On Nov. 3, Rochester residents will vote on three open positions: town board member, town supervisor and highway superintendent. Two candidates are running for each position; this week we take a look at the supervisor race.

Erin Enouen, 44, a Democrat, has served as town supervisor since 2024, after first being elected to the town board in 2019. She has lived in Rochester for 13 years, owns Long Season Farm and graduated from St. John’s College with a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts in 2006.

As both town supervisor and chief fiscal officer, Enouen said she has been seeking opportunities to meet voters and hear their concerns.

“I really hope that my record, the way I present myself in public, the integrity I bring to the office, speaks for itself,” Enouen said. “But I am getting out there and meeting with people and speaking with people outside of that job to hear from them.”

Among her accomplishments, Enouen cited staff engagement, a grant-funded community housing plan, passage of the community preservation real estate transfer tax, which established the community preservation fund, and the town’s bronze-level Climate Smart Communities status.

The town is now developing a long-term capital improvement and financial plan, a priority as it moves beyond American Rescue Plan Act funding and adjusts to changes following the COVID-19 pandemic. Enouen said the town must also address aging infrastructure, including buildings, roads and bridges.

“Bridges don’t fail in two years,” she said, arguing that years of underfunding infrastructure maintenance contributed to recent bridge closures.

Enouen said she included funding for engineering studies in the 2026-27 budget to help establish maintenance and replacement schedules for bridges and town buildings. She is also updating the town’s emergency management plan, particularly for newer residents unfamiliar with severe storms in a rural setting.

“I no longer want to sit there and say, ‘I don’t think we need to be spending money on these things,’ because we do,” she said.

Enouen has also overseen a townwide property revaluation that angered residents whose property values increased. She said improving communication was a priority when she first joined the board, which she described as “three decades behind the modern world.”

Since then, the town has begun livestreaming meetings, launched a more accessible website and introduced text and email notifications, along with a Facebook page. Enouen is also budgeting for quarterly mailings.

However, she said misinformation surrounding the revaluation demonstrates that more work is needed.

“I want us to have very solid communications with the public because I think that the more people know, the more truth people have,” Enouen said.

Looking ahead, Enouen said infrastructure improvements, accessible public meetings and better gathering spaces can help strengthen community connections.

“I really do want to see more community building,” she said, citing improvements to town parks and opportunities for residents to engage with boards and commissions. “Having a public-driven process has another benefit of bringing the public together.”

Tom Warg, 63, is a lifelong Rochester resident and currently the store manager for Taylor Rental. He is running for office for the first time as a Republican.

Warg said he was inspired to run this year because of the town’s revaluation. He filed a grievance over his own assessment and saw his property value drop from $500,000 to $380,000. According to Warg, the Republican committee surveyed residents about their concerns at Heritage Day, and the revaluation was the top priority.

“I’ve spoken to people who said that if they didn’t get the revaluation of their home reduced, they were gonna lose their home because they couldn’t afford the increase in taxes,” Warg said. “They were elderly, they were on a fixed income. They were more than likely gonna lose their home, so it’s a big concern.”

Warg criticized Gar Associates, the company the town hired to conduct the revaluation. He also said some residents never filed grievances and will not have inaccuracies in their assessments corrected.

“When these numbers came in and the town board started to have people come in and voice concerns about it, they had the capability of putting a stay on it and to investigate this and to look into it, and they failed to do so,” Warg said.

Although Warg is new to politics, he said he has spent most of his life in management and views the town supervisor role as “a management position.” He hopes to bring his business experience to local government while providing more “diversity” and “fair leadership.” Warg noted that most current board members were not born in Rochester.

“The local people don’t have much representation on the board, so I’m trying to get some diversity on the board so that other people can be heard as well,” Warg said. “I’ve been in management for years. Here at [my] store, I try to deal with everybody fairly. Doesn’t matter where you come from, what you do, I don’t look at people as to whether they’re one side or the other.”

Election Day is Tuesday, November 3, with early voting scheduled to run Saturday, October 24 through Sunday, November 1. Polling locations in the Town of Rochester are listed on the Ulster County Board of Elections website as follows: District 1 & 5 - Accord Fire Hall at 22 Main St, Accord; District 2 - First Municipal Bldg at 140 Samsonville Rd, Kerhonkson; District 3 - Rochester 2 Firehouse at 922 Samsonville Rd, Kerhonkson; and District 4 - Rondout Central School Admin Bldg at 122 Kyserike Rd, Accord. For more election information, visit https://elections.ulstercountyny.gov/.