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 Connor Greco interviewed incumbent Hunter Town Supervisor Sean Mahoney, who is running unopposed.
Mahoney, 51, is a native of Hunter and has been supervisor since 2021, replacing former Supervisor Daryl Legg, who now represents Hunter, Lexington, and Halcott in the Greene County Legislature. Prior to his time as supervisor, he served one four-year term on the Hunter Town Board. He is also the executive director of the Hunter Foundation, a nonprofit focused on community development and revitalization on the mountaintop.
A Hunter-Tannersville graduate, Mahoney is married and has a 16-year-old daughter. On the ballot, he will appear on the Democratic, Republican, and Conservative party lines.
The following has been lightly edited for clarity and concision.
What’s the single most important issue facing Hunter, and what specific steps are you taking to address it?
Mahoney: Big picture, across the country, we are seeing inflation and the cost of goods and the cost of doing certain things rising far too dramatically. We’re in a situation where we have to pave roads, where we have to improve the place we live in, and how do we do that in the most financially responsible way? Health care costs for people are rising incredibly fast and are far and away going to be almost unachievable for many people that are making a medium income. Housing is also a major issue, specifically here. Those are the challenges. We have the benefit of being a tourism-based community, a place where people want to be, which is a double-edged sword. It’s great for the businesses, it’s great for the people who own property here, but if you are a young family who are just trying to get your leg up in life, this is a very difficult place to do that because everything is extremely expensive. Some of the things that we’ve done are trying to be very fiscally responsible at the town level. We have worked with the RUPCO development in Tannersville for affordable workforce housing. We coordinated a lot with them, specifically about the amount of services that they anticipate needing, like police and ambulance. One of the most exciting things I’m working on is the joint comprehensive plan with both villages. That is something that has never been done before. We need to attack all of these challenges together as a community and not independently in a vacuum of the town, the village of Tannersville, or the village of Hunter. We need to go through this process and identify what our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats are, and see how we can work together in order to tackle it.
Hunter is in an interesting position on the mountaintop with two distinct villages within the town. What are the positives and negatives of Hunter having three municipal governments?
Mahoney: It’s a very unique situation, but it’s got its benefits too. It gives us more manpower to do really good things. It gives us, when it comes to grant funding, three different tries to try and go for money. It has benefited this community. That’s not to say it’s not without its challenges, either. It’s really difficult to find people to work. It’s difficult to find people to serve as elected officials. We haven’t seen that too much at the town level, but I do know that villages at times have struggled to find candidates. What happens if you don’t have a candidate? Who’s going to run those villages? That’s something we have to navigate. Hopefully, along the comprehensive plan process, more people get involved, get aware of the issues, and want to do good things for their town.
How would you help residents learn about town decisions and have a say before those decisions are made? Identify a specific change you would make to improve transparency or communication.
Mahoney: I try to be as transparent as I can. All of our meetings are open to the public and we invite the public to come, like any town. However, I’m also very active on social media. I try to put out, not only the good things, but the things that we need public participation in and some of our challenges as well. The comprehensive plan, that is an amazing, full-transparency thing. We encourage as much public participation as possible. There are surveys, there are public meetings where we want to hear from people. We just had one at Hunter Elementary School and it was really well-attended. Subsequently, there was a survey that was put out and it was also available at the village halls and the Town Hall where we’re asking people, “What do you think?” Can things be more transparent? Likely. I don’t know what that really is. If someone wants to attend our meetings virtually, they absolutely can. We’ve had issues just putting it out there in the past, we’ve had people like “Zoom-bomb” us, so that’s why you have to request the invite in advance. I try to be as accessible as possible as well, either through my social media, through my cell phone, seeing me on the street. I hope people know that I’m approachable and I’m open to hearing from them. I can say the same for the rest of my board. They’re all out in the community, they’re passionate, hardworking people who are just doing this because it’s a good and right thing to do for the town that they live in. I’m open to ideas as well.
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.
