Politics should not come before the people of New Paltz.
I am watching two political campaigns for Town Supervisor of New Paltz, and there are some dynamics here that have clearly been borrowed from our national political arena—deception, divisiveness, and politicizing. I am writing this post with one goal in mind: encouraging our political leaders to stop with the games and start serving the people of New Paltz.
The November 4, 2025 local election for New Paltz Supervisor is important.
Normally, local elections don’t grab much attention—especially within a year of a presidential election year—but this one is different. Local government is our first line of defense against Republican extremism, and for the first time in decades, there’s a real risk of a Republican takeover of the Town Board and key committees, including Police Oversight.
For more background on this and on the debate over Chapter 34, see our earlier blog posts from September 26th and Newpaltz.works.
Tit for Tat
At this critical moment, instead of focusing on policy, the letters pages of Hudson Valley One and local social media have become a stage for back-and-forth bickering between the two candidates for Town Supervisor—Amanda Gotto, the current Town Supervisor, and Tim Rogers, Mayor of the Village of New Paltz and the Democratic nominee for Supervisor.
Since winning the Democratic primary in June, Tim Rogers has earned endorsements from Congressman Pat Ryan, the Ulster County Democrats, the Working Families Party, and numerous respected local residents. Yet the campaign season since then has been marked less by ideas and more by infighting.
For readers who haven’t been following the letters section closely, here’s how the exchange has unfolded:
July 22, 2025:
After losing the Democratic primary to Tim Rogers, Amanda Gotto struck a backroom deal with Butch Dener and Ken Ronk of the local Republican Committee to run for Supervisor on the Republican line.
August 20, 2025:
Amanda Gotto’s letter to HV1, titled “New Paltz Deserves Better”, claimed:
“I have been, am now, and always will be a Democrat. The decision to accept the Republican ballot line is not a betrayal of my Democratic values.”
She went on to say she wanted “to give New Paltz a choice” — even though that choice had already been given (and decided) in the Democratic primary. That’s got to be a betrayal of at least one of the fundamental Democratic values!
That same week, Kitty Brown, Amanda’s campaign manager and Deputy Supervisor, published a misleading letter titled “Two Democrats Running”—an attempt to blur the reality that only one of the candidates, Tim Rogers, is the duly nominated Democrat. The rest of Kitty’s letter was (rather unexplainably) a rambling list of grievances against the former supervisor, Neil Bettez.
September 10th 2025:
Tim Rogers responded with a detailed letter outlining his plan for Town–Village consolidation, one of the major issues separating the candidates. He proposed a joint process approved by both boards and then put to a public vote by all residents.
“If I’m elected Supervisor, I will propose a joint Town and Village consolidation process, requiring approval by both boards, followed by a townwide referendum.”
He even shared a tax impact study showing that consolidation would reduce taxes by 5.6% for Town residents outside the Village and 17.5% for Village residents—hard numbers, not rhetoric.
Tim Rogers is the only candidate offering Town and Village residents a choice in this decision—Amanda Gotto and the other Republican campaigners have clearly made up their minds without putting it to voters.
September 17th 2025 :
Kitty Brown published “Some Questions for Tim Rogers,” a letter that mixed valid concerns with misleading claims—including the false suggestion that Tim intended to dissolve the Village and that only Village residents could vote on it.
In reality, Tim had clearly stated (just a week earlier, in the same publication) that his proposal was for consolidation, not dissolution, and would require votes from both Town and Village residents.
September 24th 2025:
Tim Rogers wrote a letter to HV1 outlining the rules of interfund borrowing:
“State municipal law has strict rules regarding interfund borrowing. A local government (town, village, city, county, district) cannot allow a water fund to borrow from another fund unless the borrowed amount is repaid—with interest—before the end of the fiscal year.”
He went on to describe a loan made within the Town that violated this law and called for the Town and its water districts to be audited by the State Comptroller’s Office.
In the same issue, Amanda Gotto again conflated consolidation with dissolution:
“The modest cost savings haven’t changed, and the search for meaningful efficiencies in government operations and citizen interactions presents the same loosely defined opportunities and unacknowledged hurdles as before. And the issue of Village taxes going way down while Town taxes go up is still a concern.”
Alongside Amanda’s letter was another dispatch from Kitty Brown with a long list of complaints, including:
“Tim earns $10,000 more per year than Town Supervisor Amanda Gotto. Yet he represents less than half the people she represents.”
“Mike Baden, the Village Planning Director, doesn’t live in New Paltz and is earning $125,000 a year, including benefits.”
“Between PILOTs, Village Managers and dissolution consultants, what other exciting new expenses does Tim have in store for us?”
October 1st 2025:
Following the Village Board’s vote to approve the rezoning of 60 acres for the New Paltz Apartments project, the Town Board—led by Amanda Gotto—rejected the annexation application.
Amanda’s explanation sounded reasonable on paper, but the timing and tone revealed something else. This wasn’t about planning; it was about politics.
The Town Board had four years to raise these issues. Instead, they waited until weeks before an election, filled the meeting with misinformation, and tried to portray students—who are residents—as outsiders, casting the Village and Town boards as adversaries.
It’s a tactic we’ve seen before: manufacturing division to win votes.
Enough is enough!
This sudden obstructionism isn’t about housing policy—it’s about political point-scoring after Amanda Gotto and her allies failed to win the Democratic nomination in June. These letters and their campaigning are desperate attempts to hold on to power by manufacturing wedge issues and sowing misinformation and division among New Paltz Democrats.
That’s why we’re asking everyone to support Tim Rogers on November 4th 2025—because he is the legitimate Democratic candidate.
More than that, this “tit for tat” politicking is preventing both candidates from focusing on the real needs of the community and the very real challenges New Paltz faces: affordable housing, protecting our rights, protecting our natural resources, climate resilience, shared infrastructure, and the rising cost of living.
Lift your heads out of the weeds and start representing the needs of our community. We don’t care about the minutiae of local politics. We want to know what you will do for us as Supervisor, and how you plan to make our lives better—cheaper, safer, easier, and more efficient.
A garden, not a battlefield.
And please, can we stop thinking of New Paltz as a battleground—Village versus Town; students versus residents; renters versus homeowners?
These “zero-sum” narratives imply that if one part of our community benefits from a decision, others must lose. That’s not how communities work.
It’s far better to think of New Paltz as a garden, not a battlefield—a rich, vibrant, diverse community filled with many varieties, all needing different things to thrive. When one part of the garden gets what it needs, the rest doesn’t suffer—it flourishes.
When our leaders get the right mix of resources to all the right parts of the garden, both the Village and the Town thrive.
So please, Supervisor candidates: Amanda, let’s stop the divisiveness and misinformation— it’s not a good look. Tim, don’t get drawn into Republican politicking. You can be the uniting force that New Paltz needs and deserves.