Assemblyman Frank Skartados
NEWBURGH – State Assemblyman Frank Skartados died Sunday morning
at St. Luke’s Cornwall Hospital in Newburgh after suffering from pancreatic
cancer. He was 62.
Skartados was the seventh of eight children. He was born on the Greek
island of Astypalaia. He grew up on a small farm which he helped his father
maintain. At age 14, on July 4, 1970, Frank arrived in New York City with
his mother. Skartados graduated from George Washington High School in
upper Manhattan.
He later worked in the restaurant industry and eventually owned one. His
business savvy eventually allotted him the funds to educate himself at
the State University of New York at New Paltz.
He graduated with honors and a degree in Political Science. At the same
time, he worked at the Commandant’s Office of the New York Military
Academy in Cornwall. Skartados went on to achieve a master’s degree in
International Studies at the State University of California at Sacramento.
He later served an internship at the United Nations Center Against Apartheid.
For the next eight years he returned to the New York Military Academy
to serve as chairman of the Health Department. He was also a teacher of
Environmental Studies and American History. In 2000, Skartados abdicated
his seat at the Military academy.
Since he has devoted his life to renovating properties in downtown Poughkeepsie,
including building the Aegean Entertainment Center, the largest entertainment
venue between Albany and New York City.
Skartados was a four-plus term state assemblyman who was first elected
to serve on January 2009. He lost the seat two years later to Tom Kirwan,
who previously held it for many years, by less than 20 votes. Frank regained
the office in a special election held in March 2012, after Kirwan’s
death, and has held it ever since.
Skartados’ district, the New York 104th, is in the Mid-Hudson Valley,
and includes the cities of Newburgh, Beacon and Poughkeepsie and the towns
of Newburgh, Marlborough and Lloyd.
Consequently he focused his energy on environmental threats including
ship anchorages and the proposed Pilgrim Pipeline. In his first term in
office (2009-10) he secured $6 million dollars to complete the Walkway
Over the Hudson. After regaining his seat in the special election, he
secured funds to build Hudson River connector trails in Lloyd, as seed
money for a mixed use vehicular-trail bridge along the Hudson/Fishkill
Creek in Beacon and two waterfront parks along the west bank of the river.
To ease the tax burden on municipalities and schools, Skartados secured
millions of dollars in state grants to purchase fire trucks, police cars,
anti-gun violence programs, snow plows, emergency vehicles, educational
technology, school buses and hospital equipment and to make park improvements,
fund workforce housing projects and other infrastructure, provide general
aid to schools and build a new library.
