemblywoman and the current Orange County Clerk, is running on the Republican, Conservative, Independence and Reform lines.

Bonacic is a Republican, but was praised by a couple of speakers as working in a bipartisan fashion for all the people of the district.  A video about Bonacic’s accomplishments featured comments from Sullivan county businessmen, elected officials and others.  The speakers credited Bonacic with playing an indispensible role in creating or furthering many projects and facilities in the county, including Resorts World Catskills, the Center for Discovery, Bethel Woods, and Sullivan Renaissance.  He was also recognized for bringing funds to the district to help pay for fire department expenses, water and sewer projects, and many other municipal undertakings over the years.

When Bonacic took to the podium, he had clearly been moved by the accolades.  He said, “I never kept score because the needs of the people are insatiable. So you’re always working on the next project, or the next solution, and you never really look back. And this really touched my heart, this video.”

The other honoree of the evening was Sullivan County Manager Josh Potosek, also serves on the Partnership’s Board of Directors, who received the Distinguished Service Award. The county is in much better economic shape than that it was a few years ago. He said part of the reason for that was his team’s effort to create a “climate to invest in Sullivan County,”    Potosek laid out some of the figures.  He said “Sales tax in 2018 is currently projected to grow by 16%... what that means in sales, we’ll have seen a growth of more than $300 million in taxable sales from 2013 to today. I’d say the team is doing pretty good.”