On Thursday, March 1, 2007 the Town of Wawarsing's town board voted to hold a special referendum as to whether the position of Town Superintendent of Highways should remain an elected position or be changed to an appointed position that would serve at the pleasure of the board. The special vote was planned for Tuesday, June 5, 2007 between the hours of 12:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m.

Unfortunately, something appears to have happened between the board's voting for the special referendum and the execution of the vote. The matter gets more confusing as one tries to figure out who is responsible for these kinds of elections.

It's not Wawarsing Town Clerk, Jane Eck. She says that while she used to be in charge of organizing elections, recent changes in policy place that responsibility on the Ulster County Board of Elections.

A call to the county's board of elections revealed that officials in the office had heard about the vote, but they had never been officially informed and, as Board of Elections official Stuart Frazier said, "They [the Town of Wawarsing] did not ask us to conduct the special election." Frazier argued that while Ms. Eck is right to say that she is not involved in the general election process, the instance of a special referendum is a "home election" that must be handled within the town unless they ask for assistance.

John Gavaris, the Wawarsing Town Councilman who created the original motion to hold the public referendum, claimed that the responsibility for conducting the election should have fallen to Mrs. Eck. "This is ridiculous. She knows by now what she is supposed to do. She has been at the job long enough." Gavaris went on to say that he thought Eck's lack of action was "suspicious" and that it "may have been an attempt to sabotage the election," because she did not agree with the motion's aim of changing the job to an appointed position.

Supervisor James Dolaway argued that it was the responsibility of the person that made the resolution to oversee the election; in this instance that would be Councilman Gavaris. In a separate interview Eck argued a similar point.

When contacted about Dolaway and Eck's charge of responsibility, the town's attorney, Bill Collier, responded by saying that, "No one board member 'owns' a motion. If a motion is passed it has to be carried out with respect to how the motion reads."

When asked if he had any thought as to who is responsible for letting the election slip through the cracks, he declined to answer. However, he did say that it is required that a municipality post a public notice of any election ten days prior to the day itself. In this instance, the procedure was not followed, causing Collier to speculate that the resolution would have to be amended and the vote rescheduled.

Gavaris was frustrated by the possibility of the vote's rescheduling and explained, "The whole reason I wanted to have the referendum done so quickly was to have it before the caucuses [generally held at the end of June or beginning of July]. It doesn't make sense to have someone appear for a position in a caucus in June for a position that might not be there in November."

As to why he originally made the motion for the public referendum, Councilman John Gavaris explained his reasoning for supporting the change at that March meeting by saying, "There are five people on this board. No single person can do anything without the permission of the other board members. The Superintendent [of Highways], once he is voted into office, is the ruler of his own empire. He is not accountable to anyone except the voters every two years."

There are currently no other towns in Ulster County with an appointed Superintendent of Highways.

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