KNOX —  There’s only one contest in this year’s election in Knox, between incumbent supervisor Russell Porkorny, a Democrat, and newcomer Jamie Berenger, who is backed by the Republican party. The term for supervisor in Knox is two years. 

Uncontested are two board seats, currently held by June Springer and Dennis Cyr, both of whom are seeking re-election and backed by the Republican and Conservative parties. 

Also uncontested are the incumbent clerk, Traci Schanz; the highway superintendent, Matthew Schanz; the tax collector, Elizabeth Walk; and town justice Bonnie Donati. All are backed by the Republican and Conservative parties. 

Of 2,033 voters in Knox, according to this year’s enrollment figures, 710 are Democrats, 544 are Republican, 88 are Conservative (with a negligible number enrolled in the additional third parties), and 283 are not enrolled in any party.

Russell Pokorny

Berenger, who is listed as a bus driver on the Berne-Knox-Westerlo staff directory, did not respond to messages from The Enterprise, seeking an interview.

The Enterprise spoke with incumbent Supervisor Russell Pokorny about his views on improving internet access in the town, the current solar laws, and the town’s comprehensive plan, which was last updated in 2015. 

Pokorny, who previously had been the town assessor, was elected supervisor in 2021 after Vasilios Lefkaditis, a Democrat who ran on the GOP line, declined to seek re-election, leaving Kregg Grippo as the Republican candidate that year. Pokorny had run unsuccessfully against Lefkaditis in 2019, as had his wife, former town board member Amy Pokorny, in 2017. 

Despite joining a board that is made up entirely of members who were elected alongside Lefkaditis on the Republican line, Pokorny’s tenure has so far been uncontroversial as the board tackles large projects like the overhaul of the aging transfer station and figures out where to source ambulance service with the Altamont Rescue Squad’s future uncertain. 

Pokorny told The Enterprise this month that people expect the supervisor’s role in the town to be ideological when really it’s “a lot of paperwork.”

Illustrating his point, Pokorny said that he had been paying bills the morning he spoke with The Enterprise, and that the work is mostly clerical, requiring a mindfulness of deadlines and looping in the right people, whether it be the clerk, bookkeeper, or town board. 

“It’s really just a matter of trying to keep the thing going correctly and legally,” he said. “I think people think there’s an awful lot more to it in terms of shaping the community, and there’s less of that than you would hope for.”

The reason he’s running again, Pokorny said, is, “I think I can do a good job at this, and I’d like to continue doing it.”

As a member of the town’s broadband committee, Pokorny was present for a meeting held this year at the town hall where around 30 residents showed up to fill out a broadband survey and share their experiences with poor internet access in the town. 

Pokorny said that one of the important steps in improving access has been putting together a list of households without it, which he says has been done.

He said that the town had been working with a representative from Spectrum, along with a geographical-information-services expert who created a map out of the list of roughly 100 to 150 unserved households (out of around 1,000 altogether), and that the estimated price for infrastructure expansion is $2.2 million. 

Pokorny said that there are various grants the town can apply for, but that they’re being strategic about how they approach these opportunities so that they can maximize benefit. 

“The temptation, of course, is to do the less expensive ones earlier,” he said, explaining that lowering the number of unserved households makes it more difficult to get future grants.

“We’re not going to sell out until it becomes apparent, if it does, that all the money we need is not available,” he said. “Then, we might have to make compromises. But, in the meantime, we’re going to really push to get everyone connected.”

On solar, Pokorny said he’s a “real proponent” of renewable energy — he lives in a house powered by solar and drives an electric car also powered by solar — but he thinks it’s smart that the planning board had requested the town board to pass a year-long solar moratorium while it simultaneously processed three separate solar applications for solar facilities.

“I think we need to find sites for these bigger arrays that are not so disturbing to people’s viewsheds,” he said. 

Part and parcel of that is having a solid comprehensive plan that adequately contains residents’ opinions on where solar projects might be acceptable, if at all; Knox’s plan, Pokorny said, should “definitely” be revisited. 

