The Hayseeds blog, No. 229 for the week starting November 4, 2007.
October 21, 2007
Hayseeds No. 228
November 4, 2007
Hayseeds No. 229
November 10, 2007
Hayseeds No. 229
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That's what the GOP has sent out in mailers in Monroe County (aka Rochester & Suburbs) that stereotype all Muslisms are terrorists, and suggest that those who voted against an illegal measure were helping terrorists, by upholding the law of the state.
Democratic candidate Ted Nixon shows the literature and discusses it in his Nixon minute.
Essentially, Monroe County legislature passed a resolution, instructing the Monroe County Clerk to disobey a regulatory change that ended the social security requirement for drivers license. This disobedience will likely get the county sued by the state and will cost taxpayers a lot of money.
Regardless, the Monroe County GOP felt this was a good issue to use against Democrats who are on the verge of gaining control of the legislature. But it's going to cost the county in the long run, and the mailer was patently offensive to both immigrants and to Muslims, who are stereotyped as terrorists.
It got a lot of attention and discussion by the news media. It might excite the Republican base, but it also will galvinize the Democrats. It should be very interesting to watch what happens out in Monroe County.
There are a lot of Republicans that are salivating over raising money to take back Kirsten Gillibrand's seat.
Unfortunately for them, nobody but Kirsten seems to be raising much money for a race that's bound to start within weeks, with people pounding the pavement, running ads, and getting out the word about the re-election of Congresswomen Kirsten Gillibrand.
I think the reason she has done so well at keeping her seat going, is she has been an expert at building coalitions, and getting key groups to support her. Kirsten has the vote of the farmers, the seniors, and Republican women. Democrats all like her, as she has been tough on the war, and keeping our President accountable.
I look forward to the campaign. It will be great talking to the people of the Hudson Valley about the great things their Congresswomen has done, and how she will continue to work for her district.
The Altamont Enterprise has a good rundown of many of the local races for County Legislature across the towns that make up the Hilltowns.
Some interesting notes from the articles...
Sandy Gordon's opponent, the moron Travis Stevens:
Stevens would either introduce or support measures to downsize the legislature to help provide tax relief, he said. He believes less government results in better efficiency.
While Stevens would like to see more information about the added 1-percent county sales tax, he said he believes it could be repealed.
“Any tax that we can cut back on could help out,” Stevens said.
Stevens said the county should support individual towns in their planning.
While he supports agriculture and the rural economy, he said, he doesn’t want to forget about the other taxpayers.
And Sandy:
About 40 percent of the revenue is collected from people who live outside the county and shop here, he said.
“There is absolutely no other way for us to receive tax monies from people outside of our county other than the sales tax,” Gordon said. “Yes, the sales tax is regressive, but it is not as regressive as property tax.”
If there weren’t a provision to extend the 1-percent additional sales tax in the three Hilltowns, it would probably invoke a 30- to 40-percent real property tax change to maintain the budget, he said.
Gordon cited the Albany County Community Housing Trust Fund, established to create and preserve affordable housing, as a good opportunity for county planning. The county executive earlier earmarked $300,000 for its projects. The housing fund was unanimously approved at the county’s meeting this month.
“This is very good to take a look at because we need make sure that there is mixed-income housing stock throughout the county,” said Gordon, “but we also need look at this as a potential vehicle for some farmland preservation as well.”
And in Bill Aylward's race in the 31st district:
Both candidates see a role for the county in maintaining farmland in the rural area that District 31 encompasses.
The county’s recently adopted right-to-farm law was co-sponsored by Aylward. The law essentially protects farmers from complaints by neighboring developments. He has also supported the creation of agricultural districts in the county, Aylward said.
After a recent meeting with the Altamont Fair’s board of directors, Aylward said, local farmer Everett Rau posed an interesting question: It’s good to keep farmers on their land, but who’s going to come after them?
That’s a question Aylward would like to explore further, especially with the federal proposal to close of the Farm Service Agency office in Voorheesville, a move he has objected to.
“What message does that send to young people?” asked Aylward. “That sends a terrible message.”
Danz owns rural land himself, where he has a small business boarding horses. “I’m a member of the Farm Bureau,” he said.
