Worst-hair award goes to Chris Gibson with his high and tight GI ’do. My mother, using a bowl and pinking shears, did a better job when we were kids. I can appreciate that after 24 years of Army haircuts, Gibson has become attached to his buzz. Time to steal a march from outgoing Congressman Maurice Hinchey, he of the Elvis look.
The day after election, Gibson remained committed to establishing a district office in the old Bank of America building on Broadway in Kingston. Trouble is, the city doesn’t yet own the building and the Common Council has shown no enthusiasm over endorsing Mayor Shayne Gallo’s plan to establish a police station there. Gallo, just back from a 10-day vacation in Aruba, needs to get his ducks lined up.
Tkaczyk — née Gable — is a pretty good sport about people garbling her unpronounceable married name, less so for her first. During a recent interview, I kept calling her “Cynthia,” inadvertently channeling former colleague and best bud Cynthia Werthamer of Saugerties. “Most people have trouble with my last name,” Cecilia said after the fourth botch. “Senator,” if it works out for her, will be a lot easier to remember.
Cheryl DeForest, Republican candidate for Saugerties tax collector, and her husband are avid Harley riders, with his-and-her bikes. Cheryl, concerned about “helmet head,” chose not to take her baby hog to the Republican town picnic last summer. “You know, the photo ops with other candidates and all,” she told me at the Glasco Fire Company breakfast last Sunday.
Alas, DeForest could get no traction against Democrat Suzanne Filak, who peeled out to a 2-1 victory.
Meanwhile, Saugerties Town Supervisor Kelly Myers has been pulling her hair out trying to get New York City Department of Environmental Protection bureaucrats to listen to local concerns about Ashokan water releases into the Esopus Creek. “I was on the phone with them all day Sunday the day before the storm until they stopped calling back,” she said. With the reservoirs at around 70 percent capacity, DEP inexplicably began releasing water days before the storm hit.
Nuke ’em
As Chris Gibson discovered to deep chagrin, even hinting at siting a nuclear power plant anywhere in the Hudson Valley is a ticket for political disaster. After toying with the idea at a few campaign stops, Gibson quickly reversed course. But did he? Gibson’s stated reason for shelving plans for a nuclear plant was that because after self-limiting to four terms (ending in 2016) he wouldn’t be in office long enough to see it through.
Julian Schreibman supporters seized upon this less-than-Shermanesque denial to stage an anti-nuke rally on the Walkway Over the Hudson about three weeks ago. Present were Maurice Hinchey, the original no-nuke — does anybody still remember Nine Mile Point Two on Lake Ontario? — plus some Sierra Club people, other environmentalists and campaign flacks. Did I mention the spy from Gibson’s camp? I will.
Naturally, media ignored this latest photo op in droves since Gibson only a few days earlier at a candidate debate with his foe in Lake Katrine had thrice denied plans to advance nuclear power in the region.
The spy, called “trailer” in the trade, hung around the fringe of the rally hoping for something stupid and/or Schreibman to jump off the bridge. Rally organizers called the cops demanding the intruder’s removal. “It’s a public park,” a state trooper rather sensibly told them, according to sources. T’was a fitting end to a cynical self-promotion.
Bite what?
Cutting-edge baker Deising’s of Kingston offered presidential cookies before the election. As they say in the polling business, this is unscientific, but Obama cookies sold out while Romney cookies went stale. Could it be people just wanted to chew on the president, or was Romney just a crumb? (The latter is for my pal in West Hurley who canceled his subscription after the paper endorsed Obama.)
