Riverhead highway chief takes helm of Suffolk highway superintendents group

Riverhead Highway Superintendent George Woodson has been elected president of the Suffolk County Highway Superintendents Association.

The organization advocates for the county’s town and village highway departments at all levels of government.

Woodson, who had been first vice president of the organization was elected to the top spot in January.

“We’re going to go to Albany and try to get more money for town and village highway departments,” he said. The group will lobby for more consolidated highway program funds and more money for equipment, Woodson said.

Long Island “got kind of slighted” by state legislators in the past, he said. The East End, in particular, gets short-changed.

“In Riverhead, for instance, our equipment budget has been the same for 30 years,” he said. The town gets $200,000 per year from the state for equipment, according to Woodson. “One sweeper will cost that in today’s market.”

He said he plans to seek affiliation with the American Public Works Association, which will help represent the local departments in the state capital.

“We need to make some noise in Albany,” he explained.

Woodson, 53, a 30-year veteran of the Riverhead Highway Department, rose up through the ranks of the department, where he started work as a laborer after serving four years in the U.S. Army. He became a crew leader in the department before being elected superintendent in 2007. He was re-elected in 2009 — this time to a four-year term after a ballot proposition was approved by voters increasing the term from two to four years— with more than 60 percent of the vote. He was re-elected again in 2013 with nearly 80 percent of the vote.

He lives in Riverhead, where he’s been a volunteer firefighter for more than 25 years and served in the Riverhead Fire Department as a chief for six years.