Bill Reynolds is a lifelong resident of Ulster County and has been living in Kingston for 30 years. Born in Kingston’s Benedictine Hospital, he was raised in his other favorite community of Woodstock, N.Y . He is the son of Theresa Turck Reynolds and the late Bruce A. Reynolds. He’s the father of Sean W. Reynolds who currently attends Kingston High School. He is a former alderman and Majority Leader of the Kingston Common Council.
Serving Kingston’s Seventh Ward, Bill was first elected to the Council in 1993 and became Majority Leader three years later. As Majority Leader, he served as chief advocate for the interests of the Council’s Democratic Majority in budget and public policy negotiations with the Mayor and Council Minority, participated in the appointment process to the Council’s standing committees, and served as the Majority’s chief spokesperson to the media. Reynolds also chaired several of the Council’s standing committees, including the Finance Committee, which is responsible for approving the City budget.
As a public servant, Bill was always committed to delivering City services at an affordable price, and providing experienced, effective representation to all of the people in his ward, regardless of party affiliation. A committed Democrat who has earned the support of the Independence and Working Families parties, Reynolds’ political motto has always been People First, Party Second.
In his tenure as Alderman, Bill emerged as a leading advocate for the needs of the City’s families, working people, and taxpayers, as well as business leaders, tourism representatives, and historic preservationists. As such, he voted to eliminate health benefits for aldermen so the money could be used to set up street clean-up crews; held taxes and fees down to affordable levels; provided the City workforce with the equipment it needs to deliver City services efficiently and professionally; created a business park so Kingston’s businesses remain in City borders. He voted to for tax breaks for our veterans and led the way in establishing tax incentives for people who own historic buildings. He brokered an agreement between the City and the YMCA to create a skateboard park, in an effort to get skaters off the street. He was responsible for the City’s pooper-scooper law, which fines dog owners $100 if they don’t clean up after their pet.
Bill also pushed for the Nuisance Abatement Law to weed out “bad-apple” houses in our neighborhoods, and new rules requiring Zoning Board members to attend educational seminars to be sure they understand planning issues before voting on important property-use issues. He approved a law barring establishments from selling pornographic materials near schools, churches, or in residential areas. Following a number of arson incidents committed by a group of volunteer fire fighters a number of years ago, Bill pushed for more expansive background checks of prospective recruits. He successfully fought off attempts by other aldermen to tax a high-tech company which has plans to lay high-speed data cable which has helped to bring Kingston’s businesses and hospitals into the 21st century.
With his colleagues he successfully repealed the home heating fuel tax which proved to be an unacceptable burden to senior citizens and others on fixed incomes. He pushed hard to revamp the City’s zoning code so that commercial buildings which have sat vacant for years may now be used for apartments and condominiums. This move will prove to be an enormous boon to Kingston’s economy. The point is to encourage people to live where businesses are, so all they need to do is walk through their front door, and down the sidewalk to get what they need, without having to get in their cars.
Bill Reynolds also chaired the Council’s Public Access Cable Committee, which helped to provide the necessary funding for the establishment of a citizens cable commission. This commission oversees Kingston’s public access channel 23, allowing citizens to produce and air their own community programming on television.
When it became clear the City would have to provide new, expanded working space for the City Courts and Police Department in 1997, Bill Reynolds was the first to call for the reopening of the so-called “old” City Hall on Broadway, to be used once again as home for city offices. The Mayor and Council heeded his call, providing the funding necessary for the project, the proud results of which we can see at 420 Broadway.
Bill was also the first to call for the establishment of Immigrant’s Way, a project that will include the rebuilding of Kingston’s old North Street as a scenic foot and bicycle path along the Hudson River. The path’s name honors all the great contributions made by Kingston’s immigrant residents who first set foot on our soil in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The site will become home to a new residential area, and be part of an open space plan there. Noting the importance of the Immigrant’s Way concept, Reynolds, together with environmental advocacy group, Scenic Hudson, successfully argued for a plan that would help to preserve open space for public use.
Reynolds successfully pushed through his proposal to establish a local development corporation on the waterfront to accommodate the expanding parking needs of the city’s tourists who have helped businesses on the waterfront thrive.
