Wendy Tushack, a six-year village of Ellenville resident, is running for Village Trustee on the Republican ticket. Owner and operator of the 24-hour hospice care business, J.W. Prime Care Corporation, Tushack believes that there are issues that need to be addressed in Ellenville, and much like a nurse might diagnose a patient, she has diagnosed the village’s problem areas and wants to find solutions.
“Our taxes are sky-high, and we really need to promote education in this town. I don’t know if you’ve looked into BOCES in our area, but they don’t offer anything more than GED programs and driver’s education. …Changes need to be made,” she says.

According to Tushack, the people of Ellenville aren’t as aware of BOCES’s lack of programs as she’d have expected. “If you ask anybody in town, they couldn’t tell you right now what was being offered at the Village’s BOCES. I brought this up at a meeting and nobody had a clue. It’s a lack of education. People need to be informed.” As part of her agenda as Village Trustee, Tushack hopes to get the word out, which she hopes would lead to an expanded selection of courses at BOCES. “They’re not offering enough for adult continuing education,” she says. “And these kids are being transported — it takes them an hour to an hour and a half to get over to Port Ewen for their BOCES classes, and we do have a BOCES building right in town here that should be utilized.”

Like Republican mayoral candidate Ruben Torres, Tushack also believes that taxes in the village have risen too high, and that there need to be more checks in place to curb Ellenville’s spending habits. “I’ve run around talking to local business owners, I’ve talked to the town highway crew — they just feel that there’s wasteful spending and that there’s not a watchful eye on what’s going on with the spending.”

Most of all, though, Tushack’s main focus is to raise the awareness of those living in the village, both to the aforementioned issues as well as simply letting them know what the village government is up to. “I didn’t know my taxes were raised until I got my tax bill in the mail,” she recalls. “The word needs to get out, people need to know what’s going on, and there needs to be more of a push for people to show up to meetings and get involved.” Tushack believes that despite the open invitation extended to citizens to attend village meetings, it may often be inconvenient to attend the meetings as they may conflict with work schedules. When asked about how many village meetings she has attended so far, she says, “I’ve been to one, because my work [schedule] has been kind of crazy, but I’m trying to reschedule my work so I can go to more than one,” she laughs. She also believes that that those running the village government ought to be doing more to make sure that the citizenry and business owners stay informed. She asks, “Why not talk to them? Why not walk down the street, hand out flyers? Invite them in, maybe take a vote, you know, get them involved.”

With regard to her own qualifications for Village Trustee, Tushack feels that in addition to her enthusiasm for the job, and the experience of running her own company, her desire to get village residents more involved in local decisions is what sets her apart from the current field of candidates.

“I think just being a citizen in the village of Ellenville and being a tax payer and a homeowner, and being a mother of a twenty-year old who I’ve had to put through school — I think that qualifies me.”