First, said Danz, legislators have to look at how farmland is taxed. He’d like to offer tax breaks or incentives to working farms in the area. He applauded the state’s STAR (School Tax Relief) program, which offers breaks on school taxes to homeowners.
Offering incentives like that to farmers would give the local economy a boost, he said, citing the income generated by area farms like Indian Ladder and Altamont Orchards. Keeping farms like those in business also helps to maintain the character of the area, he said.
“Every time a tax goes up, you have to charge more for what you do,” said Danz. “It’s Economics 101.”
Saving money by sharing services among municipalities in the county is also supported by both candidates. Each cited the failed highway department merger between the town of Berne and Albany County as a good idea handled poorly. Last summer, Berne Supervisor Kevin Crosier and county officials came up with a preliminary plan to merge their highway departments in an effort to be more efficient and save money. Public opinion soon echoed the concerns of town highway workers and, by October, the plan was essentially dead.
“I think… that was premature,” said Aylward, referring to the way officials proposed the plan. Government should come up with a method for implementing shared services, he said, adding that doing something as small as buying road salt in larger quantities and sharing it among municipalities can save money.
Similarly, Danz said that sharing services is a “great idea.” But, he said, only “if it’s approached in the right way.”
On Nov. 6, Danz will appear on the Republican and Conservative lines and Aylward will be on the Democratic, Independence, and Working Families lines.
Ted Danz is an incredible jerk —and is known for harassing neighboring farmers. Not to mention, he's a wealthy brat who wants to shrink the county legislature, a problematic idea, as mentioned previously.
And it should be noted that the races in Westerlo are particularly exciting:
There is no Republican chairperson in Westerlo and no GOP candidates are running for office, according to Barbara Davis with the Albany County Republican Party. Two years ago , the town board tapped Councilman R. Gregory Zeh Jr., a Democrat, to take the place of Councilman Clifton Richardson, who died in office. Richardson was Westerlo’s first Republican town board member in 70 years.
Yum.
It looks like Tom Cunningham got to smile and cut the ribbon right before election days, as they opened two of the traffic circles along the new the Route 85.
While I haven't gotten a chance to look at them, it should be interesting to see how traffic flows around them during the first day that open. It should be also interesting how many accidents there will be after they first open.
If done right, then the result will be much faster flowing traffic. I know that the new temporary lights they put on Route 85 where much faster then the existing light that they installed in the mid-1990s. Hopefully, the net result will be that rush hour traffic gets through this difficult intersection much quicker then in years past.
While this is a little bit late for the holiday, if you have a sweet tooth look at this list.
It looks like out in Rochester, that they came rather close to pulling the majority in the legislature that's long been controlled by Republicans.
It would have been great if they had pulled a majority out there. But still, now they have a strong possibility of picking that seat up by either a member switching parties, or a special election in the next four years. And if that happens, things could be dramatically changing in Rochester.
Good for Joe Morelle. He deserves a pat on the back.
In one of the few races in the county where Democrats lost, two of the seats in Guilderland went Republican. They were Mark Richard and Dave Bosworth's seat.
| Mark Grimm (R) | 4283 | 27% |
| Warren Redlich (R) | 4042 | 26% |
| David Bosworth (D,C,I) | 3683 | 24% |
| Michael Ricard (D,C,I) | 3652 | 23% |
Redlich brought up some serious questions about Bosworth and Richard in his campaign, but it has to be a serious defeat for the County Democratic co-chair to be voted out of office. The time I worked with Bosworth on another race (Bill Aylward's race), I kind of got in the impression that he wasn't running a serious race, and that his shits-and-giggles plus being the County co-chair would ensure his re-election.
Still, regardless of the lackluster effort on the part of the Guilderland Democrats, it looks like both Mary Lou Connelly and Bill Aylward won their seats:
| Mary Lou Connolly (D,C,I) | 821 | 59% |
| Anton Kenov (R, CC) | 599 | 41% |
Anton as you may remember, was the Democratic defector, former young Democrat and Democratic Assemblyman Peter Rivera's Senior Legislative Aide, who decided to run as a conservative Republican against Mary Lou Connolly, after losing the Democratic primary. And he get got the beat-down we promised him from the voters.
