“This was a real grass-roots effort, just look around the room,” said Fuentes.
Republican meltdown
While Gallo benefited from post-primary Democratic Party unity and strong bonds with multiple constituencies, he was also helped by a badly fractured opposition. Kingston GOP Committee Chairman Tony Sinagra had gone into the campaign season with high hopes for Andi Turco-Levin, a first-term Ward 1 alderwoman with charisma, a record of outspokenness on the Common Council and crossover appeal to Democratic and non-enrolled voters. But his hopes of a unified party marching behind a single candidate were shaken when Polacco, Cahill and Jacobs all declined to set aside their own mayoral ambitions, leading to a four-way primary. Sinagra’s hopes were dashed when Polacco, who literally wore holes in his shoes campaigning door-to-door, pulled off a stunning upset victory, edging out Turco-Levin by 10 votes, while Cahill announced that he would continue to campaign on the Conservative Party line.
At the Republican Party election night bash at the Holiday Inn, while his county counterparts celebrated holding on to their legislative majority and District Attorney Holley Carnright’s massive re-election win, Sinagra had to console himself with a status quo — maintaining two seats on the Common Council — while lamenting what might have been.
“The problem was the top of the ticket,” said Sinagra. “I think if the primary had went the other way we would be in a better position tonight.”
‘Mandate for change’
Gallo comes from a lineage steeped in Kingston politics. He is the brother of the late mayor, T.R. Gallo, who died in office in 2002 and the son of the late T. Robert Gallo, an alderman-at-large in the 1970s. He has worked in city government as civil service secretary in the 1980s and as assistant corporation counsel since 2004, spending the intervening years working on behalf of municipal labor unions. But despite the perception among his campaign-season detractors that he was the “insider” candidate, Gallo has stressed transparency and promised to “reconnect” people with municipal government.
