Besides the local races for town supervisor, town board, highway superintendent and town justice, the citizens of Gardiner have the opportunity on Election Day to choose between two seasoned contenders as their District 16 representative in the Ulster County Legislature. Both incumbent Jack Hayes, 68, and former legislator Tracey Bartels, 41, have brag-worthy accomplishments under their belts, as well as strong opinions about what direction the County Legislature ought to be moving in, come its first term under redistricting.
Jack Hayes
Running on the Republican, Conservative and Independence Party lines, Jack Hayes hopes to continue the term as a county legislator that he began in 2010. Before that time he was already familiar to Gardinerites from his tenure as town supervisor in 2002-03, during which period he negotiated the town’s first-ever union contract with employees of the Town Highway Department. On his watch, the Town Board also authorized a townwide water study, awarded a Sewer District contract that resulted in improvements and upgrading of facilities and services, assumed operation of the Transfer Station and upgraded the facility and created the Town of Gardiner website, among other milestones.
This interest in transportation and infrastructure is a theme that has resonated throughout Hayes’s career. Even during his two periods of military service — as a Marine Engineering officer in the Navy in the 1960s and as an aircraft loadmaster in the Air Force and trainer for the Air National Guard in the 1980s — he demonstrated an affinity for the logistics of moving people and cargo around. Back in the civilian world, he became a state trooper in 1968 and worked his way up the ranks to the post of emergency management coordinator for a five-county Motor Carrier Safety Assistance Program by 1993. In 2001 he became a security consultant to the New York State Bridge Authority, and in 2004-05 worked for Homeland Security at Stewart International Airport.
Given this background, the County Legislature’s Law Enforcement and Public Safety (LEPS) Committee, of which Hayes is chair, must really feel like home. That Committee has direct oversight of policy and budget concerns of the Ulster County Sheriff and Law Enforcement Center, Probation, Emergency Communications/Management, Arson Task Force, Traffic Safety Board, Fire Coordinator, District Attorney and Public Defender. In his capacity as LEPS Committee chair, Hayes has taken a special interest in such issues as the continuing 35-million-gallon-a-day leakage of the New York City Water Supply’s West Branch Tunnel in the Town of Wawarsing, where he initiated the implementation of an Emergency Response Plan for a potential catastrophic failure of the Tunnel. He initiated application of a countywide police efficiency study, and also takes pride in his participation in a countywide assessment of emergency communications and in efficiency studies of jail and local court operation.
These efficiency studies offer a glimpse into Hayes’s approach to reforming Ulster County government and achieving cost savings via shared services in a time of what the candidate calls “economic emergency.” According to his official platform document, “The past two years have been a time of consolidating and restructuring county departments to obtain efficiencies while maintaining effective county services…Smaller government, reduced taxes and less regulation will attract business to Ulster County.”
One of the high-ticket headaches that has been occupying the energies of the County Legislature of late has, of course, been the question of what to do about the badly deteriorated nursing facility at Golden Hill. Hayes favors keeping the 280-bed Skilled Care Nursing License within Ulster County, but opposes raising taxes to cover the astronomical costs of repairing or replacing Golden Hill. “The Ulster County Legislature is tasked with deciding whether to continue to operate this facility and conduct the repairs/replacement or sell the license and discontinue Skilled Care Nursing as a county service,” he has written in the executive summary of his position paper on the facility. “An alternative to the above two options could be to create a private/public partnership wherein the county could provide land, tax incentives and the Skilled Care Nursing License to a private entity that would build and operate a new facility in Ulster County.” Hayes says that he favors the development of a Strategic Elder Care Master Plan for the mid-Hudson region that would provide Elder Care Centers of Excellence on the Senior Campus model, as exemplified by the senior housing and adjacent medical facility at Ellenville Hospital.
Hayes’s police background comes into play in his role as chair of the Ulster County Reentry Task Force. He organized this consortium of state, county and not-for-profit agencies to comply with memoranda-of-understanding contracts to provide enhanced services to high-risk individuals being released from state prisons. The group worked with Family of Woodstock to establish client services to individuals returning to the community to create greater opportunity for successful integration into society and thus reduce recidivism. In addition, Hayes serves as the legislative liaison to the Ulster County Criminal Justice Council, and he has worked with the district attorney on crime-related issues including gang activity.
In the County Legislature, Hayes also serves on the Legislative Programs Committee, which took some heat in this past budget cycle for its deep cuts in the County’s contributions to arts, seniors’ and veterans’ programs, libraries, the county historian, Ulster County Community College and Cornell Cooperative Extension. He also sits on the Economic Development and Tourism Committee.
Born in Brooklyn and raised in Woodbourne in Sullivan County, Hayes moved to Gardiner in 1976, where he owned and operated Tuttletown Tinker Stoveworks from 1976 to 1985. He has a BA in Communications from SUNY-New Paltz and a Master’s in Public Administration from Marist College. He has three children and two grandchildren.
In addition to his party endorsements, Hayes has received the support of the Police Benevolent Association of New York State Troopers, Laborers’ International Union of North America Local 17 and Hudson Valley Building and Construction Trades Council. For the coming legislative term, he says, “The major issue facing Ulster County is the economy,” and to promote economic development, he advocates “partnering with private industry to attract new business and retain existing businesses.”
Join the family! 
