Town supervisor hopefuls talk Highland

John Pizzolato

Pizzolato said he chose to run for a second term because he wants to see to completion the projects begun during his term. 

The town has finished renovations to its senior center, but is still working on renovations to its courthouse and to the town hall, as well as the Highland Health Initiative, a project to bring a health clinic into the town. 

“I want to leave the town better than I found it. I want to focus on the infrastructure, take care of food insecurity, take care of Veterans, take care of everybody’s overall health, and I really want to see all of these projects through,” said Pizzolato. “What I’ve seen from Mel and her family and Councilperson Haas before her is to destroy things. I haven’t seen them create anything.”

Pizzolato places the onus of Highland’s polarization on his opponent’s faction, saying that there has been a “beating drum of disinformation” surrounding the work he and the board have tried to accomplish. While he acknowledges their claims that some of that work has been done improperly, he says those claims have never panned out—if something the board was doing was wrong, the board would hear about it from the state and be required to stop, he said. 

“The good work that the board has done since we’ve taken office, it speaks for itself,” he said. 

Pizzolato highlighted the town government’s engagement with the community about the direction it should take in the upcoming revision of its comprehensive plan. 

The town has found that people generally want the same thing, Pizzolatto said, including green spaces, clean air and water, and avoiding overdevelopment. 

The town also needs to address short-term rentals, said Pizzolato, something that has been a point of discussion in the comprehensive planning process. The proliferation of short-term rentals has pushed Highland toward being a more anonymized community, said Pizzolato; while their presence is not by itself bad, there has to be some benefit to the community in how they’re regulated, he said. 

“I think that everybody wants the same things,” he said. “I think that we want to maintain the quality of life that we have and maybe make it better, maybe make it a little less expensive, provide more services, but not change the actual day-to-day life for people.”

Mel Carney

Carney said she is running because of all the things she’s seen done improperly at the town hall under the current administration. 

“If I’m elected, there’s no glory in my term, because I really feel like the finances are such a mess that we know of. I can’t imagine what we don’t know of,” she said. “So my goal would be: Right the ship, make us financially secure, and then go from there.”

Carney argued that many of the actions taken by the current administration—from the bonding of highway equipment to the securing of grants for community projects—have been done improperly. As she’s campaigned, she’s brought along with her a pamphlet containing details she’s collected about the work of the town board, to inform people about these improprieties. 

“Most people don’t pay attention, and as I keep saying as I campaign, you shouldn’t have to. You should have leaders that you trust are doing things for the benefit of the town. But I don’t feel that way,” she said. 

She said that the projects undertaken by the current administration, including the Highland Health Initiative, “would be great,” but she has questions about their affordability. 

Carney said that, if elected, she would dig into the grants the town has received and all of the projects that it has begun. She doesn’t know at this point how much the town is committed to carrying out, and how much she could undo; she would figure that out as she goes along based on the town’s finances, she said. 

Carney said that she is in favor of growth and development in the town, as long as it abides by the town’s code. While change is hard, “people adapt,” she said, pointing to Shohola Glen Amusement Park (a historic park in the area) as an example of a major development project that existed without major issues. 

“I love this town,” she said. “I’ve been connected to this town my entire life. My father was born and raised here; my mother’s family had been coming here for generations as summer people from the city, and it broke my heart to see the community is so divided. It has never been like this.”

She added, “We could always disagree, but you disagree respectfully.”

However, she said, the current supervisor’s “manipulation of the government” has changed things.