Suzanne Morton Collins Answers Our Questions:
What is your personal story?
This is hard for me to get into, since I feel most people in Hamilton know my story. I will skip lots of things, let me simply say I was born in Hamilton and graduated from Hamilton Central School. I moved away briefly, but Tim and I returned to Hamilton to raise our family. My kids are Dylan 11 (in HCS), Emily 20 (in college), and Zachary 22 (living and working in Morrisville).
What keeps you so busy?
Over the years I have done various things. For the past several years I have worked at Two-by-Two Nursery school, where I am called “Miss Suzanne.” During the school year, this keeps me busy mornings—but the reward is that I get to know the little children and their parents. Currently, I am teacher in the three-year old classroom. I also have worked for several years at the Full Bloom Florist; it was nice to spend time with flowers, a quiet change from the children.
I am a member of Park Methodist Church and a member of its Missions board. For a number of years I have worked with the Interfaith Council Holiday project. I also am on Board for the Food Cupboard.
What have you done as a Village Trustee?
I was first elected in 2003, so have served three terms. At first I was the Trustee assigned to work with the recreation program. I came to know even more Hamilton children and parents when I spent time with the summer Recreation Program. At that time, the Board began discussion of adding a playground near the pavilion at the Eaton Street ball field. Jim Bona is now working with Recreation and seeing the process through. The first phase of playground construction should happen this summer or early fall.
Then I moved on to working with the Police and Fire Departments. At that time I worked on getting the Tracs system installed in the police cars. Currently I am working with the Municipal Utilities Commission and the Department of Public Works. For the past two years we have been moving forward on a new DPW facility and are working toward LEED [Leadership in Energy Efficiency Development] certification for the building. It is pretty exciting that the building will be the only such “green” building in the region. And it has been interesting to see all of the details involved in making a building energy-efficient.
I cannot say that I have a "favorite" project but I do enjoy the challenge of helping the village maintain a responsible budget while still keeping up with all that it takes to keep the services we enjoy up to date.
[ Back to Top ] 5/29/09