An Era Draws to a Close in Schoharie County
By Timothy Knight
Schoharie
County Treasurer William “Bill” Cherry has held his title for almost as long as
I have been alive. He came into countywide office on January 1st,
1996 and after twenty-four years of dedicated public service, he is set to
leave elected office over the holiday season on December 31st.
For
many in Schoharie County, he is the only treasurer they have ever known. In a
recent sit-down interview with the Mountain Eagle, Mr. Cherry discussed the
past twenty-four years in a wide-ranging conversation that touched on everything
from accomplishments to regrets.
His
story began many years before our final interview, nearly four decades in fact,
when Mr. Cherry was a relatively new member of the Middleburgh community in the
late 1970s. A member of the local Rotary Club, the young man printed community
television guides out of his house.
As
Mr. Cherry recalls it, he was approached by the then-Mayor of Middleburgh –
Charlie Slater – and asked to become a Village Trustee. The only problem is
that the prospective trustee had no idea what the position actually entailed
besides fleeting references in American cinema.
“But
I only had heard the word ‘trustee’ in one context: it was the old George Raft
prison movies where the trustee was the guy who had a stick with a nail in the
end and he would pick up trash,” explained Mr. Cherry. Adding that Mayor Slater
had said something about meeting in the park, the one-day treasurer came to the
expectation of being handed one of those sticks and a canvas sack.
Luck
would have Mr. Cherry being appointed to the Village Board instead of picking
up errant trash, however. He would end up serving a few terms in Middleburgh
before he moved his family and business to nearby Schoharie, where he was again
approached to be Village Trustee and then later encouraged to run for Schoharie
Town Supervisor.
Soon
after becoming a supervisor, he was approached by then-Treasurer Lawrence
“Larry” Tague to consider running for the countywide position due to Mr.
Tague’s impending retirement. Mr. Cherry agreed to run for the position, and he
was elected in November of 1995.
Early
challenge
Upon
taking office from his predecessor, Mr. Cherry found himself in the difficult
position of uncovering a serious crime that was committed by Mr. Tague.
Alluding
to a famous picture of a lighthouse off the coast of France that hangs in his
office, Mr. Cherry said the lighthouse is never going to move, because it’s
rock solid. It’s a picture he replaced after the original was destroyed in the
flood, but it has hung there throughout his career as a reminder.
Commenting
“Honestly, that event did shape the rest of my career,” Mr. Cherry explained that
he was a political newcomer “who uncovered the thefts of money that was in the
previous treasurer’s care and I brought it to life” by reporting the theft of
three estates entrusted to Mr. Tague to court.
Ultimately,
despite facing an immense amount of pressure from the political hierarchy, Mr.
Cherry knew he was faced with a choice that gave him no choice. Further
explaining that the press had tried to tie Mr. Tague’s crimes to the
treasurer’s office, Mr. Cherry quipped “Government didn’t steal that money,
Larry Tague did.”
Mr.
Tague was arrested, convicted, and imprisoned for his crime.
Change
in approach
In
addition to the political changes that occurred when coming into office, so did
the technological and regulatory components of the treasurer’s office
dramatically change under Mr. Cherry’s leadership.
Explaining
that all records were maintained by hand in ledgers when he first became
treasurer, with all tax records being kept on index cards written in pencil, Mr.
Cherry began the process of computerizing the treasurer’s office. Unfortunately,
all of the hand-written records were destroyed in the flood, but they had
electronic backups.
Another
significant change in how the treasurer’s office operated was the
implementation of monthly payment agreements for property owners in arrears on land
taxes. Recalling an experience he had with an elderly lady from the Seward area
who could not afford to pay her $600 in delinquent taxes, Mr. Cherry said that
he realized “Some of the people I worked for were really struggling.”
This
exchange spurred Mr. Cherry to authorize the elderly lady to make monthly
payments on her taxes even though he did not have the legal ability to do so. Eventually,
this practice was legally adopted, with Schoharie County being one of the few
counties that does it. “The thing I’m most proud of is the number of people
we’ve been able to help with payment agreements,” said Mr. Cherry.
Assemblyman
Cherry?
Following
the 2000 Census and subsequent legislative redistricting, Schoharie County
found itself as the only county wholly part of the then 127th
Assembly District and Mr. Cherry felt that the county should have a voice in
Albany. Therefore, he disembarked on what he described in our interview as a
“huge mistake” – he ran for Assembly in 2002.
Explaining
that he thought there was a political ladder he was supposed to climb, Mr.
Cherry tossed his hat into a three-way Republican primary for the Assembly seat
and admitted that he was never so relieved then when it was over. In comparison
to the tens of thousands of dollars his two opponents spent, Mr. Cherry
expended only three thousand dollars and lost the primary by only 56 votes.
With
his only foray into higher office ending in defeat, the treasurer remained
focused on Schoharie County.
Debts
and Floods
When
Mr. Cherry took office as treasurer, Schoharie County was deeply in debt to the
tune of $15 million with only a $31 million county budget to show for it.
Explaining that he “made it my goal to get out of debt,” Schoharie County would
become debt free by 2007. Unfortunately, mother nature would have other plans
with the county’s financial fortunes.
Stating
“the flood was a major challenge” might have been Mr. Cherry’s one
understatement, as the floodwaters of Hurricane Irene caused sales revenues to
decline, residential population to decline, and as the long serving treasurer
put it, “county government was down on one knee.”
