Since taking office this spring, Ulster County Executive Pat Ryan has appeared at town and village hall meetings in nearly every municipality in the county to hear the concerns of local officials and residents, and the most recent stop on his tour brought him to the Shawangunk Town Board session on Thursday night. Ryan introduced himself to the crowd at the start of the meeting, and proceeded to field questions for the next half hour.

Town Councilman Robert Miller asked the county politician why Walker Valley firefighters have to drive to Kingston to conduct their fire training (an issue Ryan said he would look into), while Town Councilman Matthew Watkins said he had issues with the county-wide plastic bag ban that went into effect earlier this year. “We’re a country community and we really focus on our business and bringing as much business to our community as possible,” Watkins explained. “There’s been a concern since the passing of the plastic bag law. Because number one, they’re all unilaterally all not allowed and there are vegetable-based bags that do disintegrate that were not included. There are many people like me who will no longer shop in Ulster County, because they can’t get a bag and they don’t want to pay five cents.”

Ryan responded that while it would be a death by a thousand cuts if the County Legislature continues down the road of banning plastic cutlery or additional items, he believes the plastic bag ban will be beneficial in the long run. “Personally I think it’s one of these short-term trade-off versus long-term issues,” Ryan replied. “There’s short-term pain and change, I recognize particularly for small business owners and for farms and others that I’ve heard from that it costs more for them to buy the paper bags than they can get back for it. We’re trying, at least in the interim, to help make them whole with the five cents that we’re allowing them to keep on that. That’s part of our transition plan to at least minimize that. But frankly, I think we just have to change the culture on this. We went for centuries without plastic bags and we were able to manage. I think now we know the impacts of it. I think it’s an opportunity for us to lead and say ‘Hey, we can move away from this and do things a little bit differently.’”

Ulster County Legislator Ken Ronk told Ryan during the meeting that Shawangunk has always come up just short when applying for grant money through the Consolidated Funding Application process, and asked Ryan to be a loud advocate for Shawangunk in that regard.

The county executive also addressed the ongoing opioid crisis, which is a top issue on residents’ minds across the county. “The opioid epidemic is the number one thing I’ve heard every place I’ve gone,” he said. “I’ve heard many heartbreaking stories of families affected, or even one individual who is an addict who is recovering. I’ve also heard a lot about affordability. People are saying ‘My kids are leaving as they grow up.’ That is a really common theme too. Those are some of the big countywide themes. But the infrastructure issue is a big one I hear too. The lack of water infrastructure and sewer infrastructure, and the ones we have kind of starting to really fail and crumble. That’s something we can actually work on.”

Ryan noted during the meeting that in 2018, more than one Ulster County resident per week died as a result of an opioid overdose. “It’s a big problem and we’re the second-worst county in the state per capita for overdose deaths,” he said.

Ryan, who is squaring off with Republican challenger Jack Hayes in the Nov. 5 general election, said his tour of local board meetings has provided him with valuable feedback from the community. “I think I’ve done 19 or 20, but I’ve lost track,” Ryan said laughing. “We’ve talked about some really big countywide issues like the opioid epidemic and how we can address economic development and growth. But then to hear specific issues about ‘Hey, the baseball field is getting flooded or we’re getting turned down on a grant and we need a dock.’ That is super helpful for me to really know what people’s needs are on the ground. So it’s mostly renewed my faith that this is how government is supposed to work. We can talk about the issues and kind of set aside the other b.s. So it’s been really good.”

Shawangunk Town Supervisor John Valk said that Ryan’s visit marked the first time that a county executive had attended a Shawangunk board meeting. While Valk noted that the town is plugged into the county’s dealings in Kingston since Ronk is a frequent attendee at the town board sessions, Ryan said he aims to make sure that smaller municipalities have a voice in the county conversation. “I think number one is always to be ready and willing to show up and know what’s going on and check in as we’re working on things,” Ryan said. “Number two, next year I’m going to launch a mobile government initiative and actually have a slice of county government come work from every town all around the county. If people need mental health services or they’re veterans and they need to talk to our veterans organization, or our Office of the Aging that supports seniors countywide, you don’t need to come up or take the UCAT (Ulster County Area Transit) bus, which is an hour-plus ride, we’ll come here. So that’s one of the things that we’re trying to do, to create that dialogue. There’s a lot of services that we offer that people aren’t often aware that they exist.”

During the Oct. 17 meeting, the board set a public hearing for its next meeting on Nov. 7 for the town’s proposed 2020 budget. The preliminary spending plan is under the state-mandated two percent tax cap. During a budget workshop following Thursday’s regular board meeting, the council discussed expenditures in the budget for the Wallkill Volunteer Ambulance Corps and the fire districts.

Under the 2020 preliminary budget, the town will spend $83,691 on the ambulance service (up from $82,315 last year). “There are 800-pound gorillas in the room with the ambulance service and that’s something we’ll have to deal with I’m sure,” Valk said. “It’s not just Wallkill, all of them are having staffing problems. Volunteers just can’t do it anymore, that’s the problem. It’s too much to ask for volunteers. That goal hasn’t been met in this budget. So that’s to be continued.” In the proposed budget, the town will appropriate $1,756,196 in total spending for the fire districts.

Valk said the biggest challenge the town faced when crafting a budget to stay within the cap is the rising costs associated with the Highway Department. Under the proposal, the town will spend $2,313,830 on the department in 2020 (up from $2,248,391 in 2019). “Highway costs are escalating because of the salt and blacktopping costs,” Valk said. “Not so much the labor costs, because we haven’t hired any new men. That and the equipment repairs. We stayed under the cap and we applied more money toward that, so I think we met our goal.”