Interview with Enouen by Claire Wasserman

You’ve been the supervisor for over a year. How does it feel?

Having that first year under my belt feels really good. It’s been a challenge, but in a good way. I’m so motivated to do this work and really passionate about it. Even after almost four years on the town board, I’ve learned so much more since stepping into the supervisor role. I used to think farming was hard—but honestly, this might be the toughest thing I’ve ever done.

What's been your most satisfying experience as supervisor?

The launch of the new website has been really satisfying. As a town board member, I worked on that project for a long time and finally brought it to completion with the huge help of Councilman Coleman. The domain for the website was owned by New York State. It took me nine months to reach someone who could help us transfer the domain to the Town of Rochester. Once we scheduled the transfer it went off without a hitch. The response to the new website has been fantastic. I'm looking forward to using the site more extensively than we currently do.

It’s such a small thing, but it’s meant a lot—people have been saying the meetings are easier to follow and actually engaging now. That feels incredible, because that was one of my goals.

How does the supervisor role compare to serving on the board?

It is such a perspective shift, being at the head of the table. There is a lot of pressure. The supervisor prepares all the work. While I know that being on the town board is very significant, I don’t expect the role will take up a significant portion of their lives, being a board member is not a fulltime job. Most board members are passionate about their service. They care about their work. We have a board that's very dedicated, and everyone puts a lot of time in. We're very fortunate. But in order for the work to feel inclusive and for people to feel like they know what's going on, the supervisor pulls things together.

My oath of office, and what I agree to do as supervisor, is to uphold the laws of the United States government, New York State, and the Town of Rochester. I feel like it’s my duty to know how to do things. Whenever I am presenting something to the board or putting something on the agenda, I need to know as much as I possibly can. Being supervisor is a big perspective, a position shift. And being chair of the town board is like a second job, in addition to many hours of managing the day-to-day operations of the town. I’m in the office around 8 or 9 am and I usually leave between 5 and 10 pm.

When I'm out in public, a lot of people know who I am. The supervisor is the public face of the board. I receive a lot of out-reach, and have an open-door policy. Some weeks it's quieter, but mostly, my meeting calendar is full. I get a lot of phone calls. People bring issues to me that they feel I might be able to help them with, even if I don’t have direct oversight. I need to maintain conversations with other agencies and other governments.

Can you tell me more about why you want a four-year term rather than a two-year term?

The town board put forth the legislation to change the term. I recused myself from that vote. Changing the term of the office requires a referendum. The voters are going to decide. I did not put that legislation forward. I can see arguments for both sides. For me personally, it would mean that I could focus for a longer term. Running for election on a two-year cycle can be really challenging. I would commit to a two-year term. I'm also prepared to commit to a longer term, which gives a little bit more breathing room to do the things that really need to be done.

What are your plans for the next four years?

I really would like to see an actual commitment to build a new town hall. We have outgrown our spaces. Now that I'm managing day-to-day operations, it feels urgent that we address our infrastructure needs. We are here to provide services to the public, and our ability to do that is impacted by current conditions. We need public spaces for our meetings. We need to feel confident that we won’t have to put a huge amount of money into repairing outdated systems. Almost every building we use needs fixing. My goal is to secure a plan and get started on it. Most important: I would like to develop a 10-year financial plan for the town. Looking that far ahead is essential for the health and future of Rochester. Maybe it doesn’t sound super exciting, but I think it's really vital that we do that.

We are currently working on coming up with creative solutions to the issues that I've been hearing about since I started running for office. Protect our water, our aquifers, and our low-well- yield districts. Keep the Town of Rochester rural. Preserve our local character amid changes and influxes. Make sure that we're not leaving people behind, that we consider our entire population when we pass zoning laws, repair roads, and propose solutions to problems.

Housing is the goal we created in our 2006 comprehensive plan. How to keep the Town of Rochester affordable? Today we have one of the highest rental rates and home purchase prices in Ulster County. Many things are not in our control, but could we have perhaps steered the ship differently? I would really like to see us try to correct the course.

What do you see as the biggest challenge in the next 10 years?

I'm very concerned about the stability of our climate and how that is going to impact our population and who it's going to impact. Some of the forecasting models are terrifying. I don't want to put it on the shoulders of the town. That’s not reasonable. But we need to think about it in all the decisions we make.

