Showdown for Hurley Supervisor: Boms Challenges McKnight for Democratic Line (by Maya Schubert, Kingston Wire)

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. 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: see for Mike Shultis’ response below.]

“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.

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