In Hurley, town-board member Mike Boms is challenging incumbent Melinda McKnight for town supervisor. Two incumbent town-board members and the town clerk face opponents.
Mike Boms has served on the town board for two terms and is seeking election as town supervisor on the Republican line after losing the Democratic primary. He is also running on the Keep Hurley Hurley ticket.
Boms has been a teacher for more than 50 years. He now teaches bioscience at Marist and SUNY New Paltz after having taught junior-high and high-school science at Onteora for many years.
He has one child and two grandchildren.
Originally from Brooklyn, Boms has been a Hurley resident for seven years. He previously lived in Olivebridge.
Boms said he is running for supervisor because he disagrees with the decisions of the McKnight administration. He calls her “divisive.” Boms said his plan is to listen to public input at meetings. He criticized McKnight for discussing issues behind closed floors instead of in public.
He also blames the current administration for its handling of the leachate collection system at the former landfill. He said it had not been pumped for 15 months.
McKnight and deputy supervisor Pete Humphries say the issues with the system have been fixed.
Melinda McKnight, a Democrat also on the One Hurley slate, is seeking her second term as supervisor. McKnight, raised in Port Ewen, is the 14th generation of her family to live in Ulster County. For two decades, she has managed budgets for nonprofits and served as a grants reviewer for state and federal agencies.
McKnight served on the county tourism advisory board and was Hurley’s representative on the Central Catskills Collaborative’s Route 28 scenic byway project. She has an associate’s degree in journalism from SUNY Ulster, a bachelor’s in English from SUNY Albany and a master’s in public history from SUNY Albany.
McKnight is vice-president and CFO of Energy Conservation Services, a building-performance contractor, run with her husband, Bill McKnight.
She has lived in Hurley since 2007 and served on the town board in 2020 and 2021, becoming Hurley’s first female supervisor in 2022.
McKnight’s continued goal is to reverse previous administrations’ policies of frugality, which tried to keep taxes low at the cost of inadequate infrastructure maintenance.
She is tackling drainage problems on town streets that have been neglected for years on town streets. “Every single complaint I get is about drainage issues,” she said recently.
McKnight said she is working on finding a permanent location for the highway garage, and recently tasked the town planner to examine all town-owned land as possible sites.
The town leases space off Basin Road in the Town of Kingston because the former highway garage on Dug Hill Road next to the transfer station was condemned. Highway superintendent Mike Shultis has criticized the temporary space as being inadequate.
Town board
Diana Cline, who is running for one of two town-board seats being contested, lost the June Democratic primary and is running on the Republican line and under the Keep Hurley Hurley ticket. She was born and raised in Hurley, growing up on Russell Road. She recently retired from the Hurley post office after 31 years.
Cline served for more than 30 years on the Hurley Recreation Committee and 20 years as a member of the zoning board. She is also a Hurley Library trustee and former deacon of the Hurley Reformed Church.
Cline said she is concerned about the town’s spending practices and is shocked at the way the current administration conducts meetings.
She said work must begin to find a permanent highway garage and stop the need to rent a building for $6700 a month.
Peter Humphries, who has been on the town board since 2020, is the deputy supervisor. He is running for re-election as a Democrat and on the One Hurley ticket. He grew up in the Woodstock hamlet of Willow and is an Onteora High School graduate.
Humphries has managed businesses and logistics for racing teams for more than 20 years.
Widowed, he has lived in Hurley since 2009 and has a cat named Bubblegum.
Humphries served as liaison to the highway department, transfer station, building committee and the county transportation committee under supervisor John Perry.
Humphries said he worked to move the highway department into a temporary facility while a site for a new garage is located.
He is especially proud of cleaning up the transfer station and increasing its revenue from $150,000 annually to nearly $400,000, and wrangling back an office trailer purchased for the workers. Transfer-station staff were without office space, running water and a bathroom. Workers were forced to use a porta-potty that froze in the winter.
William Mayhon, a 25-year resident, is running as a Republican for the town board. He runs his own excavating and tree-removal business. Mayhon criticizes what he calls poor decisions made by the town board, including handling of the leachate system at the old dump.
Gregory Simpson has been on the town board since 2022 and is seeking a full term as a Democrat on the One Hurley ticket.
He lives in Hurley with his wife Suzanne, daughter Amara and two cats, Calvin and Luther.
Born in Glasgow, Scotland, and raised in Kingston, Jamaica, he is an educator and scientist involved in environmental justice and STEM education.
He has a Ph.D. in organic chemistry and is a pastor at Nauraushaun Presbyterian Church in Pearl River. He is also a SUNY Ulster trustees and co-chairs the Center for Earth Ethics advisory board.
Town clerk
Tracy Kellogg is running for town clerk on the Republican line and Keep Hurley Hurley ticket after losing the Democratic primary. She has lived in Hurley since 2001 and was Woodstock town supervisor for one term from 1996 through 1999. She was a member of the Woodstock Fire Department, planning board and town board.
Upon moving to West Hurley, she earned her law degree from Western New England School of Law. She runs a solo law practice in Kingston that specializes in real estate, trust and estates, small business and municipal law.
Kellogg is focused on making the town clerk’s office more accessible and expanding its hours. She would like to explore the possibility of a West Hurley satellite office.
Annie Reed, recently appointed town clerk after the death of Judith Mayhon, is running for a full term as a Democrat and on the One Hurley ticket. She was previously deputy clerk under Mayhon.
Reed was one of the coordinators of the Woodstock Women’s March.
She earned a bachelor’s degree in speech communication from Portland State University in Oregon and completed graduate work at Texas A&M. She has been a grants-management coordinator, an administrative assistant to the dean at a business college, and a front-office manager at a college career-services center.
Reed hopes to improve the efficiency of the office and write a manual for the office’s operations.
Shultis brouhaha
Running unopposed are the highway superintendent and two town justices.
Mike Shultis, a lifelong Hurley resident, is running for re-election as highway superintendent on the Democratic and Republican lines and is also endorsed by Keep Hurley Hurley.
Shultis has been removed from the town and county Democratic committees, according to the One Hurley party. “This action was taken due to the consistent pattern of racial, ethnic, and gender-based bias laid bare in his misleading tirades on social media and print media against the endorsed slate of Democrats with whom he currently serves,” said One Hurley chair Bill McKnight in a statement. McKnight said Shultis has engaged in behavior contrary to the principles held by the Democratic Party.
For the two town justices, incumbent justice Roy Hochberg is unopposed on the Democratic line, and incumbent justice John Parker unopposed on the Republican line.
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