Town Councilman Mike Boms and incumbent Town Supervisor Melinda McKnight are vying for the Democratic line for Hurley supervisor in the June 27 primary. Both agreed to be interviewed by Kingston Wire for this story. Early voting starts this Saturday, June 17 — for more information from the county Board of Elections, click here: https://elections.ulstercountyny.gov/early-voting/

The Challenger: Mike Boms

Mike Boms moved to Hurley in 2015 in pursuit of a more rural community. He found it, but with it came spotty internet service and no cable. After being told by the town supervisor there was little to be done, the former high school chemistry teacher walked from house to house to petition the town to challenge Hurley’s franchise holder, Time Warner Cable, which was merging with Spectrum at the time. One resident, Boms recalled, admired his resolve but doubted his success.

“He says, there are many people who moved into Hurley who want cable and do the exact same thing as you're doing — I can tell you right now, it's not gonna happen,” Boms said. “I kind of took that as a challenge.”

Boms ran for town board to see if something indeed could happen with the cable controversy and says he owes his election to name recognition as a longtime teacher in the community. Once he was on the board, Boms met with Spectrum’s CEO and requested Hurley to be included in the 150,000 free buildouts promised as part of the cable companies’ mega-merger. The company agreed, and free cable was made available to Hurley residents.

Though a Hurley resident of only eight years, Boms has lived in Ulster County for almost 50. Raised in Canarsie, Brooklyn, Boms attended James Madison High School — alma mater of Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Bernie Sanders and Boms’ own schoolmate and friend Chuck Schumer — and later graduated from Brooklyn College. He moved to Ulster County in 1977 and taught chemistry at Onteora High School for 28 years. After retiring, he landed teaching positions at SUNY Ulster, SUNY New Paltz and Marist College.

With town board duties on top of a full-time teaching career, Boms evidently likes to keep busy. He said he owes his resilience partially to the death of his wife 14 years ago.

“If I didn’t teach, I’d be thinking of her constantly,” he said.

But teaching also keeps him young, he said: “The thing that I teach my students on the very first day is critical thinking,” he said. “Think for yourself, question authority, question everything you can, because the way you were taught in school was to repeat everything.”

Looking ahead to Hurley’s future, Boms sees a need for revitalization. As supervisor, Boms says his first order of business would be to address the water crisis in West Hurley.

“What I want to do is combine both water districts … the West Hurley … with the one in old Hurley,” he said. “I talked to Chuck Schumer about sending some money over here, so the town can actually administer the water districts, where taxpayer money won't be needed to buy the system, or to subsidize West Hurley and old Hurley in a sense.”

His other central goal is to rejuvenate Hurley’s economy and community by seeking out “sensible, sustainable, and environmentally friendly” developments. The median age of Hurley is rising, now at 50.6 according to town planners, and storefronts across town remain empty. Boms fears that older generations with fixed incomes will be driven out by high housing and property taxes, and younger generations will be unable to move in. Boms believes the current comprehensive draft plan is too conservative when it comes to development.

“I moved up here to be away from a lot of people. I like to live my life in the woods, more or less. But that's my personal agenda,” he said. “Once you become an elected town official, you’ve got to put aside your personal agenda, and find out what's best for the town. That's what you're there for.”

Boms said he sees opportunities for affordable housing developments on large parcels of land, like the 660-acre parcel on Dug Hill Road. Currently, he said, a land conservancy group wants to buy the land to add it to the Bluestone Forest. Boms said he likes the idea of preserving the undeveloped land but noted that the parcel would then come off the town’s tax roll and put hundreds of thousands of dollars of tax money back on residents.

“I would personally love to see that property not developed, but that's not sustainable,” he said.

Boms said spending has increased under the current administration, even while none of the budgets have been overspent. He said the current administration has found temporary solutions by moving money from one line of the budget to another, instead of solving long-term problems. He wants to apply for more grants to repair infrastructure and fund developments.

Boms also stated his concern that Hurley is divided. “The reason why I'm running for supervisor is because Melinda [McKnight] and Peter [Humphries] … are such a disunifying force,” he said.