And Bill Aylward, managed to defeat Ted Danz, the multi-millionare heating company owner, who likes to harass neighboring farms and destroy town roads with his backhoe. Good for Bill—he's a great environmentalist and a caring person. I really didn't think Bill was going to pull it off.
| William Aylward (D,I, WF) | 1044 | 53% |
| Theodore Danz (R, C) | 920 | 46% |
Numbers from the Board of Elections.
After he won the primary, there was little doubt that he would be re-elected—there are about 4:1 ratio of Democrats in his district. Still, it's great to see the County Legislature for the three western hilltowns being put back into office for four more years.
| Alexander Gordon (D,I) | 1473 | 56% |
| Travis Stevens (R) | 918 | 35% |
| Kevin Crosier (C, WF) | 242 | 9% |
Numbers (again) from the Board of Elections.
Some observations on this race. It looks like Crosier continued to campaign up to the bitter end as a Conservative-Working Families fusion candidate. That is a weird series of lines to run on—Row D and Row E. But he only got 9% of the vote—not surprising as an independent candidate.
Travis Stevens got 35% of the vote, which is disproportionately high for the district. But some people voted against Sandy for his previous support for County tax increases, and the whole Camp Cass debacle. I'm sure some of the 9% for Crosier was Democrats who want Camp Cass closed in Renselearville, but couldn't bear voting for a Republican.
It should be interesting what work that Sandy will do in the future as legislator. He has a strong interest in renewable energy, and will probably be a leading voice in the legislature in future years. He also will do a great job working for the farmers in our county.
It looks like many of the Albany suburbs have gone Democratic with the elections of new supervisors in Colonie, Bethlehem, and the small-town of New Scotland.
Most people would think these results for Bethlehem only a decade ago where wrong. But, yes in 2007, the fine people of Delmar, Slingerlands, South Albany, Elsmire and South Bethlehem, got together and elected a popular Democrat with 66% of the vote.
| John Cunningham (D,I) | 5582 | 66% |
| James Grady (R,C) | 2899 | 34% |
They also installed two Democrats to the Bethlehem Town Council, continuing their majority there (two out of 4 seats up this year).
| Joann Dawson (D,I) | 4591 | 28% |
| Mark Hennessey (D,C,I) | 4512 | 27% |
| Melody Burns (R,C) | 3720 | 22% |
| Arthur Scheuermann (R) | 3720 | 22% |
I guess Del-martians aren't ready to vote their officials out over the traffic circles.
Mary Brizzel and the "It's All Good!" Colonie Republicans got their asses beat, much like they deserve. Anybody whose an elected official and goes on the radio to state that their community has absolutely no problems of any sort, ought to voted out.
| Paula Mahan (D,I,WF) | 10712 | 51% |
| Mary Brizzell (R,C) | 10339 | 49% |
Absentee ballots could change that, but it seems very unlikely. Mary Brizzel is out of a job, and the world is a much better place for that. The last time Democrats had the Supervisor position in Colonie, it was an agricultural town of around 5,000 people (versus a population over 85,000 and greater then Albany), and there was a Republican Mayor of Albany—around the year 1920.
It also looks like Democrats now control the Town Board (3 out 6 seats up this year):
| Nancy Hernandez (D,C,I) | 1054 | 18% |
| William Carl (D,I) | 9998 | 17% |
| Robert Becker (D,I,WF) | 9987 | 17% |
| Michael Demartino (R) | 9342 | 17% |
| Andre Claridge (R,C) | 9293 | 17% |
| Ulderic Boisvert (R,C) | 9192 | 16% |
I'm sure if I was a Colonie Republican I'd be drinking some serious whisky about now.
And Doug LaGrange will be out milking the cows this morning, without elected office except New Scotland GOP Chair:
| Thomas Dolin (D,I) | 1394 | 50% |
| Douglas LaGrange (R,C) | 1368 | 50% |
That must be a tough defeat for him, figuring he follows a popular Republican Town Supervisor, Ed Clark. But as we all know, party chairs make awful lousy candidates. It's not easy to switch between being a party hack and a good candidate, even you know the ins and outs of running a race.
