The Overlook is conducting a series of interviews with candidates running in the Nov. 3 election, offering readers an opportunity to hear directly from those seeking to shape their communities. In this installment, reporter Isabella Schoonover interviewed Hurley Town Clerk and Tax Collector Lynne Bailey, the Democratic incumbent running for reelection against Republican challenger William Tighe.

Bailey, 73, has lived in Hurley since 2013 and has served as town clerk since January 2025. She is treasurer of the Hurley Democratic Committee.

A retired middle and high school technology teacher, Bailey has also worked as an administrative specialist and freelance technology consultant. She owns a face-painting business, FunMasters. Outside work, she enjoys cooking, entertaining, spending time with family, and attending Bible study groups.

Questions have been condensed for clarity, and answers have been shortened to remove repetition. A follow-up response Bailey provided by email is identified below.

Why are you running for reelection as Hurley town clerk and tax collector?

Bailey: Because I love my job and serving the people in my town, and there’s a lot to do here that keeps me busy. There were a lot of things to straighten out because there wasn’t a lot of continuity in the clerk’s office for several years.

So when I walked in there, there were dozens of boxes everywhere, and it was ill-arranged. And also, the bookkeeper had an office right behind ours, and it was a very difficult work environment. Now it’s wonderful.

We’ve been a little short-staffed from time to time. I just hired back Doreen Meyer, and she’s worked in the office for 12 years with Judy (Mayhon). So she was happy to come back under me, and we caught up with all the filing.

There’s no boxes. The offices are rearranged. The bookkeeper now got her own office, and it makes life a lot easier for us to function. And it makes it a lot easier for people coming into the office to have a place to sit, and help them out with things. So it’s just been totally reorganized for the better.

What challenges do residents face when interacting with town government, and what would you do differently in another term?

Bailey: I asked the town board about wanting to start doing preliminary minutes. Writing the minutes is a process that takes a couple weeks. But in the first few days after the meeting, I’ve got the minimum requirements done. So far, the board is not in favor of releasing anything prior to the full draft of the minutes.

But I mean, for residents in general, the problems in Hurley have to do with what neighborhood you’re in. You know, people on this side of town are very concerned about the BESS plant, the Battery Energy Storage System, which the town of Hurley has gone on the record as opposing, and I help out with that. Lots of neighbors complain about speeding. Disaster prep is an issue right now. I’m part of the Climate Smart Task Force. We’re analyzing results of a climate vulnerability study so that we can work with and come up with an adaptation plan. Now that’s not necessarily a Town Clerk thing, but those are some of the issues in town from my point of view.

I got us an award. I spent time writing a grant proposal, so we have an award of $23,000 to do a full inventory of the town’s record. From my point of view, the biggest issue in the town is they don’t have a full inventory of their records, nor do we have a comprehensive file records management plan. So that’s what I’ve been working on in my office.

I’ve cut the personnel budget to a point where it’s optimal, and it’s lower than it has been in the last few years. So I’ve cut my expenses, my office’s expenses.

I don’t control the website, and a lot of people think I do. I’ve written minutes, and they don’t get published for a couple of days. So that’s sort of on the Town Board, not directly on me.

They’re going to be updating the site in the near future, so I hope to participate in posting things for my own office. I don’t want to control the whole website.

The other thing I’m doing is the newsletter. So I think a lot of people do read the newsletter. We drop them off at the libraries, and it’s really prominent on our website.

How could the clerk’s office operate more efficiently and better respond to residents’ needs?

Bailey: We haven’t had any issues responding to residents’ needs, frankly.

The FOILs…we have a lot of FOILs now that are coming from out of town. (FOIL refers to New York’s Freedom of Information Law, which allows the public to request government records.)They were creating a little bit of a problem, but it’s not from our residents. I feel that we have adequate staff in place. I feel that people are getting responded to very quickly, and the only thing I would like to see is to issue some kind of early draft of the minutes for those people who want it.

People who need appointments after hours, I’m always there to do that. I’ve issued a marriage license on Mother’s Day, for example, because that’s what worked. I’ve driven over to where a resident lives in order to pick something up or drop something off because they were unable to come to the office.

Now, as long as we have staffing, we’re fine. But as I mentioned before, sometimes that staffing can be a little hard to maintain because of the nature of the job. Part-time jobs don’t have benefits. I try to maintain two clerks who work, one works fewer hours than the others, so we can have some coverage for each other. So, I’m looking to hire somebody for just the tax season.

We have a notary on staff 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. on Tuesdays or Friday, in addition to the court clerk, who’s often there in the afternoons. That was a service we started in August. That’s one of the things that needed to be done. And the hunting and fishing licenses needed to be done, and we got that started for this year as well.

Bailey later expanded on this answer in an email:

Bailey: I’ve been thinking about your question on how I/we can improve what we do in the office. And I certainly didn’t mean to sound like we are perfect.

The area that needs most improvement is not how quickly we respond, but how quickly we can produce filed records, or the document a resident wants. If it’s a document we create, such as a marriage certificate, or coupons for the transfer station, or information over the phone, we are on top of it. For residents who prefer web-based options, I am actively looking at some ways to provide more of that. Another area we can upgrade is the process for obtaining transfer station permits and coupons.

Occasionally we cannot locate an older application or license to renew. In that case we have a process to complete the renewal, and fix the issue later. Most residential FOIL requests are handled quickly as well, thanks to the Assessor and Clerks in other Departments. But finding inactive documents can present challenges. That’s why I am so excited I won this grant to inventory all the towns records and create a master filing system. Completing that will significantly improve accessibility.

