Toward that end, negotiating teams will bargain for space. The five-year “renewal” currently on the table will go to three, cleverly timed to expire in an off-year for all parties concerned. The current sales tax formula will be retained. Handshakes and hugs will get publicly exchanged.
But let the city and towns be wary. They are dealing with strange bedfellows. Anybody who can come up with this reckless clawback scheme can try it again.
Here comes the judges
While there appears to be a lively campaign for county surrogate judge shaping up, odds are Kingston city Judge Phil Kirschner will be nominated by acclaim by fellow Democrats in June.
Kirschner comes from solid political stock. His father, Lew, was Democratic county treasurer for almost 30 years after several years on the county legislature.
After four years on the bench, Kirschner gets good marks for knowledge of the law, judicial temperament and an ability to move a busy agenda. Kirschner will be seeking a full, 10-year term at six figures per. Nice work even if the clientele on Monday morning looks like the road show from that Star Wars café.
I don’t expect a stampede, but there will be sniffers. Former mayor Shayne Gallo, after blowing what should have been a lifetime job in office, is a lawyer who has always lusted for the ermine and from what I hear isn’t all that busy since leaving City Hall on Jan. 1.
Gallo put his name forward for judge in 2011 when Kirschner was appointed by former mayor Jim Sottile. To put it politely, Sottile thought Gallo better suited to serve the city as an obscure assistant corporation counsel in his administration.
Gallo would of course face vehement opposition from the city committee — the same people who brought him down as mayor — if he were to put his name forth for judge. Kirschner, like his father, does not make political enemies.
Meanwhile, the esteemed county Surrogate Judge Mary Work, a Democrat, is being forced from office by a discriminatory law that says jurists cannot run in the year they turn 70.
This one is shaping up as a battle between Rosendale and Esopus. And there could be more.
Two Democrats from Rosendale, Sharon Graff and Sara McGinty, have announced for the 10-year term, while Republicans Peter Matera and Kyle Barnett from Esopus are expected to enter the ring. McGinty’s and Barnett’s are familiar names; she’s married to Family Court Judge Tony McGinty (re-elected without opposition to a 10-year term last year), while Barnett is Esopus town supervisor. Graff carries a notable legal name. Her father-in-law, Wayne Graff, known in his day as “the man from plaid” for his colorful trousers, was a staple of the local bar.
With part-time Supreme Court pay factored in, surrogates can expect to earn about $160,000 a year.
