Jolie Dunham, 68, is a retired vocal music teacher and a former trustee on the Kingston Board of Education. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

KW: How did you or your family come to Kingston?

Jolie Dunham: My grandmother was Beatrice Jones. She was from Brown’s Station, which is where the Ashokan Reservoir is now. She grew up there and when they made it a reservoir they made everybody leave and flooded the area, so she came down to Kingston. My grandfather was Irving Dunham. When I was younger I was in the Daughters of the American Revolution because the Dunhams came over from England, I don’t know if it was on the Mayflower, but one of those ships before the revolution. They were in New York City and migrated up here. My grandfather worked for New York State and he was a very popular local musician. I have all these old posters of Irv Dunham and his orchestra from the 40s and 50s. They played gigs all over Ulster County. So that’s how we ended up here. I grew up in the Old Dutch Church; sang my first solos there. My first duet was there on Christmas Eve 1968. So that was part of my family’s legacy, I was very tied to that institution.

KW: What do you like about Kingston?

JD: What I love about Kingston is its historical roots. I had my cousins here this weekend and I took them Uptown and we looked at all of the rich history. I love the mountains, I just wish we had a beach nearby and it would be perfect. One thing I always wished, and I used to tell [former mayor] Jimmy Sottile this back in the day was that Kingston should capitalize more on its historical roots. We have the Burning of Kingston but I think it would be incredible if they promoted that more as a living history experience continually. We have so much history here it could be a whole industry. People already come up here from the city and other areas and that could be a great source for some extra dollars. And then there’s the waterfront. I have old pictures from the turn of the century when they had this huge steamliner that would come up from the city and at Kingston Point there was this fabulous giant hotel, it was a destination. I know they’ve tried to do a little bit with [the Hutton Brickyard] but when I look at those pictures I think, where did it all go?

KW: What would you change about Kingston?

JD: I don’t want to get political, but I will — I would love to see more balance in the city council. I think one-party rule, whether it’s Republican or Democrat, is bad for our city. I think if there was more balance and more bipartisan efforts we could build a lot more. We could have more of the kind of development that’s not pushing people out of their homes and that’s a big concern, what’s been going on in terms of gentrification. There’s a lot of senior citizens that cannot afford to stay in their homes because of the taxes and that’s a shame because they are the rich historical roots of Kingston. But [Republicans] don’t want to run because they think it’s a lost cause. I’ve been very involved in Jackie Auringer’s campaign [for New York’s 18th Congressional District ] and I’ve found that politics is not a nice business when you go behind the scenes. It’s all about who can get what from who and making deals and it’s very hard to break through that. Our forefathers wanted our system to be about the common man, people like [former congressman] Chris Gibson who come and serve and then move on.

KW: How do you think Kingston will be different in 10 years?

JD: I wish I could be more positive about it but I just see more Kingstonians being pushed out of their homes, more New Yorkers being pushed out of their homes because of the level of taxes. Now Ulster County is talking about a new surcharge [income] tax and people are just fed up. My concern is that ever since 2001 and then again during the pandemic, you had the housing market being driven up so high by people moving here because of the beauty and the richness of the history in this community. I fear that history is fading away. The people who are moving here, God bless them that they can afford to do that but they just don’t have the love for the history and the richness of the community that some of us who were born and raised here have.