After serving three terms as Ward 3 City Councilman, John Canale will attend his last meeting on Monday night. Canale says he has enjoyed serving the City of Batavia and the community the past 12 years.
“You can ask anyone that knows me, they all ask me, why do you do it? Because I love it. I love giving back to the community, but just as importantly I love government, it’s something I’ve always been interested in. I love the fact that I’m a part of running the City of Batavia. When I have to go to a council meeting, it allows me to clear my mind and just focus on that and I find that to be almost like a hobby, it really is, and that’s why I enjoy it.”
Canale, 63, says it’s time to slow down a bit.
“I really thought at this point in my life I might be thinking about retirement. I’m not. There’s a lot of things I’d like to do in retirement that I don’t want to wait for retirement to do. So, I am going to cut back on various things I do for a living and try and free up some of my time to do some of my musical interests that I’ve had for a long time and spend time watching my son run in college. He is running NCAA Division 3 track for St. John Fisher College, and I want to be able to spend some time watching him do that,” says Canale.
Canale also works at WCJW Radio in Wyoming County, assisting in sales and voicing for radio. He has been part of the station for over 10 years.
“I’m really enjoying it, that’s why I say I really don’t want to retire right now because I love what I do.”
Canale’s Drum Studio also keeps things rockin for Canale at 56 Harvester Avenue. He has been teaching students there for 25 years.
“The drum studio I purposely opened and built for retirement, that will be my retirement someday when I fully retire from everything else.” Canale says he also plans to share his program for drum fills and hopefully publish it for other drum teachers to use in their lessons.
“I basically wrote my own program on basic drum fills to teach my students, which has proved to be successful over the years, but I had to hand write it out for every student and I need to get it in published form.”
Canale says music wise he would also like to start various different bands and get musicians together. Getting back to his symphonic roots is also a goal after watching a recent student at one of their concerts in Rochester.
Canale says his wife was a motivating factor in running for council.
“My wife told me, it’s something you need to do, or you need to stop complaining, so I took her advice. The Republican party had actually approached me a long time ago before I committed to doing it, but at that time the City of Batavia was in such bad shape. Once Jason Molino came into the picture and started straightening out the City and they got back to a respectable level, I decided I would like to be a part of that and count me in on continuing the growth of the City.”
(File photos October 6, 2017)
Canale says being on council after the City was awarded the Downtown Revitalization Grant was one of his most memorable projects.
“The 10-million-dollar grant, that was huge.”
“We had tried to do it the year previous, and we weren’t successful. The group of people that worked on all of that information put it together in a presentation form and went back at it again next year, and we got it. You can see the repercussions of that now. We see it in Downtown Batavia, we see the development. I just can’t be any more excited for the City of Batavia than I am right now. We’re starting to see the City of Batavia be a place where people want to be.”
Canale says the City of Batavia employees are a dedicated group of people. He has enjoyed working with the staff, the city management and fellow council members.
“What most people don’t realize is that we have unbelievably dedicated employees. I’ve never seen anybody more dedicated to their job. When one of them retires we feel like we lost somebody. I think that’s one of our biggest assets is the people we have running the City on a day-to-day basis. We don’t realize it, we tend to complain about when the roads have not been plowed right or the sidewalks haven’t been plowed, we all complain, but what you don’t realize is the amount of work that goes into running a city for 24 hours. It’s just incredible, especially in the winter months. We have great people working for us, our tax dollars are being well spent.”
In January 2024, Derek Geib, the owner of several businesses in the city of Batavia, will take Canale’s place in Ward 3 after being elected this past November.
“I think he’s going to be a great addition to council, I think he’s going to bring that business aspect I had. We have a number of different personalities on council that all contribute in their own way because of their backgrounds and experience. Derek has experience in government with various committees, so he understands the workings of the City. I don’t think it’s going to take him long to get warm in the seat.”