The Hayseeds blog, No. 165 for the week starting July 9, 2006.
June 25, 2006
Hayseeds No. 164
July 9, 2006
Hayseeds No. 165
July 16, 2006
Hayseeds No. 165
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He will be making his official announcement at 7:30 at City Hall in Plattsburgh for his 2006 run should their be an special election this year (a person for mayor appointed before September 22nd).
He claims in his press release that he isn't trying to influence the actions of the Democrat-controlled city council in appointing a man to fill out Dan Stewart's term, but we know that he wants the seat and he's probably the leading contender on the Democratic-side of things.
Acting Mayor (formerly Deputy Mayor) Republican Michael Drew is in good shape to get the appointment, and while Democrats can be byparstian we still like our guys first and foremost. Timing is most important as post-Sept 22 appointment means a 2007 race, pre-Sept 22 it's a 2006 race.
See Press Republican Endorsement of Mike Drew and Kevin DunihoForMayor.com.
Wanna know how wet people got across the state, and what their life was like after the floods? Check out this WayFaring Map of Flood Stories across our great abit wet state.
It looks like today they picked up on him making it offical on his run for Mayor.
He makes it clear that if he is elected (or appointed) he wants to shake things up and try to spurn more community involvement and continue pushing Plattsburgh in the right way:
Duniho, the lone Democrat seeking the job, says he would offer a different approach to government.
"It's about community engagement and getting people involved because I think that has been severely lacking.
"This approach is actually the antithesis of a city manager, but people are actually being discouraged from getting involved, and that's rampant around the world, and I think citizens feel disassociated and left out."
The paper claims that Duniho is not interested in getting the appointment, though we know he'd be happy to get it if he would be nominated—he just not working to be precieved as the political hack pushed into being mayor.
Duniho, who owns and operates Champlain Valley Therapeutic Massage, said he is not interested in the appointment for the rest of this year but will run in November.
"I don't want to hold up the process for political reasons, and I firmly believe in letting the voters decide rather than cutting deals with a few individuals," he said.
It might make a lot of sense for him to skip the appointment and go for the Mayorship this year, assuming the new mayor is appointed before September 22nd. Nobody wants to hold up the mayorship, and getting elected gives him more of a mandate to govern.
Mike Drew isn't exactly the most impressive guy, and he could be easily defeated in a general election in a city that's becoming increasingly Democratic.
It looks like down in the 19th District, Seeger is helping out John Hall's bid for Congress. Those to men together, while having different styles of music, seem to put together some pretty good fundraisers. Owning Sue Kelley's seat would be nice.
With HAVA breathing down our throats, Daily Gotham notes New York has made some good decisions and some not so good decisions on how we are picking out the next generation of voting machines.
The man who ever so stranglely two years ago became a right-wing Republican who couldn't find anything good with gun control and was pro-life, is now a Democrat.
This year, he's been very much into the whole renewable energy thing working with Sandy Gordon and been claiming to crack down on retailers that are artifically jacking up gasoline prices. It's not clear what his position is on other issues, but he seems to be fairly fiscally conservative as Albany County's comptroller.
While in 2004 I supported Neil Breslin for his Senate run, I have to respect Connors for his independence of the party. He has his own vision and when the party gets in the way, he's not afraid to challenge it or jump ship.
I doubt he has much of a future in the Democratic Party these days though as he's probably alienated a lot of people, particularly the influental Breslin brothers. Still, I hope we hear more from him as he seems like a man with a vision.
The man who almost lead the Republicans into a minor party in New York in 1990 by almost getting less votes then Herb London passed away yesterday, same day as Ken Lay.
He's an interesting bit of history for us New York Politics buffs. I guess this means that his blog at Parida.com probably won't be updated if you were one of the three people who read it.
Everybody Leaves Happy. Or so they claim when legislators left Albany on Friday with basically everything major that they wanted and more. With only the average New Yorker left behind.
Florecent bulbs have mercury and while more efficent then standard bulbs aren't as good as LED and now newly developed OLED lights that use LEDs but are even more efficent and distribute the light non-directionally.
OLEDs are initally for backlighting in LED screens, but certainly could be used for bigger lighting jobs. They claim this OLEDs are nearly 100% efficent with little heat output. It should be interesting to see how these bulbs work out in the cold, their reliability under high stress applications (wet or movement).
As that article notes, nearly 20% of all electricity goes to powering lighting with about half of that going to traditional incadecent bulbs. It just seems so silly to use incadencent bulbs except in areas where florecents can be problematic like out in the barn. Newer compact florecent bulbs work at low tempetures, but burn very dimmly until they produce enough heat to warm up.
That's a big title, but it looks like they dug up Jack Stewart a man who doesn't have any current mayorial aspirations to be mayor when the Republicans and Democrats couldn't agree on who should be the next mayor.
That means that we will be having an election on November 6th between a Democrat (probably Kevin Duniho) and a Republican (probably Matt Drew). Nobody will feel like some political hack was put in by the city council, and a trusted Democrat was put into office for now. Everybody goes home happy.
The Times Union looks at the politics of gay marriage and what kind of hot football the Court of Appeals has punted back into the legislature's hands.
I don't know if the State Legislature will now proceed to legalize gay marriage or civil unions in New York. It could happen, though in New York. We've been known to do some bold social experiments like legalizing abortion over the wishes over the very powerful catholic conference.
