Email: josephk@patch.com
Phone: 516-408-8241
Hometown: Grew up in Oceanside; now calls East Meadow home
Birthday: December 31
Twitter: @LongBeachPatch
Welcome to Long Beach Patch: http://tinyurl.com/2cv8cba

Raised in neighboring Oceanside, Joseph Kellard has long considered Long Beach his second home town, where through the years he has spent countless hours enjoying everything from the boardwalk to Starbucks to the city's nightlife.

The seeds of Joseph's love of writing and journalism were planted in his youth, when during Christmas season he and his family would visit his aunt Henrietta as she reported stories in an Associated Press newsroom overlooking Rockefeller Center. As a teenager, he decided he wanted to be a writer, and initially dabbled in short stories and poetry. Later, after publishing opinion pieces in daily newspapers, he decided to leave his job with a medical company to pursue a journalism career. He got his start as a reporter/editor for Elmont Life and Franklin Square Life in 2000, and later with the Oceanside Beacon and Long Beach Independent Voice, all newspapers that were under the now defunct Nassau Community Newspaper Group.

When Richner Communications, owner of the Herald newspapers, acquired NCNG in 2001, Joseph was hired to report for the company's Long Beach and Oceanside editions. He was promoted to editor of the Oceanside Herald in 2005, and three years later graduated to the Long Beach Herald, one of the largest and most active papers in the chain, and was its editor until June 2010. Over the years, Joseph has covered a wide range of subjects, including crime, sports, arts, government, business, politics and education. He has been awarded for his court reporting and photography, and his work has appeared in various publications, including a Pearson Education college textbook; The Objective Standard, a quarterly publication; and Ultimate Athlete, a Long Island high school sports magazine.

Now Joseph is dedicated to continue keeping an eye out for news in Long Beach with a team of reporters and photographers in order to deliver more comprehensive coverage to Patch readers. When he's not reporting or thinking of great story ideas, he's lifting weights, reading, or writing poetry or political-related pieces, as well as watching his favorite sports teams, the Miami Dolphins and New York Yankees.  

Your Beliefs
At Patch, we promise always to report the facts as objectively as possible and otherwise adhere to the principles of good journalism. However, we also acknowledge that true impartiality is impossible because human beings have beliefs. So in the spirit of simple honesty, our policy is to encourage our editors to reveal their beliefs to the extent they feel comfortable. This disclosure is not a license for you to inject your beliefs into stories or to dictate coverage according to them. In fact, the intent is the opposite: we hope that the knowledge that your beliefs are on the record will cause you to be ever mindful to write, report and edit in a fair, balanced way. And if you ever see evidence that we failed in this mission, please let us know.

Politics
How would you describe your political beliefs?

I grew up believing in my mother's FDR, Old Left politics, but during my twenty-something years I started to question and challenge those ideals and my politics have since changed dramatically. Today, I'm neither a liberal nor a conservative, but rather a rare but growing breed: a champion of individual rights and laizze faire capitalism.

Religion
How religious would you consider yourself? (casual, observant, devout, non religious)

I was raised in the Catholic tradition but my parents weren't particularly religious and I choose my own independent ideas and values. Today, some might say I'm an atheist, others might call me an infidel, but I call myself an Objectivist.

Local Hot-Button Issues
What do you think are the most important issues facing the community? Where do you stand on each of these issues?

Long Beach has many issues that its residents and officials look to address, from the fate of East School to boardwalk reconstruction to high taxes. One constant is the lack of parking around town; another is traffic, particularly since there have been a number of fatalities on the city's streets in recent years.

My general position on these and many other issues is that, to put it broadly, a government that governs least, governs best.