Functioning
with no electronics and relocated from the Schoharie County office building,
the treasurer’s office was tasked with paying payroll the Friday after the
flood with no official checks.
“One
of the hardest things was creating the confidence that government was going to
continue to operate,” said Mr. Cherry before adding, “One of the important
things was to pay county employees.” Thus, what was old became new again, as
the treasurer’s office got their hand on starter checks from another branch of
their bank outside of the flood and they hand wrote every employee’s check that
week.
Mr.
Cherry commented, “It was a huge challenge, but by the end of Friday, I think
the people of the county knew we were going to get through this.”
With
the flood came a new responsibility for Mr. Cherry: flood recovery coordinator.
Tasked with overseeing the county’s response to Irene’s devastation, Mr. Cherry
worked diligently to protect the county building by installing flood gates
around the complex, to restore a sense of history by advocating for the
Blenhein Bridge to be rebuilt, and to ensure a new county jail was constructed
outside the flood plain.
“I’m
really damn proud of these flood recovery projects,” stated Mr. Cherry, who
further noted the total cost to local taxpayers is only $6 million in flood
recovery debt. He is currently advocating for the county board to utilize a
portion of the fund balance to pay off those debts.
Times
are a-changin’
Despite
the success Mr. Cherry had with flood recovery efforts after Irene, his
relationship with the Schoharie County Board of Supervisors began to rapidly
deteriorate during and as a result of the Ethington scandal, which was led by a
Conservative Party insurgency both on the county board and in appointed
governmental positions.
Explaining
that there was a sense of the “16 being greater than the rest,” with Mr. Cherry
namely blaming former Jefferson Town Supervisor Dan Singletary for such
viewpoints, the treasurer said that the county board began to pull itself away
from him.
This
came at a time when Mr. Cherry became an outsized figure in county government, as
he and a handful of allies on the county board began counter attacking the
Ethington clan. He publicly supported his friend and Democratic Schoharie Town
Supervisor Gene Milone while backing a successful Republican challenge against
Mr. Singletary.
Ultimately,
with the release of two reports that painted a sweeping picture of governmental
wrongdoing by Personnel Director Cassandra Ethington and her cohorts, the
political tide swept the conservatives out of office and a new crop of
supervisors emerged. “Her dismissal was the right thing to do,” said Mr. Cherry
about Ms. Ethington.
However,
with this new crop of supervisors came an assumption that county government was
dysfunctional, noted Mr. Cherry, and with it the rift between himself and the
county board grew farther apart. “The Board of Supervisors has disconnected
themselves in almost every way from the very people who put them there,” said
Mr. Cherry.
Whether
it be his frequent clashes with the county board over the stream bank project,
employee and retiree’s health insurance, or budgetary decisions, Mr. Cherry was
adamant that “I pick fights when I know I’m right.” After a recent proposal to
settle the ongoing union negotiations by Mr. Cherry was all but ignored, he
stopped attending county board meetings this summer.
When
questioned on whether he had any regrets, Mr. Cherry said that he had wished
there was a middle ground with the county board. Emphasizing that there was no
changing him “speaking out when taxpayer money was at risk,” he regretted not
being better at sticking to his guns whilst maintaining a working relationship
with the board.
Looking
back and beyond
There
is little that Mr. Cherry has not been involved with over the past twenty-four
years. For many years, he was the county board’s go-to elected official to
assist with economic development, flood recovery, and even run the occasional
department outside of his purview, but like all political eras there comes a dawn
and a dusk when they are no longer nigh.
When
asked how he would look back on his legacy, Mr. Cherry noted that implementing
the monthly payment agreements “were the right thing to do” and that he
maintained honesty and integrity as treasurer, with there being “never a
question about my integrity.”
As
a reporter, Mr. Cherry has been a source of many stories over the past six and
a half years of my career in Schoharie County. We have shared information,
broken bread over coffee or wine, and I have come to think of Mr. Cherry has a
valued friend and trusted mentor.
His
next step is similar to many folks who are entering retirement. His wife,
Sherry, and he have eight grandchildren ranging from adulthood to infancy, and
they intend to spend many days with them all. In addition to family life, Mr.
Cherry intends to travel across the country with Sherry to see the Grand Canyon
and Yellowstone in a used motor home they bought recently.
Mr.
Cherry may still work part-time, but as he said to me with a warm smile, “I
really want to spend time with family.”
Underneath
the politics and public persona exists a man who is informed by his personal
experiences. Mr. Cherry could empathize with struggling taxpayers because he
grew up poor in a trailer and watched his mom struggle to survive, and while
working to rebuild the county after Irene’s devastation, he too lost his home
like many in the Schoharie Valley.
With
our interview winding down, I asked Mr. Cherry if he wanted to say anything to
the county’s taxpayers – the people who he repeatedly referred to as his
employers – and he replied simply “Thank you,” before adding that, “Serving as
Schoharie County Treasurer has been an unexpected honor.”
Coincidentally,
as our interview came to its inevitable conclusion the county office building
was being closed due to an issue on the second floor. Mr. Cherry told his staff
to leave for the day and he hurried to get his belongings together before
driving a friend home to Schenectady. Many years ago he might have been asked
to assist with addressing the office building closure, but not anymore.
Someone
else will rise to lead a new era in Schoharie County, but there may never be
another like the community television guide publisher turned county treasurer.
Debts and floods and politics have come and gone for Mr. Cherry, but the road
ahead leads to grandchildren and the Grand Canyon.
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