Town Supervisor · Cornwall, New York
Helen Bunt
Cornwall means community.
People over party.
Bunt for Supervisor
Cornwall means community.
People over party.
I have lived in Cornwall for more than fifty years. I opened businesses here, raised my children here, volunteered here, and served this town in office. Here is what that record actually looks like.
You can disagree about policy. You cannot disagree about what was disclosed and what was not. This is the record of the last several years, set out in full, so you can check it yourself against the Town's own documents.
More than double. Every figure comes from the Town of Cornwall's own adopted budgets, which any resident can request and read.
Residents have not been shown the total cost, the term, or what the borrowing means for the average household bill.
A plan that will shape density and development for a generation was drafted with residents at the edge of the room instead of at the table.
Requests for the promised five year plan produced routine budget documents. Draft audit materials were withheld under a broad exemption claim.
Decisions that arrive at the Board already agreed leave the public comment period as a formality rather than a real chance to be heard.
Not the county. Not the school district. The Town of Cornwall's own tax rate, in the Town's own adopted budgets. Helen has sat through those budget nights before, and she knows the difference between a hard year and a habit.
Responsible budgeting with no surprises. Every tax dollar spent with discipline and a clear purpose, and a plain English accounting of what borrowing has already cost Cornwall residents.
Open records, open meetings, and decisions made in the light. Contracts, consultants, and developer agreements posted where residents can read them before the vote, not after.
Development that Cornwall guides rather than development that happens to Cornwall. Grow commercial ratables to relieve the pressure on homeowners, and protect the character that brought people here.
Specific, checkable, and short enough that you can hold me to every line of it.
A resident readable summary of every adopted budget, showing what went up, what went down, and why, released alongside the tentative budget rather than after adoption.
Every professional services contract, consultant engagement, and developer agreement posted to the Town website when it is signed.
Statutory deadlines treated as deadlines. No indefinite extensions and no exemptions stretched to cover records the public is entitled to see.
A full public accounting of outstanding debt, what it costs residents each year, and a written plan to bring it down.
Actively recruit the commercial development that broadens the tax base, so the burden stops landing on homeowners by default.
Regular, scheduled forums on land use, the Comprehensive Plan, and the budget, with time for residents to speak and answers on the record.
This is a local campaign funded by local people. Every contribution goes toward reaching Cornwall voters directly.
Helen Bunt has lived in Cornwall for more than fifty years. She raised two children who graduated from Cornwall Central. She opened a day school and a deli on these streets, and she signed the front of a paycheck long before she ever signed a town budget.
That order matters. Before Helen was ever Supervisor, she was a small business owner who knew what a tax bill does to a family and to a storefront. Butterhill Day School. Uptown Butterhill. The Cornwall Deli. Thousands of mornings of getting the doors open, meeting a payroll, and knowing her customers by name.
The volunteering came in the same breath as the business. Past president of the Cornwall Lions Club, past president of the Chamber of Commerce, and past president of the YWCA. Not one term as a line on a resume, but decades of showing up for the fundraisers, the scholarships, the parades, and the quiet phone calls nobody puts in a newsletter.
Then the town asked her to serve. Helen was elected Town Supervisor, and later returned to serve twelve years on the Town Board, including as Deputy Supervisor. She voted on the 2019 Comprehensive Plan and the zoning that followed it, deliberately protecting Cornwall from high density overdevelopment while expanding room for the commercial ratables that hold a tax rate down.
And when Helen lost her husband, this town carried her. Neighbors showed up with food, with rides, and with company, quietly and without being asked. She has never forgotten it. That is not a campaign line. It is the reason she is running.
She is asking for one two year term. Not to build a political career, but to fix what is broken and to make room for the next generation of Cornwall residents who care enough to step up.
Cornwall is more than a place I live. It is the place that helped raise my family, and when life got hard, it helped hold me together too. The same people who showed up for me deserve a local government that shows up for them.
Helen BuntThese are the questions Cornwall residents actually ask at the door, at the deli, and in the comments. If yours is not here, send it in and it will be added.
I get why people are asking for specifics. I would too. But I cannot hand you a list of cuts today, and anybody who does is making it up. The Town has not shown us what its own line items are for, or where the money is really going. I am not going to pretend I can see through a wall.
