MONTICELLO – The Sullivan County Legislature recently issued a report of their accomplishments for 2025. It also emphasized that citizens of Sullivan County need not wait for an annual accounting of legislative activities. Any time of the year, their calls, questions, comments and concerns can be relayed to the Legislature as a whole or legislators individually. Complete contact and meeting information is available at www.sullivanny.gov/departments/legislature or by calling the Clerk of the Legislature at 845-807-0435.

2025 MEMBERS 

District 1 – Matthew McPhillips, Democrat, Majority Leader, representing the townships of Bethel, Highland, Liberty and Thompson (hamlets of Mongaup Valley, Smallwood, White Lake, Kauneonga Lake, Bethel, Eldred, Yulan, Highland Lake, Barryville, Swan Lake and White Sulphur Springs)

District 2 – Nadia Rajsz, Democrat, Chair, representing the townships of Forestburgh, Lumberland and Thompson, including the Village of Monticello (hamlets of Forestburgh, Glen Spey and Pond Eddy)

District 3 – Brian McPhillips, Democrat, representing the townships of Liberty, Neversink and Rockland (hamlets of White Sulphur Springs, Parksville, Neversink, Grahamsville, Claryville, Livingston Manor and Roscoe)

District 4 – Nicholas Salomone Jr., Republican, Minority Leader, representing the Township of Mamakating, including the villages of Bloomingburg and Wurtsboro (hamlets of Summitville, Phillipsport, Spring Glen and Burlingham)

District 5 – Catherine Scott, Democrat, representing the townships of Callicoon, Cochecton, Delaware, Fremont and Tusten (hamlets of Youngsville, Callicoon Center, North Branch, Callicoon, Hortonville, Kenoza Lake, Fremont Center, Obernburg, Hankins, Long Eddy, Cochecton, Lake Huntington and Narrowsburg)

District 6 – Luis Alvarez, Democrat, representing the townships of Bethel, Callicoon, Liberty and Thompson, including the villages of Jeffersonville and Liberty (hamlets of Ferndale, Harris, Swan Lake, White Sulphur Springs and Youngsville)

District 7 – Joseph Perrello, Republican, Vice Chair, representing the townships of Fallsburg and Mamakating, including the Village of Woodridge (hamlets of Woodbourne, Fallsburg, Mountaindale and Glen Wild)

District 8 – Amanda Ward, Republican, representing the townships of Fallsburg and Thompson, including the Village of Ateres (hamlets of Harris, Kiamesha Lake, South Fallsburg, Woodbourne, Loch Sheldrake and Hurleyville)

District 9 – Terry Blosser-Bernardo, Republican, representing the townships of Mamakating and Thompson, including the Village of Monticello (hamlets of Rock Hill, Thompsonville and Glen Wild)

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Taxes and Finances

• Adopted a 2026 budget which significantly reduced the proposed property tax increase without cutting services
• Completely avoided short- or long-term borrowing in 2025, thus not creating any new debt
• Oversaw a plateauing but substantial year of sales, mortgage and room tax revenues, collectively exceeding $100 million
• Updated Lodging Facility Room Occupancy Tax Law to more equitably and accurately address the burgeoning short-term rental industry
• Sullivan County remains in best financial shape ever and free of fiscal stress, as ranked by the NYS Comptroller’s Office 

Infrastructure

• Division of Public Works paved 34 miles of roads, chip-sealed 36 miles more, plus repaired three embankments, replaced 21,000 feet of guiderail and restriped all County roadways
• Completed construction of new Airport Terminal, utilizing $18.5 million State grant to create an attractive, revenue-producing facility
• Switched to new hauler and landfills for municipal solid waste at no additional cost, in anticipation of eventual closure of a previously-utilized upstate landfill
• Approved Local Solid Waste Management Plan, which encourages innovative thinking in managing the County’s waste stream
• Replaced worn-out, decades-old floor at Social Services (Travis) Building in Liberty
• Undertook more than $21 million for road and bridgework in 2025, without any need for bonding
• Three bridges replaced, two bridges rehabilitated, and one bridge eliminated by a road re-alignment
• Allocated more than $15 million for road and bridgework in 2026