When he first joined the town board, Boms said he was wary of then-supervisor John Perry, a Republican. But he maintains that Perry proved to be an “honorable person” and that the board at the time worked well together. Once Perry decided not to run for re-election, Boms said the equilibrium of the board faltered. He claims that McKnight and Humphires decided to disregard or go against any of Perry’s parting advice, and a broken relationship between Highway Superintendent Mike Shultis and Humphries wrought further division within the board and the town.

Now, Boms said he feels “animosity” has disrupted the tone of the town, and change is due. “My first hope is to unify everybody,” he said.

The Incumbent: Melinda McKnight

Melinda McKnight’s family has lived in the Hudson Valley since the 1600s. Both of her parents looked back on generations of farmers, and both worked in the communities where they resided: her father, a bank auditor, sat on the Esopus Town Board and was later Esopus town assessor. Her mother, an adult college graduate, worked as a social worker supervisor for Ulster County.

Growing up in Port Ewen, McKnight attended church with her family. “My faith is a big part of my existence,” she said. “I think a lot about what kind of stewards we are of the planet for future generations.”

A frugal childhood taught McKnight a lot, she said. “What was modeled for me was making do with what you have,” she said.

When her father bought property to renovate and rent out, she learned about the physics of buildings — knowledge that she said later came in handy in starting and running a building performance contractor, Energy Conservation Services. She also carried her father’s financial knowledge into administrative jobs that handled large budgets. But perhaps most importantly, her parents’ public engagement gave her an appreciation for and curiosity about her own environment — curiosity which eventually led her to her position as Hurley town supervisor.

McKnight’s path to office was not clearcut. As a young adult, she had only a remote idea of what she wanted to do. “I had a memory … of being on a fourth-grade trip to a museum in New York City and thinking to myself, Wow, it'd be so cool to work at a museum,” she said.

McKnight majored in journalism at SUNY Ulster and received a bachelor’s in English from SUNY Albany. After graduation, she ended up with a part-time position at a historical society, which brought her back to her old fascination with museums. She returned to SUNY Albany and, while working full-time, earned her master’s in public history.

From there, she found administrative jobs at museums and consulted for museums. She also briefly taught information literacy at SUNY Ulster. In 2007, she moved to Hurley with her husband, Bill. The couple’s struggle to find gainful employment led them to start their own business — a contracting company that helps businesses transition away from fossil fuels to renewable energy.

McKnight’s passion for green energy eventually led her to Hurley’s town board. She became a representative before the town for the Catskill Mountains Scenic Byway — a project that in 2012 Hurley’s administration decided not to join. McKnight protested the decision and left the position.

But in 2019, McKnight says she saw a disorganization within Hurley’s administration that bothered her. She says some procedures for environmental reviews and planning board applications were not being followed. Inspired by her father, she decided to run for town board. Several years later, she said she decided to run for supervisor after John Perry announced he was not running for reelection. McKnight says several people approached her about running, noting her responsibility and research efforts while on the board. As a historian she was a natural researcher and, on one of her first days as a board member, recalls coming into the town hall to examine files of vouchers.

“That was modeled for me growing up — my parents always had stacks of books by the bedside,” she said. “So that's what I do. Of course I was going to read every voucher, because that was my responsibility.”

Once she was elected, McKnight signed up for a mentorship with the Association of Towns and has since regularly met with her mentor.

“I'm all about doing the research, contacting other supervisors for advice and suggestions,” she said.

As supervisor, McKnight says she has applied her knowledge of finance to the town budget. She says she has kept taxes reasonably low and been able to use untapped money to hire more employees and contractors to run the town more efficiently. According to McKnight, complaints that she is overspending stem from years of previous administrations underestimating and underspending budget monies — a tactic that she said ultimately wastes taxpayers’ money.

McKnight is also proud of her efforts to update the town code, zoning and the building department’s efficiency.

