The Real Scott Manley

In 2011 the town hired an outside investigator to look into a complaint from a Black worker in its Water Department. The report, addressed to the Town Attorney, found “sufficient evidence” that Todd DePew, then the Deputy Highway Superintendent, subjected him to a hostile work environment “on the basis of his race when he made racially biased remarks.” It found that DePew “did in fact, refer to Complainant as a monkey.”

The worker sued in federal court the next year, and the report was filed in the case, where it is a public record. In January 2014 the board made DePew Highway Superintendent. That June it settled the lawsuit. All of this was before Manley’s time on the board.

He took his seat in August 2015. Five months later, at the board’s annual reorganization, DePew was up for another two years.

That September the town’s union, CSEA, filed a grievance against DePew. Seven members signed it, and the union said it “included the use of racial slurs, unwanted touching and physical intimidation.” The Police Chief investigated and presented his findings to the whole board at a special meeting. In December the Supervisor announced what the board had decided.

Later that night the union’s president told the board it “needs to get some guts and finalize this issue.” The Supervisor answered that the board was taking action. The public minutes record none against DePew. For the next ten months they show him running the department as before, with the board approving his purchases and his hires. Manley moved one of the hires himself.

In March 2017 a highway worker sued DePew and the town, alleging he had been “subjected to sexual harassment by unwanted physical touching on several occasions” and then retaliated against for reporting it through his union. DePew retired that October. A month later the board settled the case.

Manley has been Deputy Supervisor since 2017, “helping lead meetings and initiatives,” in his own words. This February a Highway Department employee filed a complaint against two of her superiors, alleging a pattern of hostile and retaliatory behavior. By her account she is the one on administrative leave, “while the accused remain in their positions.” Fifteen years after the first report, it is the same department, and the person sent home is the one who complained.

Now he is asking to run the town.

In May 2023 the Crossroads Hotel on Lakeside Road rented sixty of its rooms for four months to house asylum seekers sent upstate from New York City. They had nowhere else to go.

The town did not argue that these people were dangerous, or that its services could not absorb them. Its objection was that the hotel had the wrong land-use classification. The code office found that housing people for four months was “not hotel use and is not an approved use of the parcel.”

On that finding, Manley moved to put the town into court.

The case went to federal court, and the town was still paying lawyers to defend it nearly three years later. What it cost is not knowable from the public record. The town books all of its litigation to a single budget line, so the bill for this case cannot be separated from any other.

MHE Engineering is the Engineer for the Town of Newburgh. The board appoints the firm by resolution at its reorganization meeting each January, and Manley has voted to appoint them every year since 2021. Their work runs through the minutes continuously: water mains, sewer districts, the recreation center, cost estimates, change orders. Manley votes on those too.

On April 27, 2026 the firm gave $1,150 to Friends of Scott Manley, his campaign committee. The state filing records the purpose in one word. Sponsor.

The same day, at the same event, Lynn Warren gave $1,000, also recorded as a sponsor. Lynn Warren Landscaping has held the town’s grounds maintenance work since 2016, and the address on the campaign filing is the address in the town’s own minutes.

That $1,150 from the town’s engineer is tied for the third largest contribution his campaign has ever received. The largest from anyone other than Manley himself is $2,000 from the Committee to Elect Gil Piaquadio, given across four contributions since 2019, the most recent being $1,000 in February 2026. Piaquadio is the sitting Supervisor whose seat Manley is running for.

None of this is against the rules. New York exempts professional services from competitive bidding, so the town has never had to advertise its engineering work, and in eleven years of published minutes it never has. No rule stops the firm holding that work from sponsoring a councilman’s fundraiser. No rule stops the councilman from voting to reappoint them the following January. That is the problem, not the exception to it.

Manley abstained on giving himself a taxpayer-funded vehicle in January 2023, and abstained again in January 2025. In January 2024 he seconded the motion and voted for it, at a meeting where two of the five seats were empty.

This is the record of a man who has never once stood against anything, and who takes what is offered when the seats are empty.