The Overlook is conducting a series of interviews with candidates running in the Nov. 4 election, offering readers an opportunity to hear directly from those seeking to shape their communities. In this installment, reporter Connor Greco sits down with Connor Exum, the Democratic nominee for Windham Town Supervisor, who is running against Republican incumbent Thomas Hoyt.
Exum, 45, is a Windham native who has lived in the town on and off for 36 years and is semi-retired from running his family hospitality business. He has a degree in philosophy from the University of Louisville. While he doesn’t have political experience, he ran an unsuccessful campaign against Hoyt in 2025. On the ballot, Exum will appear on the Democratic party line.
The following has been lightly edited for clarity and concision.
What’s the single most important issue facing Windham, and what specific steps would you take to address it?
Exum: The single most important issue facing Windham right now is gentrification. At this point, we have allowed ourselves to be pushed out of our own community by not addressing certain issues that have repeated over time. We’ve abandoned any other industry, essentially, than tourism, and when we’ve done that, we’ve allowed ourselves to be captured by these large interests. The Windham Mountain Club, under this new ownership, feels that it’s the right time to turn us into a miniature Aspen. It’s this need to keep on making these communities exclusive and pushing out all the residents that are full-time here and replacing them eventually, as you’ve seen in Aspen, with higher-value, second home-owners. We have to focus on turning this town into a more equitable economy. The way I’m going to tackle that is by having the local government change the way in which it sees itself in the marketplace. One of my big goals is to do something that has happened in Colorado. A small town called Nederland, which is basically analogous to us, they’re purchasing their ski slope. It’s now a town-owned operation. I think we can do the same thing here. They did it through revenue bonds, so it was tax-neutral. As town supervisor, I would like to start that process and make a real offer.
How would you help residents learn about town decisions and have a say before those decisions are made? Please iIdentify a specific change you would make to improve transparency or communication.
Exum: There are a lot of ways we can attack transparency. One of the things I want to do is introduce a policy of more public hearings. When you have a board like the planning board, the Zoning Board of Appeals, that’s really a black box-type operation. The town board goes into an executive meeting, they pick five or six people they know and like, they vote on it, and then you have this board. If they want to remove one of them, ironically, they have to have a public hearing and explain why they want to remove this member. I think that’s kind of backwards. Let’s put out a list of positions that are open. Let’s advertise, let’s have a public hearing. Let’s have everyone who wants to come and be a part of the Planning Board or the Zoning Board of Appeals bring their full resume and we’ll ask them questions. Let’s find out what boards they serve on, what businesses they’re involved with, so we all have an idea on what kind of conflicts of interest they may or may not have. We also need to make sure the minutes of meetings are reliable and on time. I don’t know if I’ve seen Planning Board minutes posted on time in the past three years. We also have to make the meetings more accessible. Every other small town is putting their meetings on Zoom, at least. Shandaken puts theirs on YouTube. We can do that, too.
Where could the town operate more efficiently, and where would you prioritize taxpayer spending? Explain how you would pay for any additional spending you propose.
Exum: We have to look at outsourcing. From my studies of outsourcing of services such as our water treatment, we run somewhere between an eight to 15% profit margin on that to our company that runs it, Cedarwood. We’re paying for everything. They’re just the managers. Why don’t we hire some engineers, which are good-paying, local jobs, keep those jobs inside, save eight to 15%. We’re outsourcing our roads to contractors that have 15 to 20% right on the top. If you’re doing a mile of road for $400,000, that’s about $60,000 in profit margins right there. I figure we can save 20 to 30% in profit margins across all those projects. Depending on how much it really is, you’re looking at somewhere between $140,000 to over $300,000 saved in the budget per year. We also have to look at what we’re doing with energy resources at our water treatment plant. Last year, we were paying about $29,000 in hauling off sludge, which has to go all the way up to western New York to dump it. We can turn that sludge into methane gas and create a cogeneration plant there. We can power the entire wastewater treatment plant plus the ambulance center with the electricity. We’re creating clean energy for ourselves.
And what would you do with that money?
Exum: We can create a community wealth fund, like they did in Camden, London. Now they’ve got 30 million pounds. Instead of using that fund to buy trucks, because that’s what we’ve used it for, to buy snowplow trucks, which we can get grants for anyway from the state, we can have a much larger nest egg and focus on all kinds of projects that help a larger base of people. We can invest in road programs or invest in a youth center.
Affordable housing is a growing concern on the mountaintop as prices increase along with the number of short-term rentals. What would you do to ensure Windham remains affordable and accessible for everyone?
Exum: We’ve got to get rid of our zoning plan. This might sound odd, because I’m on the left-hand side, and everyone says the left loves zoning, but we need planning, not zoning. We have to make sure we’re not limiting our people by having ridiculously sized minimums. Three acres is just two big. You can’t buy a house out of college here, even five years or 10 years out of college. The only way to fix that is to build a lot more housing in the area. But if you go with a three-acre minimum, you use up all the land with very large houses, which require a lot of energy resources which is bad for the environment. I promote what is called cluster housing, right around state Route 296, Main Street, on connecting roads. Housing can be denser there. We’re not going to touch the periphery of the town. That’s still going to be open and wide. The town also has to be a part of the process. I know a lot of people like the RUPCO solution. I’m not a big fan of that, since RUPCO has most of their jobs in Kingston and most of their engineers and architects tend to be out of Syracuse or Albany, so those jobs aren’t going to be local. I would prefer to see a housing authority right here in Windham with people who are from Windham.
The Windham Mountain Club is the town’s largest employer and a significant driver of tourism. How do you see your role as supervisor intersecting with the Mountain Club’s role as a tourism driver in town?
Exum: My role is to balance their oversized abilities right now and offer and build an alternative revenue stream into the community. We have to start financing incubators and accelerators, getting local entrepreneurs back into the game here. If they cut more and more of the skiers, you get fewer and fewer reasons for people to come here and rent housing or go to our hotels, shop in our few stores and eat in our restaurants. We have to build up that local base. I’d like to break that cycle and focus on getting the club to a point where, instead of being, say, 70% of our economy, they’re a more manageable 30%. Then, their ups and downs won’t affect everyone else. We’ll have this other 70% that’s going to be able to balance it out and build and strengthen our local growth. We also have to be willing to say ‘no’ to them sometimes.
You’re a Democrat running in a very conservative town. What have you done to extend your reach across party lines?
Exum: I’m going after the fact that it’s an unfair playing field. Once I start talking about the playing field being tilted, I get a much better response. I went to people who had those, “Let’s Go Joe Brandon” signs, and I said, “Do you realize you’ve been locked out of your town?” I am going to level this playing field by changing the way the town board interacts with these large-money organizations. If we don’t draw that strong line between the large-money donors, they’ll capture a town like this. I want to be right here with the regular, local people, and I think it’s paying off this time.
Connor Greco is a staff reporter for The Overlook covering Windham, Hunter, and surrounding Greene County communities. Send correspondence to connor@theoverlooknews.com.
