A summer-long debate over the leadership of Town Supervisor Bill McKenna took a bizarre turn as former supervisor candidate Erin Moran—who lost her bid for the Democratic nomination to town board member Anula Courtis in June—accused him of leaving an envelope on her car containing a Ten of Swords tarot card, a glass knife, and a handwritten note signed “B” that read, “I found this in my back and it must belong to you.”
Moran said McKenna called her earlier on Aug. 29, the day she found the envelope on her car in the American Legion parking lot, saying that he “had something” and would leave it on her car the next time he saw it.
While Moran, the town’s coordinator for the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation’s Climate Smart Communities program, said she does not feel threatened by McKenna, “it just feels creepy,” she said in an interview.
“This shows he doesn’t have his priorities straight,” Moran said. “He’s never had the town of Woodstock in mind, after all this time he just does whatever to serve his ego.”
Asked about the allegations in a phone interview, McKenna said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He declined further comment.
Terry Breitenstein, commander of the American Legion Post 1026, said the Aug. 29 interaction occurred in the parking lot and described it as trivial and unrelated to legion business. “It was so ridiculously minor,” Breitenstein said in a phone interview. “There was no knife involved,” he added, calling it instead “a picture of a knife” and “like a prank.”
Breitenstein said he doesn’t want the legion used as a vehicle in a personal dispute. McKenna’s membership hasn’t been revoked, he said.
Moran said in documentation she provided to New York State Police that she received a call from McKenna at 12:07 p.m. on Aug. 29 in which he told her, “I have something of yours.” She later discovered a sealed 8½-by-5-inch manila envelope on her windshield in the legion parking lot. Inside, she wrote, were a signed letter from “B.,” a Ten of Swords tarot card, and a 6-to-7 inch glass knife.
According to tarot interpretations, the Ten of Swords is one of the most severe images in the deck, often depicting a figure lying face down with swords in their back beneath a dark sky. The card is commonly associated with betrayal, painful endings, or “hitting bottom.” McKenna’s personal secretary, Melanie Marino, is also known to read tarot cards (her website is linked here).
The police report, submitted by Trooper Thomas Gottstine, also details two subsequent encounters. On Sept. 3, Moran wrote, she saw McKenna walking toward her car at the legion before turning around and leaving. On Sept. 5, she said she found a campaign-related t-shirt she had once given McKenna hanging from her driver-side mirror. She confronted him, telling him, “If you go near my car again, I’ll have you arrested.”
Moran said she hasn’t contacted McKenna since the summer controversy over his decision to hire Level 3 sex offender Michael Innello to a town maintenance job. “I told him it was a despicable thing that he did and I didn’t want my taxpayer dollars paying for this guy’s salary,” she said.
The hiring sparked months of public criticism and a board vote to terminate the employee, whom McKenna later reinstated. McKenna, appointed to his post in 2017, is set to step down at the end of this year.
Noah Eckstein is the editor-in-chief of The Overlook. Send correspondence to noah@theoverlooknews.com.