“There are things that are in our local laws that I don't believe are legal. I think those laws that were passed years and years ago but were never updated to keep pace with what the state has passed,” she said. “Everybody should be in favor of a clearer town code. Because then when people want to come to town and do a project, whether it's residential or commercial, they will understand the rules of the road — it'll all be clearly spelled out as to what can be done and what can't be done.”

She said she is running for re-election because she believes more is still to be done.

“There's been a lot of progress made, but we still have a ways to go,” she said.

As the first female supervisor of Hurley, McKnight said she feels that feuds between board members, the past administration and the highway department have partially come from resentment infused with a need for control.

“It feels like, how dare I, a woman, come in, and not take the guy's word for it, and not do what I'm being told to do, or what I'm being pressured to do,” she said. “Unfortunately, I attribute that to the fact that I'm a critical thinker, and I ask hard questions.”

As a town board member, she recalled feeling that Supervisor Perry attempted to “shame” and “demean” her in public. [Editor's note: Scroll down to see John Perry's response.] As for her falling-out with Highway Superintendent Mike Shultis last year, she argues it wasn’t the first of its kind for Shultis. She says Shultis has a history of contentiousness with town officials, so much so that in 2019 Perry wrote a referendum attempting to make the superintendent’s position appointed, not elected. McKnight claims her attempts to communicate with Shultis and others have been disregarded or misinterpreted. [Editor's note: Scroll down for Mike Shultis' response.]

“Goodness knows I, at heart, am a collaborator, and do my best to get along with everyone,” she said.

If re-elected, McKnight hopes to have the town host more community events to “find the things that unify us as human beings.” She says she has always been fascinated by the dynamics of Hurley, which, over 100 years ago, before the Ashokan Reservoir was built, encompassed West Hurley and entertained a thriving business district.

“How do you overcome something like that, where your entire community is destroyed — multiple generations that lived and worked together, celebrated together, mourned together? I think 100 years later, we're still coping with that.”

Former Supervisor John Perry's response: "I have never and would never 'shame' or 'demean' any human. I would also like to state if that were the case then in what town board meeting did it occur during (there is video and or audio recordings of all town board meetings) we can go to the tape to determine. Also then why when I announced I would not be running again, both then-councilperson McKnight, Humphries and Boms (currently primarying McKnight) stated if I would run they would endorse me. McKnight also stated she did not want the job. If I made her or any town councilperson feel that way about me, why would they want to endorse me?"

Highway Superintendent Mike Shultis' response: "McKnight knows the history of why former Supervisor Perry was angry with me. I forced him to fund a drainage project using social media which prompted an outpouring of residents calling his office to fund the project, which the town board finally approved. Perry created the [town’s] social media policy immediately following that incident and the call for a referendum to go to [an] appointed [highway] superintendent. McKnight wishes to micromanage every department and board in town and does not trust those that disagree with her. I also was on a mission to provide a safe work area for the highway crew upon taking office in 2018. I constantly argued with the board that the air quality was unsafe and it took four years to prove I was right. After the board replaced methane sensors in 2019 and performed air quality tests in 2021, which ultimately forced McKnight and the board to condemn the building and lease temporary quarters in the Town of Kingston warehouse we are currently working from. McKnight knows that she … [has] tried to force the highway department to perform work outside the scope of highway law, which I have refused to do. I provided an outline of what steps are required when proposing a stormwater project but those emails went unanswered, as did numerous others. We still do not have a backup generator for the new shop and no storage for tools and our $250,000 sweeper truck for next winter. The McKnight/Humphries team shoots from the hip and never think of the details required to be successful."

In Other Hurley News:

Free N95 Masks at Town Hall

N95 face masks, supplied by Ulster County, are available for free at the Hurley Town Hall, 10 Wamsley Place, as the region deals with air quality problems caused by smoke from Canadian wildfires.

The masks can be picked up during the Town Hall's weekday operating hours, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Kingston Wire's coverage of the Town of Hurley is underwritten by Hurley Up. Kingston Wire has complete editorial control of what is reported and published. We accept submissions of letters to the editor, longer opinion pieces, community event notices and story ideas: email us at info@kingstonwire.com