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Mid Hudson Times, Wednesday, April 18, 2018
Mayor Judy Kennedy succumbs to cancer at 73
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Schumer wrote on Sunday. “Both
Assemblyman Frank Skartados and
Mayor Judy Kennedy fought every single
day to better the lives and communities
for residents living in the Hudson Valley
.”“We will all deeply miss their strength,
love and dedication,” stated District 4
Orange County Legislator Kevindaryan
Lujan.
U.S. Congressman Sean Patrick
Maloney lauded Kennedy as a champion
for the city. “Judy Kennedy and I shared
a love for the City of Newburgh, and I saw
her in action, working every day to make
Newburgh the city that its wonderful
people deserve,” Maloney stated. “Judy’s
focus and tenacity empowered her to hold
the city together through a financial crisis
– and to come out the other side stronger.”
A pioneering spirit
Kennedy arrived to the city in 2006 to
work on an ailing Grand Street house
owned by her son. “My intentions at the
time - this was in September of 2006 - was
to renovate a house, flip it and go back to
Boise, Idaho,” Kennedy said in a video
posted to the Independence for Newburgh
Facebook page last month. “And, then I
met people.”
Kennedy described the people of
Newburgh as “passionate” and willing
to work hard to create change. “The next
thing you know, you’re in love with it,
you’re in love with the diversity, and
you’re in love with the grittiness, and you
want to make a difference…” she said. “I
moved me lock, stock and barrel to Grand
Street in 2008.”
Kennedy’s pioneering spirit was
genuine. She was born in Pocatello, Idaho,
along the Oregon Trail, which hundreds
of thousands of pioneers followed
on their journey west during the 19th
Century. A mother of four boys, Kennedy
had been a homemaker, owning her
own bakery and putting herself through
college to earn a bachelor’s degree in
business administration from Colorado
State University.
She worked for the City of Fort Collins,
Colorado, as a manager and consultant
for Hewlett Packard, and as an IT director
for the Albertsons supermarket chain.
She later worked as a life coach, studying
under author and celebrity self-help
expert Tony Robbins. Kennedy was taking
a workshop with Robbins in Hawaii
during the 9/11 terror attacks.
“That day was supposed to be about
relationships,” Kennedy said in an
interview with the Mid Hudson Times
last year. “He changed his curriculum on
Brian Wolfe
Mayor Judy Kennedy poses beneath a portrait of herself.
the fly.” The wisdom she ended up taking
away from the workshop served her for
the rest of her life, she said. “When a
disaster happens, the way we rise above it
is to find our higher cause and to serve,”
Kennedy said matter of factly.
When Kennedy decided to run for
mayor, the city had barely recovered
TRANSITION SERVICE FOR
MAYOR JUDY KENNEDY
WHEN: 11 a.m. on Thursday, April 19
WHERE: Newburgh Armory Unity Center,
located at 321 South William Street in the City
of Newburgh.
The service will include songs, poems and
speeches. A half-hour will be devoted to two-
minute reminiscences about Kennedy. The
mayor asked that no cut flowers be brought
to the ceremony, instead live plants can be
donated for later planting in vacant city lots.
Donations in Kennedy’s memory can be made
to Newburgh’s ShotSpotter program (write
checks payable to the City of Newburgh
with “ShotSpotter” in the memo line), the
Newburgh Ministry and Habitat for Humanity
of Greater Newburgh.
from multi-year tax hikes following the
disastrous city courthouse project, which
put the city into the red by $10 million and
sent property taxes soaring. Residents
were up in arms over the prospect of
another major tax increase when Kennedy
stepped into the fray.
“My taxes rose close to 50 percent in
2010,” Kennedy said. “I organized and got
1,253 signatures on a petition and took it
to Albany to get a control board in here
to take control of the taxes,” Kennedy
said. In Albany, she was told, if she really
wanted to change things, she should run
for office.
Kennedy ran as a Democrat, winning
the mayoral race with more than 60
percent of the vote. She ran again in
2015. However, she lost the Democratic
primary that year, but rejoined the race
as the Independence Party candidate and
won with almost 50 percent of the vote.
Friends, who honored Kennedy at the
Fullerton Mansion last month, recalled
the election. “You needed a GPS to find
her, she was so far down that ballot,”
Mark Carnes said, roasting Kennedy that
night.
Slow and steady progress
The city saw a period of growth during
her tenure, along with accompanying
pains. The zoning code was updated for a
more urban and modern city, streamlining
the permitting process for residents and
small businesses. Fines for littering and
garbage dumping were toughened.
The Illuminated Festival became
a major event in the Hudson Valley,
drawing more than 10,000 people last year.
A skatepark was built at Delano-Hitch
Park. Tyrone Crabb Park and the People’s
Park at the Newburgh Waterfront also
came to life.
Community policing increased to slowly
improve police-community relations.
Police body cameras took the guesswork
out of what happened during arrests.
A citywide video-surveillance system
was beefed up and the new ShotSpotter
system enabled police to pinpoint the
precise locations of gunshots.
These and other law enforcement-
initiatives resulted in a 15 percent
reduction in violent crimes from 2016
to 2017, and a dramatic decrease in
shootings. According to city police, 2017
had 17 shootings compared to 48 in the
previous year.
Yet, all was not rosy. Several fatal
shootings of young, innocent, bystanders
– most notably the shooting deaths of two
young women and the serious wounding
of several other young people at a
Halloween party in 2016 – broke the heart
of the city. The shootings, however, led to
a grassroots campaign that brought about
better lighting and video surveillance of
city streets.
Hundreds of city-owned buildings were
sold during the six years Kennedy served
as mayor, helping to manage property
taxes. And, many millions of gallons of
water were saved due to major repairs to
the city’s water-distribution system.
Some key hirings also had an impact.
City Judge Eddie Loren Williams,
appointed in 2014, has presided over
a highly successful drug court. When
the city’s comptroller was charged with
grand larceny, Katie Mack, who had
worked in the city finance department for
seven years, took the reins with seamless
ease. Though his tenure got off to a rocky
start in 2014, City Manager Michael
Ciaravino drew attention to the presence
of perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) in
the city’s drinking-water reservoir at
Washington Lake in the spring of 2016.
The state assisted the city in switching
over to the Catskill Aqueduct soon after.
It was around this time that Kennedy
was diagnosed with stage-III ovarian
cancer, a type of cancer the Ovarian
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