Mahoney: We are knee-deep in the budget right now. For the 2027 budget, we’re not really anticipating anything out of the routine. However, everything in the routine is more expensive. We need a loader for our town Highway Department. Those are much more expensive than they were two, three years ago. Our gas costs have risen dramatically. Our health insurance costs have risen dramatically. This is all outside of our control. Things go up that we have nothing to do with. We have to take care of our employees. We’re also working on our new capital project, which is our highway garage and Town Hall. That is something that we sorely need. It’s a critical need. The highway garage is completely dilapidated and is not repairable, so it needs to be replaced. The goal of this Town Board has been to try to offset as much of these expenses as possible with not only grant money but partnerships with the villages and the school district, which I think is unique and creative. But costs have risen so dramatically that there is no way to avoid the fact that we are going to have to go to the taxpayer and ask for them to support a bond. I don’t have that number yet. As we chisel that down, we’re trying to structure it financially in a way that makes the most sense for the taxpayer.
With the capital project, what are some of the specific costs that have risen?
Mahoney: Building materials have doubled in price since COVID, if not more. It’s not just my opinion but the opinion of many people in that trade that if we wait, it’s going to double again. Now is the time to do this with as minimal financial impact as possible. I’m very aware that there are many retired people living in our town that are on fixed incomes that cannot absorb a heavy tax increase. That’s why I’m not rushing into this and we’re taking our time to do the due diligence and to make sure that we’re doing the most financially appropriate thing but also setting up the town for the next, hopefully 100 years. It’s a balancing act.
What specific steps can the town take to make housing more affordable for people who live and work in Hunter?
Mahoney: I don’t think that Hunter is affordable and accessible for anybody that wants to live here. That’s the reality. If you make a certain income level, you have to search far and wide to find housing today. As I said before, we’ve worked alongside RUPCO in Tannersville. We’re very happy that RUPCO’s Cold Spring pro-workforce affordable housing project is probably going to be completed next year. That’s going to be 56 units of housing. So what is that going to do? There are people that are probably paying a lot right now in our community that are living in substandard housing. They’re going to vacate that hopefully and go into something that meets their income level. Then the person that is the landlord for the existing housing, they’re going to have to improve it or they’re going to have to lower their rents in order to attract people to live there. I’m also happy to report that we have a number of developers in our town that are planning on building housing at a variety of income levels. Some of them are at the top end, 100%, which, people want to be here, and they’re willing to pay to be here. That’s a good thing. But we also need the people that want to raise their family and work here. Some of those developers are planning on doing affordable-type housing at the lower to middle-income range. We’re an attractive place to do that, because we have the land, we have the resources, and the local government is willing to work with these developers in order to make it work for them.
How do you balance the roles of executive director of the Hunter Foundation and Hunter Town Supervisor? Do you ever run into moments where you have a conflict of interest? If so, how do you handle that?
Mahoney: They’re wildly different roles. The Hunter Foundation, while it has a lot of ancillary impacts on the town, is really focused on economic development. That is done primarily through the properties we own and manage, which are all in the village of Tannersville. I was the executive director prior to my involvement with the town. That’s who employs me. But there is no conflict of interest, because my interest at the town level is to help the entire town and to manage those services and to do it in the most fiscally responsible way. When I’m working with the Hunter Foundation, it’s much different work. That’s more working with local businesses and our properties and trying to get grants that help our community in a positive and uplifting way. There’s not much overlap at all. I have multiple email addresses and as much time as I can possibly fit into a day to address whatever the issue is. But to me, it’s just wearing a different hat for a different challenge.
You’re running across three party lines: Democratic, Republican, and Conservative. Why?
Mahoney: Local government is the most important government, because it has the most direct impact on the people that live in a particular place. I really don’t think politics should play a role in it. I have no time for party politics. I am so proud to have the support of both the Republicans and Democrats. I have had that support since I’ve been running. Party-line politics never comes into any discussion we have on the board. It never comes into any day-to-day discussions. I’m doing the work of the people, and I’m trying to represent every single person as best as I can. That’s what I am elected to do. I don’t care if you’re Republican, Democrat, Independent, no party, whatever, I’m going to try to work hard for you.
Connor Greco is a staff reporter for The Overlook covering Windham, Hunter, and surrounding Greene County communities. Send correspondence to connor@theoverlooknews.com.
