Carol and Don Muth

By Michael Ryan

JEWETT - She has said it before but Jewett town councilwoman Carol Muth says this time she really totally indisputably means it.

Probably.

“I don’t think I’m coming back but I’ve said ‘no more’ the last three times too,” says Muth, who was given a respectful round of applause by colleagues at a council meeting, last week.

Muth did not seek re-election in November, apparently ending a quietly dedicated and loudly productive government service career.

The town has a year-end meeting later this month but that traditionally amounts to little more than taking a few minutes to pay some bills.

No one else is usually there so Muth’s fellow council members took a moment to publicly say “thank you” and bid her adieu.

Probably.

Muth, when mentioning “the last three times,” is referring to getting elected town supervisor in 1979, serving six years before stepping down to focus on being deputy treasurer in the Greene County Treasurer’s office.

She didn’t go very far, instead serving on the town council and the local planning board for thirteen plus years before - surprise surprise - once again getting elected town supervisor.

That was in 2009, staying put for five years and then supposedly saying “no more” but later returning as as council member and now she expects everyone to believe this time she fully finally unequivocally means it.

We’ll see but the crux of the story isn’t how long Muth has served, it is how she has served. It may be a little known fact that the current municipal building wasn’t there when she first said “yes” 45 years ago.

“At that point, the court and town board meetings were held in our 1-room building which had a small dining room and kitchen,” Muth recalls.

“Officials had their offices in their homes. You went to the town clerk or the assessor’s house to conduct business.

“The new building project began when [then-highway superintendent] William Mead approached me about the possibility of doing it.

“New York State wanted things consolidated. There was no place to store records. We put together a design, got our plans stamped and went to work,” Muth remembers.

“All the labor, taking down the old building and getting the new one built, was voluntary. Our plumber was Loren Mead who only charged for the parts. The electrician was Kenny Becker who was the Lexington town supervisor. He charged us for materials and no labor.

“We took the old building down and salvaged what we could. We were truly blessed to have all volunteer labor.

“It was completed on our projected timeline and cost the town $20,000. We applied for and received a $5,000 O’Connor Foundation grant to purchase flooring, carpeting and some furnishings.

“So now you have the story of how it all came to be and how many local people contributed to make it happen.”

In typical Muth fashion, there is no suggestion that her community-minded leadership had anything to do with it.

It did. Within her administrations, the town implemented zoning, instituted health insurance and retirement for town employees and brought the Greene County “Meals of Wheels” program to Jewett.

All that and more without being a hometown girl. Carol grew up in western New York, marrying her high school sweetheart, Don Muth, who is still by her side and a man cut from the same good-hearted cloth.

Don, for many years, was intricately involved with the Personal Energy Transportation project, a worldwide effort focused on creating and delivering one-person vehicles to those who can’t walk.

He has spun a small town tale of his own, one of those guys who was out in the horrific flooding of 2011, literally rescuing stranded people from engorged streams, brushing it off as just doing what needed doing.

“I picked a winner,” Carol says, noting their 58th wedding anniversary is coming in January, proving nothing was “probably” about those vows.

And in terms of political promises, Carol has doubtlessly and irrefutably kept her word about everything…except staying away.