New Baltimore voters head to the polls next Tuesday with a town supervisor's race that pits sitting Supervisor Denise Taber against her own town clerk, Barbara Finke, and the contest arrives with an unresolved ethics complaint hanging over both of them. Taber, a Democratic incumbent seeking a second term, is registered as a Republican. Finke, the Republican and Conservative-line challenger, has run the town clerk's office for more than a decade.
According to The Daily Gazette, Taber previously served on New Baltimore's Zoning Board of Appeals before unseating then-Supervisor Jeffry Ruso on the opposite ballot line in 2025. Finke, meanwhile, has held the clerk post since 2014 by the Gazette's account, though she has separately described her tenure as running 16 years and other material places her start in 2015 — a discrepancy the available record does not resolve. She previously served as a town councilwoman.
Finke was appointed interim town clerk after the previous town clerk was forced to resign.
An Ethics Complaint Still Awaiting Review
Reporting authored by Collin Bolebruch for The Daily Gazette notes that Taber and Finke are on opposite sides of an outstanding ethics complaint, filed in June 2026, that has yet to be reviewed by the town's ethics committee. The complaint stems from an employee's allegation that Taber entered Finke's office and took papers containing the employee's personal information without consent from either Finke or the employee.
Greene County Legislator Patrick Linger raised the matter publicly on October 28, appearing before the New Baltimore Town Board to ask why the report had not gone before the ethics committee as town code requires. Linger said he did not receive a satisfactory answer. Town board member Danny Ferry responded that he believed the complaint was political in nature. Neither Taber nor Finke was available for comment that Friday, and Taber has not responded to multiple requests for comment, per the Gazette's reporting.
A separate blog account posted in April describes a public statement Taber read at a New Baltimore Town Board meeting on April 27, 2026, addressing her entry into the clerk's office and the removal of employee personnel records — though that account is not an official investigative finding. The town code includes a chapter on ethical conduct.
Finke's Pitch to Voters
She has said serving New Baltimore residents has been enjoyable and that public service is her passion, adding that she enjoys working with the public and staying busy.
The town clerk's office is largely administrative, a point relevant given her move from a mostly administrative post into a partisan supervisor's race.
A Broader Greene County Picture
The New Baltimore contest is one of four races this November in which incumbent town supervisors across Greene County face voters, according to the Gazette's election coverage. Registration data cited in that reporting shows the county leans Republican, with 12,363 active registered Republicans compared to 8,877 Democrats and 9,423 independent voters. Early voting ran from October 24 through November 1 ahead of Election Day on November 3, when New Baltimore residents will choose between Taber, on the Democratic and Hills and River lines, and Finke, on the Republican and Conservative lines, per the county's election guide.
