U.S. Senate
Incumbent Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand is the obvious choice here. Challenger Wendy Long thinks everything is fine with fracking and that there’s no need to study any further. There’s a disqualification right off.
It’s interesting to have a U.S. Senator from upstate. Support Gillibrand.
State Senate
The newly gerrymandered lines have taken long time state senator Bonacic out of our area and given us two candidates from up yonder counties, continuing the streak of non-locals in the state senate, going back to Arthur Wicks in 1956.
The 46th district includes Woodstock, Saugerties, Hurley, Kingston, Ulster, Marbletown and more, but not Olive and Shandaken, and pits Republican George Amedore, an assemblyman from Rotterdam who runs his family’s construction business, against Democrat Cecilia Tkaczyk of Duanesburg, who worked in the state Senate and for affordable housing advocacy organizations.
Both visited our offices for interviews. Both are in favor of more funding for education upstate by the state and relief of property taxes by shifting education funding to the income tax. Tkaczyk is set against fracking; Amedore was a previous supporter who has now said he is waiting on results of environmental studies. Tkaczyk supports campaign finance reform; Amedore is using that against her in a flurry of negative ads this week. There are big differences on social issues. Amedore, a current assemblyman, voted against same-sex marriage and is pro-life in all instances. Tkaczyk, a legislative consultant and Duanesburg school board member, says she would have voted in favor of allowing same-sex marriages in New York, and is pro-choice.
For us, this is an easier call. We endorse Cecilia Tkaczyk.
State Supreme Court
We support Mike Kavanagh. No question. He’s got a rough road ahead as what is usually a brokered seat, with both parties agreeing on the candidates and no contested races, has this year become a dog fight with the Republican Kavanagh on the wrong side of the numbers of registered voters. So we’ll stand with our local guy, whose record, first as DA and then as a judge, is first rate.
In this race with four candidates for two seats (Malone is the Republican, Stephan Schick the other Democrat) there’s not much information about the other guys. We’ve seen democrat Richard Mott work as a defense attorney in a murder case and he was quite competent at that.
Town races
In the past, we have endorsed supervisors and councilmen, usually reasoning that those positions are primarily managerial, not ideological. This year the race is for town justice and receiver of taxes, two positions that have no conceivable relationship to politics. Indeed, the discourse over the race between Claudia Andreassen and Ken Gilligan for judge and Suzi Filak and Cheryl DeForest has centered on competency and attacks not relating to the job.
On the former, we believe all four candidates are extremely capable and eminently qualified for the positions they seek. Attempts to disqualify Andreassen for not being an attorney and Filak for not earning a bachelor’s degree are not convincing. Andreassen has 25 years experience in the county’s probation department. Filak has worked in the tax office for six years and was tapped by former receiver of taxes, the much respected Peg Nau, for the job in May.
We’ve received scores of letters criticizing Filak’s appointment because she’s related to councilwoman Leeanne Thornton. That’s true, but according to Thornton, “Suzie Filak’s deceased father was a second or third cousin to my husband Larry.” For a small town, that’s not disqualifying.
Andreassen has been criticized for a 2011 conviction for passing a school bus on the right. She says she thought the bus was making a left turn. The bus driver said the bus was clearly stopped, with its lights flashing, and a student preparing to exit. That’s what we know. Some have charged that Andreassen was convicted of passing a school bus on the right and endangering the life of a child, which is not quite true — the latter is worded the same as a criminal charge, which was not part of the incident. Now you can say that passing a bus, even by mistake, poses a danger to a child who may be imminently exiting, but we’ve heard from some folks who speak about the incident in terms that go beyond what were part of the case.
As with the tax receiver position, we are not convinced that either candidate is unacceptable, rather, that both would do well in the position, and thus we have no endorsement to make. In any case, Saugerties will be well served for having a surplus of qualified and capable people seeking these two offices.
Charter changes
There is a single proposition on the ballot, one to approve or deny a package of changes to the Ulster County charter. It is a package of modest changes that tend to clarify issues that were loose ends of the original document, like providing for an Acting County Executive to be appointed should the current exec be unable to continue, where there was no line of succession before; clarifies the differences between county commissioner of finance and county comptroller; provides terms of office for ethics board members…items like that.
You can find them all here: https://www.ulstercountyny.gov/charterrevision.
The one that was deleted before the package was formalized, is what allows us to support the changes. That change would have given the county executive subpoena power, something that no chief executive has. Good move.
