This organization of bright young political science majors and no doubt future politicians, speaks of Hein as though they actually know him. Some of them do. The organization’s release pillories Republican candidates they’ve probably never met, like John Faso, Pete Lopez and Andrew Heaney. The release smelled like boilerplate hand-delivered from Democratic headquarters.
In fact, the group is an adjunct of the Democratic state committee. As such, can formal endorsement by far behind?
But there was a Hein connection, after all. College Democrats President Jamie Zieno told me Hein “attended a couple of events” over the past few years and was instrumental in establishing a chapter at SUNY New Paltz. “We endorsed him for county executive in November,” he added, in part due to Hein’s leadership in converting the vacant Sophie Finn grade school in Kingston to a branch of SUNY Ulster.
Zieno said he wasn’t aware that the man College Democrats proclaimed would “adequately represent” them had frozen funding to Ulster County Community College for the first six years of his term. Maybe he just didn’t ask. Welcome to the NFL, kid.
Meanwhile, the Faso campaign, at least, seems to be taking Hein’s candidacy as a fait accompli. Said a Faso flack in a prepared release last week, “Before he even takes the oath of office (for a fourth term as executive), Hein is orchestrating an elaborate charade attempting to create an impression that he is being drafted as a candidate. It’s simple farce, but the joke sadly is on Ulster County taxpayers.”
Hein’s dilemma isn’t in securing the Democratic nomination — it’s his for the taking — but in avoiding the backlash he might suffer in Ulster County, which only a few weeks ago re-elected him to a four-year term many expected he would honor. On the other hand, the significant body of voters who voted against Hein (42 percent) may have wished he’d go someplace else.
Road to nowhere
After attending two meetings of the county legislature’s Railroad Corridor Committee, the best I can say is that rail and trail advocates were assembled twice in the same room, and that nobody bit anybody.
Other than that, this thing has been a fiasco in several acts. Having ducked a decision until after their election, legislators at last week’s first meeting rambled on about a consultant’s report they’d received only that day. Given a week more to study it, most members didn’t seem to understand what they’d very recently read (assuming they’d read it). It just goes to show that when you’ve ignored a complicated issue for literally years on end, it’s really hard to catch up in a week. Which is all the time the committee has left to file a resolution on the highest and best use of the corridor with the full legislature next Tuesday.
The formal resolution by the moribund legislature will continue this dog-and-pony show. The county is locked in litigation with the railroad. The 25-year lease signed in 1991 expires next May 31. At this late date, a sense-of-the-legislature resolution would have negligible effect.
And these people think they deserve a raise?