My mission is to make it easier for residents to get the information and services they need, and to give voice to their concerns. I am here for them.

How would you help residents learn about town decisions and have a say before those decisions are made?

Bailey: The Town Board has a meeting twice a month. We fought for this, we have public comment at the beginning and the end of each meeting, where they can come in and talk. It’s not necessarily part of the record, but it’s a way to speak to members of the town board. I encourage people to write to my office if they can’t come in person, and I’ll read their statements to the board during public comment.

When I talk to people, I just encourage them. If you have something to say, they’re here to listen.

If people are calling about speeding, which a lot of people are concerned about in our town, then I’m going to make sure that their concerns get to the Safety Committee. If people have a problem that is a code violation, then they want to make sure they talk to the right person in the Building Department. That’s really the key, is being able to direct people to where they can get the right service. Even if it’s not me.

If you have a question about your tax, I’m usually the person that’s going to be able to answer some of that. And then if we need a little bit more help, then that question or that will go to the assessor, and most of the people in town are very responsive.

A 41-second recording was posted for the two-hour Sept. 22 Town Board meeting. What happened, and how are responsibilities for documenting meetings divided?

Bailey: I had nothing to do with it, thank god. I mean, the video is not my responsibility, and it’s not a requirement by law. By law, the only requirement is that people get the minutes within two weeks of the meeting, either by video or in writing. People seem to be very confused about what constitutes minutes.

We had another employee who did all of that, and he did it very well. And he retired. So since he retired, the duties that he performed have been delegated to other people. I took over the newsletter. 

You also prepared a meeting summary that was posted and then removed. What happened with that?

Bailey: I produced a document, which is in the newsletter. Well, there seemed to be this pressing desire on the part of some people in the town to get more information more quickly from a town board meeting. AI records the meeting, and when the meetings are recorded, there’s a Gemini track making a transcript, which you would see on YouTube. You can print that out, and it gives you what it thinks was important about the meeting. It also gave me a two-page summary, and I’m like, hmm, maybe I can make a one-page summary.

So that’s what I did. I put it into an infographic, and I gave it to the supervisor on a Friday, and I said, “What do you think?” and he says, “Oh, this is great to put this on Facebook.” I thought it was approved, and then I was out for a couple days. When I found out that it needed to be approved by the Town Board, I removed it, and I put it in the newsletter. That’s all.

What goes into preparing the minutes, and how would you make them available sooner?

Bailey: I would like to produce the bare minimum minutes, at least within a week of when the board meets. What’s really required in the minutes is who was present, a record of the attendance, and a record of the motions and resolutions and the votes. That’s the minutes. Everything else is gravy. Everything else is up to the discretion of individual clerks. We’ve had clerks not even put the whole resolutions into the minutes, and that happened in 2024. They just recorded the votes.

You know, I’ve tried to carry on with adding a little bit more detail and at least a sentence about somebody speaking, but it’s not a record of public speaking either. I’m not a court reporter. I don’t do steno and make a transcript. And frankly, transcripts don’t help summarize the meeting. It’s just a transcript.

Right after the meeting happens, I’m reporting the resolutions and I’m recording in a document and a logbook. And then I’m also setting up the draft minutes. And when I set them up, I put all the resolutions in, and the votes in, and the times in.

And then the following week, what’s not done right away is I go back and I look at the reports, whatever was done at the meeting. I fill in my notes about what so-and-so said. Whoever gave a little report or a presentation, I go back and I recap that. And if there’s some kind of contract or other document that needs to be part of the minutes, I have to get a hold of that. And sometimes that takes a while longer than it should.

What experience has prepared you for this administrative role?

Bailey: Well, I have all the administrative experience, and that, coupled with some of my legal experience, was really critical in doing the work. Also, I used to teach some of these programs to people, how to use them. It turned out to be very important that you’re good at word processing.

I have extreme familiarity with all the tools and the experience of running small offices and organizing all the documents, the records. I worked in finance. We have to keep meticulous records in finance, and that’s what I did.

I’ve been doing customer service my entire life, and I really enjoy helping individuals solve their problems. I’ve been doing the job since the beginning of last year. Continuity is important. One thing that I wasn’t previously trained for was in the registrar area. So occasionally we found things that weren’t being done the way that they should be done. So we changed how that was done and fixed it.

We have found a few training gaps because nobody’s been in this office for decades, and continuity helps in the office. It really does. So that was one of the reasons I was happy to have Doreen return to the staff because she helps provide some of that continuity.

Why do you identify with your political party, and how does that affiliation inform your approach to town government?

Bailey: They help people. They’re more concerned with helping people.

The Democrats are?

Bailey: That’s my belief, yeah. They try to enact policies that help everyday people. And maybe some of those policies may be misguided at times, but at least the intent is clear.

I didn’t register as a Democrat until Bernie Sanders was running for office. I’m not a socialist. I think that’s really bizarre. But I have no problem with the government funding programs for needy people, especially when you have so much wealth in the country. Our whole economy is based on the backs of people’s paychecks instead of looking at where the wealth is, and that creates a lot of problems for a lot of people.

Anyway, I chose to be a Democrat because they’re more involved with helping people than not. I think that they’re more inclusive. I think diversity is a great strength in our nation. And I think Democrats want to expand Child [Tax] Credit, Democrats want to help expand Medicare. That’s why I’m a Democrat.