Mahr takes over as Wayne supervisor

WAYNE--The Wayne town board held a meeting Tuesday, Sept. 14 to accept the recent resignation of Supervisor Tom Dunbar and appoint Town Clerk Bill Mahr to the vacated position. Dunbar, whose term was set to expire this December, resigned on Sept. 3 and had lost the Republican primary election to Mahr in June.
"It was a very adversarial board the whole time," said Dunbar. "Basically they tried to do whatever they could to drive me out."
Dunbar defeated long-time supervisor Steve Butchko in the 2019 election. During a town meeting in January of 2020, Dunbar detailed discovering what he described as "The town [was] missing two file cabinets full of files, 18 file boxes, we had no electronic data files, our laptop was wiped, backup drives were deleted and the town's supervisor's phone was missing."
Dunbar said he has been met with constant resistance to any changes he has tried to make.
"I left all the records and things (Mahr) will need to do things like make payroll," said Dunbar. "Everything was in place when I left and I didn't empty out the office."
Calling his time on the board very contentious, Dunbar said things became so strained that other board members would not even approve his supervisors' minutes during meetings.
In order for Mahr to take the position of supervisor, he first had to resign as the town clerk. Mahr did not respond for comment on this story.
Board member Elizabeth Kenyon said after the meeting that she was eager to start a new era on the board with Mahr at the head.
"It's going to be a smooth transition," said Kenyon. "I really can't comment on much more than that, but Mahr is going to be a good supervisor, I have a lot of faith in him. He does a lot of research on the things he does, he is an all-around good person."
Despite resigning from the board, and insisting that he feels an immense sense of relief in doing so, Dunbar said that as a citizen and resident of Wayne he will continue to do his best to remain informed and active in the community.