Priorities
Ensure a green and sustainable future for Ulster County
We must protect Ulster County communities from climate change with sustainable development.
- Continue Ulster County’s climate leadership by investing in energy efficiency of public and private existing structures.
- Transition away from fossil fuels in every use possible.
- Prioritize evaluating climate impacts of county decisions on our communities with a special focus on procurement and capital projects.
- Invest in the care economy so that everyone in Ulster County has access to quality, affordable child and elder care, unleashing the full potential of our workforce.
- Re-localize our agriculture and food production by supporting existing farming, preserving farmland, encouraging forest gardening, perennial crops, and enhancing local food processing operations. As part of this endeavour, we need to expand our composting efforts while revamping our waste management system with investments in reuse and recycling infrastructure.
- Buttress emergency response efforts by addressing the lack of county-wide emergency services, especially in the southern and western parts of Ulster County. We need to build a new government operations center to house 911, and continue investing in our resiliency hubs by incorporating our first responders and our local public works departments. We must be ready to face the emergencies of the future.
Lead us forward on big projects
Ulster County is in the midst of several very large initiatives that will require both know-how and oversight, skills for which March’s Executive experience make her uniquely qualified.
- The creation of a new Mental Health Department will include managing a $13 million operating budget increase and millions of capital projects investment to build a crisis stabilization center and three respite houses.
- TechCity redevelopment must maximize economic impact in an equitable way by bringing good paying jobs to the site while minimizing community impacts.
- Addressing our housing crisis requires a multi-pronged approach. Ulster County must provide direct support for housing through incentives, infrastructure funding and technical assistance for zoning and planning. As March says we must “densify” our centers using untapped resources such as our vacant schools to create walkable, affordable housing through public private partnerships.
- Close the gaps in broadband coverage so that our businesses can thrive, our kids can do their homework at home instead of in parking lots, and we can all have access to the tools of the 21st century.
Make county operations more efficient and effective
While serving as Comptroller, March was able to find over $4 million in savings and additional revenues. This work identified numerous ways to improve County government. Improvements to county operations will both save taxpayer dollars and enable the county workforce to accomplish the full potential by making their work easier.
- Invest Ulster County’s surplus more wisely to provide better returns on taxpayer dollars; Modernize financial systems to enable digital capable payment of bills and receipt of revenues; Ensure that corporate properties that haven’t paid taxes are put up for sale as soon as possible and that corporate owners don’t get special treatment over regular people.
- Hold regular department head meetings, provide management training and require continuing education for professional positions; address quality of life for county employees day to day like picnic tables at remote work sites.
- Revamp ethics and accountability expectations for the entire County government organization including training for staff on conflicts of interest and a no tolerance conflicts policy, adherence to open meetings law, lead by example at every level
- Better align training partners and business to provide the workforce of tomorrow for the trades, teaching, healthcare, green jobs and new technology businesses.