Public Health, Welfare and Safety

• Continued an EMS fly car service that has already reduced emergency medical response times by an average of 15 minutes per call by supplementing and supporting the existing EMS agencies
• Added a full ambulance to the fly car service during the busiest months of the year
• Won a half-million-dollar grant from the NYS Department of Health to improve local emergency services
• Authorized agreements to plan and design an emergency communications/cell tower in Jeffersonville, with construction to begin next summer
• Approved rates of pay and benefits to successfully attract experienced NYS corrections officers to the County Jail and Sheriff’s Office, filling nearly all open positions and significantly reducing mandated overtime callouts
• Continued a bonus payment throughout 2025 for Care Center employees who volunteered to pick up additional shifts during specific days/times
• Authorized the issuance of a request for proposals to undertake a comprehensive study of groundwater throughout the County
• Resurrected the Human Rights Commission, adding a full roster of commissioners and employing the Commission’s first full-time executive director
• Continued funding for and operation of the Community Assistance Center, created during the COVID-19 pandemic and still a key connector between residents and the food, shelter and services they need
• Authorized the addition of a weapons detection system and more Sheriff’s deputies to the lobby of the Government Center, to protect both employees and the public
• Reauthorized agreements to keep warming shelters in Liberty and Monticello available seven nights a week for the entirety of the 2025-2026 winter season
• Added cannabis to the list of items covered under the Social Host Law, which holds social-gathering hosts accountable for the illegal provision and/or usage of drugs and alcohol at those gatherings by youth under age 21 
• Opposed the siting of a landfill by Ulster County along the border with Sullivan, a plan which was ultimately withdrawn

Economic and Workforce Development

• Oversaw a year where Sullivan County consistently held a top-ten spot Statewide for job growth and low unemployment
• Allocated $250,000 of needed matching funds to the Town of Liberty in order to extend water/sewer infrastructure down Old Route 17 to create shovel-ready development sites 
• Enacted a $300,000 tourism enhancement grant program (using room tax revenues) with the Sullivan Catskills Visitors Association
• Approved a second round of leadership development training for County staff
• Extended the County’s Military Leave Policy for paid and unpaid leave time to all active-duty members of the U.S. military, not just those serving overseas
• Continued the highly successful Sullivan Promise Scholarship Program, which pays for two full years of tuition for any Sullivan County high school graduate who attends SUNY Sullivan
• Funded Electrical, EMT and CNA classes for local adults seeking to better their prospects and improve their skills, with graduates not having to pay any tuition
• Continued the popular Move Sullivan public transportation service, which expanded to serve northwestern Sullivan County in early 2025 and added shorter loops in downtown Monticello and Liberty
• Worked with the Sullivan County Chamber of Commerce, Partnership for Economic Development, and Town and Village of Liberty to provide resources and alternative employment for those displaced by the closure of the PepsiCo plant in Liberty

Community Initiatives

• Finalized and began administering the largest single grant in County history – $29.9 million – to bring wired and wireless broadband Internet access to the majority of the County’s communities, with construction beginning this past fall
• Allocated a record $387,500 to various local organizations serving youth
• Approved the replacement of RSVP (Retired Senior Volunteer Program), which had been ended by the Federal government, with the County-funded Sullivan Volunteers program, open to all ages
• Authorized the second annual Emergency Services Youth Academy, which exposed local teens to a wide range of emergency responders and response equipment this past summer
• Coordinated well-received, well-publicized Black History Month and Juneteenth programs during Legislature meetings
• Completed a pilot food recycling program, whose success has spurred the County to begin the permitting process for a composting facility at the Monticello Transfer Station
• Continued a paint recycling program, at no cost to users or taxpayers
• Authorized the formation of an Advisory Committee to prepare a Comprehensive Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan
• Disbursed more than $341,000 to over two dozen nonprofits and community groups to use for worthwhile projects, under the Legislative Discretionary Contract Funding Program
• Continued funding of a Countywide roadside litter pluck (adding water bodies and shorelines) and Household Hazardous Waste Days
• Authorized covering the Hudson Valley Rivermen basketball team’s costs to utilize SUNY Sullivan’s Fieldhouse for home games (which are open to the public at no charge)