Plus one must consider the wisdom of being a commodity dairyman this day of age. But it's a family business, and certainly farming is better for the environment, taxrolls, and the community then another sub-development. Absentee ballots could decide this race, but it looks like Democrat Dolan is the winner for New Scotland Super.
Despite the best efforts by Sue Haynes and the other Democrats who worked very hard to try to win Brunswick back from the Republicans, it looks like things are remaining firmly in Republican control.
Democrats were hoping to take control of a town that has belonged to the GOP for more than a decade but that didn't happen Tuesday. Incumbent Supervisor Philip Herrington (R, I, C) defeated his opponent Vito Grasso (D, Working Families) 2,549 to 1,824. Paul Engelke (the Environmental Party) garnered 151 votes. Herrington has served three two-year terms and is finishing up his first four-year term this year.
See what I had to say about these races and why Paul Engekele and Sue Haynes would have been good for Brunswick. Eventually though, we will take it back one way or another:
Grasso is a former programmer analyst for the state Assembly and current executive vice president of the New York State Academy of Family Physicians. Herrington, a dairy farmer, owns Herrington Dairy Farm, the largest dairy farm in Rensselaer County. Prior to Herrington's decade-long tenure, the town had belonged to Democrats for 18 years.
Herrington is in other words, Joe Bruno's left-hand man for the Town that he lives in. He has almost as much resources as he could ever use, including well over $2 million dollars of pasture and corn fields that he's selling off for development, and his own enrichment. After all, dairy farmers don't really have much use for hilly pasture anymore.
He might spend a lot of his days in the milking parlor and in out of the pressure areas of cattle in the free stalls, but he's also a very rich man, thanks to his political connections to Senator Bruno. He buys farmland up cheap to support his mega-dairy, and then he sells it off after he gets it rezoned to his liking.
Sue Haynes could have held him back. And Paul Engelke could have made a difference. But so it goes—the voters speak, regardless of their wisdom.
That's what the initial review of the new Route 85 Bypass, which I gotten to take a look at 'em.
They really speed things up:
"Today was the first day and it wasn't that bad. I mean, everything went nice and smooth, so. I'm saving like 10, 15, 10, 15 minutes just by these roundabouts being here," said roundabout reveler, Dan Ingraham.
See this movie:
This from the TU:
TROY—The Rensselaer County district attorney's race is growing tighter as the county Board of Elections rechecks election night returns. Republican Greg Cholakis leads Democrat Rich McNally by 146 votes, 18,627 to 18,481, according to unofficial returns. The margin may shrink to 98 votes as reviews continue, according to the board.
It looks like Neil Breslin is now in as the first candidate to at least clearly indicate that he's serious about running for Congress in the 21st district.
That would mean most likely that he would have to give up his seat, and we would have to find somebody else to replace him for State Senate. Next year, it's not just a congressional election, but also a state senate race. It's not likely that the seat would go Republican, but you never know with an open seat like that.
The Times Union notes that Brian Stratton is now in good shape to announce, now that his mayoral election is over. He also wouldn't have to give up his seat to run for Congress, and should he win, there would be a special election in winter 2009.
It looks like they are claiming that a few of the machines where improperly programmed to make it impossible to vote for board candidates on multiple lines:
Town Republicans will ask a state Supreme Court justice this morning to order Sheriff James Campbell to take custody of the voting machines in town, which they say were improperly set up to prevent people from voting across party lines. Michael DeMartino, an attorney and GOP Town Board candidate, said his lawyer would file the petition this morning on behalf of four Republican candidates, including himself, all of whom are trailing their Democratic opponents in unofficial results.
DeMartino said the problem appears to have been that some machines were set-up in such a way that would prevent voters from pulling the lever for both a Democrat and Republican when selecting candidates for the Town Board.
That won't change the Supervisor race, and it's likely that it won't effect the board race, even if the machines are impounded. If anything, the number of machines effected probably was one or two, and even if the machine votes are discarded—very unlikely—the Democrats would likely still win.
