Contributed Photo Richard I. Coombe, left, will take over for John LiGreci as chair of the Sullivan County Republican Party at the party's reorganizational meeting on Wednesday at the Villa Roma.

Coombe takes over county GOP

By Fred Stabbert III
CALLICOON — Tomorrow night’s Sullivan County Republican Party reorganizational meeting at the Villa Roma will see a changing of the guard at the top of the county committee.
“I’m not seeking re-election,” Republican Party Chairman John LiGreci told the Democrat yesterday. “It’s time to move on.”
Former New York State Assemblyman and Neversink resident Richard I. Coombe is expected to replace LiGreci.
“He’s very qualified,” LiGreci said. “When you become county chair you have to go in with a lot of energy [which Coombe has].
“I’m burnt out after four years. I don’t know how Greg Goldstein (LiGreci’s predecessor) did it for 17 years,” he said.
LiGreci is also not seeking re-election to his Town of Lumberland supervisor’s post.
LiGreci said he expected the rest of the Sullivan County Republican Party slate to be put back in, including Vice-Chair Rodney Gaebel, Secretary Lori Benjamin and Treasurer Jean Brucher.
A state assemblyman from 1982-1992, Coombe also served as chairman and CEO of the Watershed Agricultural Council in Walton and in December retired as regional assistant chief of Natural Resources Conservation Office of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He is a beef and crop farmer and continues to work on the farm that has been in his family for three generations.