The other big challenge I'm thinking about is community. The world has changed a lot in how we relate to each other. How do we make a bridge? How do we bring a town together? How do we talk to each other? How do we make decisions together? I envision an atmosphere in the town where we listen, discuss, deliberate, disagree, compromise. I think of ways to build trust.

I really try to communicate compassionately, to use nonviolent communication, and to listen. I took the board through what is called a community agreement process, where we talked about our communication styles and really tried to understand where people are at, so that we can move together by trying to understand one another, instead of judging from the outset. It's just more effective way of communicating that I'm trying to learn more about. And we have boards and commissions whose officials are also really working on that. It doesn't all have to be on my shoulders, but I can support that type of community engagement in all of our boards and commissions and even some of our departments, and as long as that support is there it's going to trickle out.

Can you tell me about the Community Preservation Fund real estate transfer tax?

Financially speaking, our ability to create funds through something other than the property tax levy is a useful tool for addressing some of the issues that we face without having to increase property taxes. The Community Preservation Plan and the Fund is a tool that I support, and I've been vocal about that from the beginning, with a planning document.

In establishing the fund, the fund has to be tied to a plan that guides the decisions on how you can use the funds. And the real estate transfer tax in the legislation for the Community Preservation Fund is the mechanism that can fund the fund. That part is decided by the public in a mandatory referendum for establishing the tax – that’s on the ballot in this election.

Having a Community Preservation Fund can open the door to other funding streams and other opportunities and can support goals and initiatives. But a Community Preservation Plan is not just about money. We have other capabilities in the town's purview that could work together to support some of the goals of the Plan.

Of course, any time you use the word community you want to make sure that it really captures the community. In putting the plan together in 2024 it was very important to us to listen to the feedback we got.

Most people giving feedback about the plan did not think that the plan document needed to be rewritten. Rather they wanted some other things added to ensure that the tool would be used in a way that really supports what the community sees as the most important things to preserve.

We did a referral of the Community Preservation Plan to all our boards and commissions. I put a request for feedback on the town website, and we've gotten some really great input that I think could, with a few shifts in wording, reflect a lot more of our community. The committee that was set up to draft the Plan put a lot of time into it. It's well done, well researched, and very reflective of our other town-adopted documents.

Currently, we’re actively working with the housing Advisory Committee, which is thinking about a similar tool for housing. In order for us to do that, we would need Home Rule authority legislation passed by New York State, and our representatives were very willing to do that, so they have set us up for a similar process in 2026. I feel that it's important that we think about these two tools together. We won't be passing them the same year, but knowing that we're working a Community Housing Fund that would also be funded through a real estate transfer tax on high-value property purchases, we wanted the tax rates for the two funds to be balanced, so that we're not over-taxing. And we also want the Housing Plan to reflect the fact that we think that these two, Community Preservation and Community Housing, can work together.

What's it like to work with the board?

We have a good board. I appreciate every board member, and we've been working together really well, especially lately. But being in government also has challenges. Everything in government takes a really long time, and I want to make it a priority to try to steer us on a course where we are better positioned to take action. Of course, there should be checks in place to prevent corruption, but we shouldn’t lose sight of the way that government and its expenditures support the public and provide important services. But why does it need to take three or four years to replace a bridge? I think we really need to do something about that.

One of the things I really like about this board is that they really want to see how we can strike a middle ground between moving too slow and moving too fast. We don't want to move too fast on everything. Some things will take longer when you need to make sure that the community is involved and that you're going through the stages of introducing an idea, receiving input, and putting out a proposal. That can take a while, inherently.

Then there are other actions that don't need that kind of process, and those should be done much more quickly. We don't want fear to stop us from doing things that could really benefit the community. And sometimes we wait too long. I don't want to be in that position for some of the things that might be really important for us to address, such as fuel and energy usage, and infrastructure.

About 25 years ago the board was considering building a new town hall, and I spoke with someone recently who knew about that, and who pointed out that that building probably would have cost a million dollars back then, and now, because we waited, just updating the infrastructure will cost magnitudes more. Eventually the cost can become too great, and we don't want to be in that position. We don't want to be providing a disservice to our community by not addressing obvious problems, or by not providing for services that we obviously need.

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