Saugerties has a new judge to replace Daniel Lamb, who died February 13 while on vacation in the Turks and Caicos Islands. At its regular meeting on Wednesday, March 21, the town board appointed William T. Myers to serve for the balance of this year.
Myers is the husband of former Saugerties town supervisor Kelly Myers.
“We had the opening posted for about a week, and we received eight resumes,” supervisor Fred Costello said. “We interviewed every candidate who did apply. A number of the candidates were outstanding, and through the consensus process there was a decision to use Mr. Myers as the fill-in judge.”
Among the reasons why Myers was selected were the strength of his resume, his experience as a public defender and his location in the village, which will allow him to take the bench quickly when an immediate arraignment or other action was needed, Costello said. While all the applicants lived in Saugerties, some had offices outside of town, and would thus not have been as readily available. Myers also has a good background in real-estate law, the basis of many of the cases that come to the town court, Costello said.
“My goal is to have things run smoothly — that is not as simple as it sounds,” said Myers in an interview this week. “I do anticipate a learning curve; I do appreciate the fact that people will be waiting for me to administer justice, and I hope to do so in a timely manner. [Until then], I will be relying on the Court Clerk and Justice [Claudia] Andreassen. I’ll need to learn the current procedure — if I find room for improvement, I’ll make a recommendation.”
“When Judge Lamb passed, I was not going to apply,” Myers continued. “A number of people approached me. It was a vote of trust — it’s an important position. The community really relies on the Town Justice Court.”
Councilman Paul Andreassen agreed that the board had interviewed several interesting candidates. “If we could have chosen eight people, we would have chosen all of them,” he said..
Costello spoke of Dan Lamb’s long service to the town, and said “these will be very big shoes to try to fill.”
Lamb was a lifelong Saugerties resident, and has served as town justice since 1994, according to an obituary. In November, 2017 he was elected to his seventh term. Prior to becoming town justice, he was the town attorney. He is survived by his wife and two children.
The justice’s pay is $28,250 per year.
Join the family! 
