(Lauren Malinowski)
For John Sharon, political inspiration started at home.
“I have three children growing up in this area, and that’s really what motivated me,” Sharon said.
Sharon, a lawyer in the Onondaga County Attorney’s Office, is the Republican candidate in the race for the 119th state Assembly District seat. For this seat, Sharon will face Democratic candidate Sam Roberts, a former county legislator; the Conservative Party candidate, Christina Fadden Fitch; and Michael Donnelly, the Green Party candidate. All are vying to succeed Assemblywoman Joan Christensen, D-Syracuse, who has held this District’s seat since 1990. She is retiring at the end of her term in November.
The election is Nov. 2.
The 119th state Assembly District includes the towns of Onondaga, Salina, DeWitt, parts of Syracuse and the Onondaga reservation.
In the 119th Assembly District, voter enrollment heavily favors Democrat Roberts. The Democrats have 35,659 registered voters in comparison to 21,171 for the GOP; 1,043 for the Conservative Party; 3,256 for The Independence Party; 263 for the Green Party; 442 for the Working Families Party and 19,360 who are unaffiliated with a party.
In his bid for the seat, Sharon is a political novice. Those who know him best describe him as a dedicated family man, an active community member, and a government employee with a reputation for honesty and integrity.
Sharon and his wife Mary Barbara Lovas have been married for 22 years. They have three children: Rory, 15; Rebecca, 11; and Brendan, 10. “He coaches all their sports teams and never misses a school event,” Lovas said. For example, Sharon was among the parents at a recent “Curriculum Night” for the Jamesville-DeWitt school district, where Rebecca goes to school. Said Lovas: “He’s a terrific hands-on dad.”
Sharon is also a parishioner at Holy Cross church in DeWitt and former president of the DeWitt library’s board of trustees. He wins praise for his roles in both.
Matt Wells is the DeWitt chair of the GOP and also knows Sharon as a fellow parishioner at Holy Cross church in DeWitt.Wells refers to Sharon as “civic-minded.” To Wells, Sharon’s political inexperience is an asset. It means, said Wells, that Sharon is not tied to “any special interest groups.”
Susan Katzoff, now president of the library board, credits Sharon’s work as the previous president with moving the library from cramped sub-basement quarters to a more spacious ground-floor area in Shoppingtown Mall in DeWitt. Sharon, said Katzoff, “spent hours negotiating lease terms and making sure that the library’s new home was everything that it could be, given the constraints that the mall provided.”
Sharon has spent his law career working for local government. Since 1978, he has been in the Onondaga County Attorney’s Office where he has been a senior deputy county attorney for more than ten years. In addition, he has been running the general litigation program for the county since 1992. As a key player in the litigation unit, Sharon defends the county in civil actions filed against it.
Nancy Moran is the executive secretary in the Onondaga County Attorney’s Office and has worked with Sharon for two and half years. She expresses admiration for his ability to look at his detailed casework and see the big picture. “He’s a forest person, not a trees person,” Moran said.
Eugene Camerota, a consulting engineer who specializes in accident reconstructions and product liability, has often been an expert witness for Sharon in lawsuits involving the county. As a litigator, Sharon does not bend the truth to favor his position on a case, Camerota said. “He would never try to make me say something that I did not want to say,” he said. He added: “He’s a straight-shooter.”
Born in Syracuse, Sharon is the son of a waitress and a police officer. He was the first in his family to get a college degree and later his law degree. He expressed pride in having paid for both himself. He earned his bachelor’s degree in English with a concentration in medieval literature from Elmira College in 1977. At the age of 33, he returned to college at Syracuse University, taking classes while working full-time at the Onondaga County Attorney’s Office, to get his law degree.
Sharon and his family have lived in the Town of Onondaga and for the last 13 years in the town of DeWitt. He’s never left Central New York, he said, because he has a passion for the place.
“I like the quality of life in this area. I like the pace, I like the people, and I love the climate, including the snow,” Sharon said. “I think it’s the greatest place in the state of New York to live, right here, in Central New York.”
Sharon describes himself as an outdoors person. His hobbies, he said, including kayaking, canoeing, fishing and hiking.
In his campaign for the 119th Assembly District, Sharon calls for what he describes as “aggressive” job creation, support for small businesses, safer communities, strong local government and efficient state government. He offers few specifics on how to achieve those goals, saying, “I don’t have all the answers. But I haven’t met anyone who does.”
If elected, he said, he would be “a vocal advocate” for the area. He wants to shape the future, he said, for his three children. “I’d like to be a part of the team that helps keeps this area vibrant and growing,” Sharon said, “because it really is great place to live.”
(Lauren Malinowski is a graduate student in broadcast and digital journalism.)
-30-