Although Bill was committed to serving the interests of all Kingstonians, he never forgot that the needs of the people he represented in the Seventh Ward came first. In that light, he provided his constituents with enough black top to repair nearly all the streets in his ward; he has fought for the repair and reconstruction of clogged storm sewer grates and other drainage systems; he directed that dangerous and dying trees be removed from City streets; and he helped homeowners obtain newly-planted street trees free of charge. He regularly directed theCentral Hudson Gas & Electric utility to erect new streetlights where they’re needed. He replaced an aging playground set, a decrepit skating rink at Hutton Park with a basketball court that kids use every day, and he found money in the City budget to rehabilitate Hutton Park’s tenns court, ball field and outdoor barbecue grills, and worked together with the Rec Department to clean up the wooded area surrounding the park. He helped lead the way in rehabilitating the World War Two monument at the corner of Highland and Clifton avenues. He approved a measure banning heavy trucks from travelling through the Seventh Ward. He fought absentee landlords and building code violators who selfishly degrade the quality of life in local neighborhoods with unsightly eyesores. He regularly patrolled the Seventh Ward to identify roadside weed overgrowth, failed trash pick-up, and potholes, and sees to it that the City corrects the problems.
Throughout his years on the Council, Alderman Reynolds, in addition to fulfilling his responsibilities as Majority Leader and past Chair of the Laws & Rules Committee, served as chair of the Economic Development Committee. The highlights of his tenure as chair of this important committee include the establishment of the Kingston Business Park, and the creation of the Kingston/Ulster Empire Zone, which provides tax breaks to businesses in designated areas.
Bill chaired the Public Safety Committee, which oversees traffic and emergency service matters. He chaired the Redistricting Committee, where he authored the current, well-balanced redistricting plan which accounts for population shifts that occurred since 1990, according to the U.S. Census. And he chaired the Cable Committee, and serves as the Council’s liaison to the City Fire Department’s Fire Commission.
Outside of City government, Bill served on the Board of the Friends of Historic Kingston for 10 years during which time he created the groups first membership newsletter. He is a past member of the Kingston Urban Cultural Park/Heritage Area Commission, and the Kingston Lion’s Club. He is currently a member of the Ulster County Ancient Order of Hibernians.
Born 1961 to Bruce and Theresa Turck Reynolds in Kingston’s Benedictine Hospital, Reynolds grew up in Woodstock, NY, where he attended Woodstock Elementary School. (His father’s side of the family settled in Woodstock well before the American Revolution, while is mother’s side, from Bari, Italy, arrived at Kingston Point and settled there one century ago. His grandfather, Charles “Jimmy” Turck was Kingston’s first Italian Alderman-at-Large, serving together with Mayor Oscar Newkirk in 1948.) Reynolds graduated from Onteora High School in Boiceville, NY in 1979, where he was editor-in-chief of the school’s newspaper, the Bull. In 1984 he received his BA in Communications for the State University of New York at Brockport where he also received a minor in Spanish. His education included a semester’s study abroad in Cuernavaca, Mexico. He served as Managing Editor of the College newspaper, the Stylus.
Immediately following his graduation, Bill became a news correspondent for the Kingston Daily Freeman. In 1985 he joined Woodstock’s WDST-FM news department and later became morning news anchors for Kingston’s WKNY-AM and WGHQ-AM radio stations.
In 1989, Reynolds left the news business to become Press Secretary to the late State Senator E. Arthur Gray who at the time represented the City of Kingston. He then joined the Ulster County Democratic Committee and later became administrative aide to Kingston Mayor John Heitzman. In 1990, Reynolds became Communications Director to then-Assemblyman Maurice D. Hinchey, who chaired the Assembly’s Environmental Conservation Committee.
Reynolds joined the State Senate Democratic Conference in 1993 as Assistant Communications Director. He was later named Press Secretary to Democratic leaders Martin Connor and David A. Paterson, until he joined the State Comptroller’s Office in 2004 to become that agency’s director of intergovernmental relations for the Hudson Valley region. He later administered the press offices of NYS Comptroller Tom DiNapoli, the NYS DOT, and NYS Inspector General’s Office.
Bill’s Council Committee Assignments
- Chair, Finance & Economic Development Committee
- Chair, Laws & Rules Committee
- Chair, Cable Committee
- Chair, Redistricting Committee
- Chair, Planning & Economic Development Committee
- Chair, Public Safety Committee
- Chair, Community Development
Kingston Today 