What I can tell you is how I would go about it.
First thing, actually see the budget. The tentative budget is due at the Town Clerk's office by the end of this month. But a number on a page means nothing if nobody will tell you what is behind it. So step one is getting the detail. And if the Town will not give it up, you will hear that from me, loud and clear.
Then there are the auditors. Last year, the Town's own auditors told the Board it needed a plan to deal with its operating deficits. That advice is still sitting in a drawer. I would take it out and follow it. All of it.
And I would ask the people who actually do the work. Our department heads know what it takes to keep the roads plowed and the water running. Their requests go to the Supervisor before you or I ever see a number. I want to know what they asked for, and what got changed on the way to the Board.
Now, the slush fund games. I know that sounds harsh, but that is what it is. There is always money for somebody's pet project. A line item transfer here, a budget change there, and it is off and running before you ever got a say. That is not the bookkeeper's fault. That is a choice the people in charge keep making, and I would stop it. If it was not in the budget, it waits for next year's budget. Where it gets planned right, priced honestly, and put in front of you first.
The only exception is health and safety. A water main breaks, a culvert fails, a road is not safe, you fix that now, no question. But a project with a ribbon cutting attached? That is not an emergency. It can wait a year.
Every dollar borrowed today for something that could have waited is a dollar you will be paying back for years. I want you to be able to stay in Cornwall. Buy a house here. Raise your kids here. Not get taxed out of the town you grew up in. That does not happen by accident. It happens because somebody finally says no. Or at least, not yet.
So keep asking the hard questions. Ask me, and ask the Supervisor what the line items are for. As the details come out, I will tell you what I see and what I would do about it. And if they will not show us, I will tell you that too. You deserve to know either way.
I am completely behind a pool for the town. It has been a tremendous resource over the years.
What we need to figure out is how to utilize it more. When you build a pool of that cost, only having it open for six weeks is not a sound investment.
So we need to come up with a full operating plan that not only addresses building the pool but operating the pool, before a shovel goes in the ground.
Because the people I talk to every day feel like decisions about their town are being made without them, and that should not be normal.
I am not looking to build a political career. I am asking for one two year term to fix what is broken and to make room for the next generation of Cornwall residents who care enough to step up.
It is real, and it is not my number. It comes from the Town of Cornwall's own adopted budgets, which any resident can request and read.
Two things to be clear about. That figure is the town tax rate, not your county tax and not your school tax, which are set by other bodies. And it covers a six year span. I will hand the source documents to anyone who asks for them.
No, and my record says so. I voted to adopt the 2019 Comprehensive Plan and the zoning that followed it, which deliberately protected Cornwall from high density overdevelopment while expanding the potential for commercial development.
That balance was the whole point. Commercial ratables broaden the tax base and take pressure off homeowners. Dense residential development does the opposite: it adds children to the schools and demand on our services without paying for itself.
What I am against is development that happens to Cornwall rather than development Cornwall guides.
Less than people hope and more than the town has been doing. The Supervisor does not set your school tax or your county tax. The Supervisor does prepare the tentative town budget, and that is real leverage.
Three things move the town portion: spending discipline line by line, a wider commercial tax base so homeowners are not carrying it alone, and an honest accounting of what borrowing costs us every year before we borrow again.
Because I mean it. Two years is enough time to open the books, publish the budget in language people can read, get contracts online, and answer the records requests that have been sitting.
It is not enough time to get comfortable. That is the point.
By doing specific things that can be checked, not by saying the word transparency more often.
Publish a resident readable summary of every budget alongside the tentative budget rather than after adoption. Post every professional services contract, consultant engagement, and developer agreement when it is signed. Treat records request deadlines as deadlines. Hold scheduled community forums before major land use and budget votes, with answers on the record.
Every one of those is listed on this site so you can hold me to it.
Send it. Questions that come up more than once get added to this page with a real answer, not a dodge.
“She listened without voicing her opinion. She questioned, not threatened. She carefully offered her practical knowledge.”Susan KamletCornwall, New York
“She will move the town forward with integrity, responsibility and respect for the community as a whole.”Elsa CameronCornwall, New York
“Helen has never asked for credit. The things she does for people here do not get announced, and she shows up anyway.”Steven LonginottCornwall, New York
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