Incumbent Hurley deputy supervisor Peter Humphries, incumbent member of the town board Gregory Simpson and incumbent town clerk Annie Reed are running with supervisor Melinda McKnight on the One Hurley ticket. They are being opposed by Diana Cline for town board and former Woodstock town supervisor Tracy Kellogg for town clerk on the Keep Hurley Hurley ticket with supervisor candidate Mike Boms.
Diana Cline
Diana Cline was born and raised on Russell Road in Hurley. In 1987, she purchased her Fairview Avenue home and raised four children. She recently retired from the Hurley post office after 31 years.
She has served for more than 30 years as a volunteer for the Hurley Recreation Committee and 20 years as a member of the zoning appeals board. She is a Hurley Library trustee and former deacon of the Hurley Reformed Church.
“I would like to join the town board to be the voice of the residents in the future. I have concerns that involve current spending practices, and would like to be part of the decisions being made with your tax dollars,” she said. “I am an active resident of Hurley and I was hearing concerns from many people regarding the town leadership. I decided to start attending meetings to see for myself, and I was really shocked at the way McKnight and Humphries conduct themselves at public meetings.”
Cline believes that a new board will conduct itself with common courtesy, and that the rancor and divisiveness in the town will then end. She said the town needs to rein in the overspending that has taken place under the current board and take care of the needs of all residents.
“Hurley is unique in its geographical makeup, and care must be taken to make sure residents from both ends of town are represented on all boards and committees,” Cline said. She said she was a lifelong resident with no personal agenda.
“I will be the voice of the people who will elect me to represent them, all of them. I will respect all opinions and allow and encourage public comment at all meetings,” Cline said. “I will not continue the current practice of blaming past administrations for everything that happens in Hurley.”
Cline said she would work with the highway superintendent to find a site on land behind the transfer station already owned by the town for a permanent highway garage. “First and foremost, I would work to end the costly situation we are currently in, renting a building for $6700 a month that needed over $200,000 in renovations before the highway [department] could even begin to work,” she said.
Cline said the town should be working with the highway superintendent, not fighting with him.
Cline said it was the actions of Humphries which had caused irreparable harm to the water supply in the areas surrounding the closed landfill on Dug Hill Road. “Past administrations may not have filed every piece of paperwork correctly to the DEC, but I can guarantee that they never put the residents in the area surrounding Dug Hill at risk in this horrific way. Past administrations never missed a single pump,” Cline said.
Gregory Simpson
Gregory Simpson has served on the town board since 2022. He lives with his wife Suzanne, daughter, Amara, and two cats, Calvin and Luther.
Simpson was born in Glasgow, Scotland and raised in Kingston, Jamaica. He is an educator, theologian and scientist engaged in environmental justice and STEM education.
Simpson has a Ph.D in organic chemistry and is pastor of Nauraushaun Presbyterian Church in Pearl River. He is a SUNY Ulster trustee and co-chair of its Center for Earth Ethics advisory board.
Peter Humphries
Peter Humphries has served on the town board since 2020 and is the deputy supervisor. He grew up in the Woodstock hamlet of Willow and graduated from Onteora High. He has been a business owner, managed restaurants, and has handled logistics for auto racing teams for more than 20 years. He has lived in Hurley since 2009
Humphries traces his ancestry to pre-colonial settlement in Ulster County. He has lived in Hurley since 2009. He is widowed and his parents are deceased. He lives with his cat, Bubblegum.
“My new family is all the residents of Hurley. I have developed a symbiotic relationship with this Town,” he said.
Under town supervisor John Perry, Humphries was liaison to the highway department, transfer station, building committee and Ulster County Transportation Committee.
Humphries said the highway garage needed to be condemned. “I worked hand-in-hand with the entire highway crew to move them into the new facility, get them what they needed to create and develop a functional shop along with working with the highway, superintendence executive assistant, Michelle Bergman, on her office, even up to the point of what color to pick for her office and break and meeting rooms,” he said.
Humphries said he was excited to work with the highway department crew and town to find the best solution for a permanent building.
“I have already designed and built four race shops for some of the largest teams in the nation. One so big the new highway building would fit totally inside. This is right in my wheelhouse,” he said. “Unfortunately, the tie ups on progress that you all read about is a common one in many towns. The highway superintendent is an elected official and can pretty much do whatever he wants. The last couple of town boards, including this one, are increasingly frustrated with him. The crew is fantastic and are one side. The town is on the other, and he obstructs from the middle.”
Humphries touts cleaning up the transfer station operations and bringing it into the black. ‘By doing so and working hand-in-hand with the crew, we now went from an average of approximately $150,000 revenue to $300,000,” Humphries said. “I also worked hard and had to claw back a trailer that was purchased for them to supply them with office space running water, and the bathroom, none of which they have had since the dump was covered close to 30 years ago.”
Humphries said the leachate collection system suffered from lack of upkeep, He had worked to change that.
“The town hadn’t fulfilled their responsibilities, along with the state of testing and maintenance all of which now has been fixed,” he said, “We were pumping out millions of gallons of water that was captured underneath the water table and runoff. This will not only save our taxpayers in the millions of dollars overtime but also keep safe our residents who live close.”
Humphries said he will be scheduling classes to instruct people on how the system operates. “There is a lot of misinformation being spread out there about this even after a 40-minute presentation at our town-board meeting,” he said. “This is a complex system that again falls right into my wheelhouse and it really is quite interesting and I can’t wait to educate anyone who would like to learn.”
Humphries said he had more experience, knowledge and work ethic than his opponent. “The thing is I only make $8000 a year and work and I am on call 24 seven and respond to everybody, and I do not charge this town any more money than my agreed-upon salary,” he said. “I am not obligated to do any of this additional work or improvements to the town. I do them out of love and caring and exceptional skills and talents I have built over a lifetime. The more money I can save the town the more money this town can put into our much-needed deteriorating infrastructure. I fix things, it is what I do.”
Tracy Kellogg
Tracy Kellogg has lived in Hurley since 2001. She had been an active member of the Woodstock Fire Department, planning board and town board. She was Woodstock town supervisor from 1996 through 1999. After moving to West Hurley, she worked for Ameribag and later attended Western New England School of Law.
She has a solo law practice in Kingston specializing in real estate, trust and estates, small business and municipal law.
Kellogg said her priority as town clerk would be to ensure all residents had access to services. She is committed to open government and providing current information.
Kellogg believes the office of the clerk is non-political. She proposes evening and weekend hours for the clerk’s office, with a possible satellite office in West Hurley.
Annie Reed
Annie Reed was recently appointed town clerk, replacing Judith Mayhon, who died after a long illness. Prior to that, she was deputy clerk.
She has a bachelor’s degree in speech communication from Portland State University in Oregon and completed graduate course work in English rhetoric at Texas A&M. She was coordinator of grants management at Tompkins Seneca Tioga Boces, administrative assistant to the dean at Texas A&M College of Business, and front office manager at MBA Career Services at University of Texas in Austin.
“I love helping people,” she said. Reed said she can help improve the efficiency of the office as systems are updated. Reed proposes to create a user manual for the clerk’s operations specific to Hurley as a guide to incoming clerks.
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