“The last time we tried to do that actually was when Mike Hammond was supervisor, and I think the feeling on the part of the community was that the group that was involved in trying to update the plan was too much on one side of the political spectrum,” he said.

Hammond, the long-time Knox supervisor ousted by Lefkaditis, was a Democrat with a Democrat-dominated board throughout his tenure.

To update the plan, Pokorny said, the town should get a grant and “find some outside organization that would be trusted by the community on both sides of the political spectrum.”

He said the plan’s foundation seems solid — capturing the general respect for farmland, open space, and natural vistas. One aspect of the plan that hasn’t yet been carried out is strengthening the presence of local businesses. 

Pokorny noted that he and his wife had formerly owned the Knox General Store before selling it, after which it failed under the new owners. Now, there’s a café in the location, which Pokorny had visited that morning for a “coffee and a roll, and you could see that it wasn’t busy enough.”

“I think the plan should allow for the kind of businesses that we need,” he said. “I think it does but, if it doesn’t, we should see that it does.”

The problem, though, can’t be solved by a comprehensive plan and zoning updates alone, Pokorny said. “The real problem is, when you set up a business like this, does the community come out and support it and make it affordable for the owner?” 

Other areas Pokorny said he hopes to focus on over the next two years, if he’s elected, are senior services and housing, continuing to improve and maintain the town park, and seeing through the transfer-station renovation. 

June Springer 

June Springer was elected to the town board in 2019 in an election that saw the once Democrat-backed majority board replaced entirely by Republican-backed members. 

That year, she told The Enterprise in a campaign interview that one of her dreams for the town was a new community center. 

““We’re isolated a lot in the winter … so much is off the mountain,” she said. “We don’t want to go off to the gym or to socialize.”

Springer formerly served on the Berne-Knox-Westerlo School Board, and was working in 2019 in a managerial position at Diversified Automotive, where she had worked since 2003. 

“Running a town is similar to running a small business … You have to be accountable to the taxpayers,” she said.

Springer said she was a supporter of renewable energy, but that the trick was figuring out “the right way to go” with it.

Dennis Cyr

Dennis Cyr was elected to the town board alongside Springer in 2019, describing himself then as a “constitutional conservative.”

He owns and operates Mountainview Prosthetics on Maple Avenue in Altamont, after first working out of his Knox property for several years.

A Navy veteran, he’s also volunteered with the Knox Hometown Heroes program, placing banners to honor veterans in town. And he’s active in the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post, serving as commander, and also with the American Legion.

Cyr said in 2019 that he’s pro-small business, and he voted alongside Springer to implement a new multi-use residential district in the town, an initiative that Lefkaditis had failed to push through until Cyr and Springer joined the board. 

No new businesses have yet sprung up in that district.

Cyr highlighted the desire for a gas station in 2019, based on conversations he had with residents while he was campaigning. 

Other positions

Traci Schanz was first elected as town clerk in 2017, and has told The Enterprise that she enjoys being clerk because she’s a “people person. I grew up here … I’m proud to be up here. I love seeing people when they come into Town Hall.” 

Matthew Schanz began working for the town’s highway department when he was 17, and was deputy superintendent when then-superintendent Gary Salisbury resigned in 2019 over “nasty politics.” Schanz, whom Salisbury said was “not politically involved,” then took over the department where he’s worked for nearly 20 years and has been uncontested in all subsequent elections. 

Elizabeth Walk, 76, has lived in Knox since 1981 and has a degree in accounting from Albany Business College. She was first elected as tax collector in 2019, and had been assistant tax collector for three years at that point, replacing Diane Champion, who had not sought re-election. 

Bonnie Donati was elected justice in 2019 after running unsuccessfully four times prior. Donati was born in Brooklyn, and moved back and forth between New York City and Knox until relocating here permanently in 1997 after the death of her husband, Alfred Donati Jr., who was a New York State Supreme Court judge. At the time of her first election, Donati was a paralegal.