Not to mention, the Democrats in effect control the judiciary in Albany County, which means that they will rule in ways that will help the Democrats—within the parameters of the state election law.
But we will have to wait and see, but this seems like a very desperate move on behalf of the Colonie GOP that is having trouble keeping their relevance.
I'm not all that surprised by the election results in Colonie, based on a previous discussion with a very powerful Ward leader in suburban Albany, who bemoans how many good voters he's lost to Colonie. When people leave the city suburbs to move Colonie, they don't automatically change their ideology.
Much to the distaste of a number of politicians, it looks like they will be once again raising the tolls on the New York Thruway, after only raising them a few years back.
I've long been an advocate of ending the Thruway Authority, and making it a free road. But I can understand the need for raising the tolls now as materials expenses have gone through the roof, at the same time people are driving less, and their is a demand for safer roads and bridges.
So get out your pocket book, or take Route 20 or the Taconic Parkway. More people returning to Route 20 and similar roads, will bring more business, and be good for the economy.
The wind-energy advocate from Medusa says he's going to run for State Senate, to take the seat that will likely be vacated by Senator Neil Breslin when he runs for Congress.
I am quite excited about the prospects of David Weiss running for State Senate. He's the kind of green-minded progessive candidate we need in that office. Coming from the Hilltowns, he has a new perspective to the same old Albany politics, that has long been dominated by the City, and later on by the suburbs.
Not to mention it could be very good politics. I believe he will have the support of the Mayor, and will be a great alternative to the seat currently held by the Breslin family. I also think Weiss is progressive enough that he won’t be likely to provoke a primary with the Breslin-faction, who want to keep their own people in the seat.
There could be some quid-pro-quo involved in the whole deal here. The Mayor gets David Weiss for State Senate, while the Breslins get the Congressional Seat. Then everybody would be left with something in their hands, and then we’d all be happy.
I hope it all works out. A nasty primary in Albany would divert resources from Kirsten Gillibrand’s re-election, which is a really bad thing.
They have a very restrictive and unconsitutional law limiting political speech in their ever so-wealthy brat of Town. Chapter 280 Part F Section 3 states:
Posters announcing candidates seeking public elected office and other data pertinent thereto shall be permitted. Such posters and/or signs shall not exceed 12 square feet in area or per side if double-faced. Such signs shall be erected not more than 21 days before the election and shall be removed within four days after the election.
This is discussed in detail in my post to Democracy in Albany that asks Guilderland Town Councilman-elect to repeal this illegal language, that has in the past ruled by courts as illegal.
Then again, this is not surprising, when your town board is made up by wealthy brats who are more concerned about the beautification of their town then our constitutional rights. Have you ever been to Ken Runion's house in Guilderland? It's this incredibly pretentious suburban McManison, in pretentious Altamont.
I guess if Guilderland wants to live in a state of fascism, then I guess that's their rights. But they also have to obey the constitution, and state and federal law. That means, not only can they not abridge the first amendment but also the freedom to farm law in their little town.
How about you try setting up a legal defense fund and ask people to donate to you?
The Bernard Kerik Legal Defense Trust has been established to allow Mr. Kerik’s friends and supporters to assist him in defending himself against possible charges that may be brought against him by the United States Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York.
The thing is he already spent the $4 million he's made in security contracting fees, and he's now just another broke corrupt politicians.
There is a web blog pushing to get Ron Canestrari to be our next Congressman. Take a look at this video they have posted.
The thing is that Canestrari will never give up his job for a freshman Congressional position in a secure district. He has a lot of power as Majority Leader, the number two man below Shelly Silver in the Assembly.
He would have little power, as a rank and filer Congressman with 435 other members, trying to crowd the Congressional feeder—many of whom are marginals that Nancy Pelosi is trying to protect. There is no reason at all for Canestrari to give up his current job, bar a very serious scandal that would make it impossible for him to run as a Congressman.
For sure, it seems like Canestrari is about as clean as a whistle bar minor scandals, like the fight over the landfill bill of a couple of years ago. But even that is different depending on the version proposed by McEneny or Canestrari, and at worst Canestrari violated an informal member priveledge.
