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Thursday, June 2, 2011

New Paltz in Kingston for the County Dem Convention

New Paltz had a very strong presence at the Ulster County Democratic convention last night. The two top seats - unanimously endorsed - were granted to a former New Paltzian and a current one. Mike Hein, New Paltz high school graduate, will be the Dems incumbent candidate for County Executive. Attorney Jon Sennett, current New Paltz resident, was nominated for District Attorney.

For county legislature, Sue Zimet was nominated for the new District 17. The local committee, lead by Corrinne Nyquist, chose Tom Cotton as their candidate for District 20, not the incumbent legislator Hector Rodriguez. Rodriguez is not giving up easy, he says he will petition so that there will be a primary for the seat in September. According to Hector, when he asked Nyquist why she was not supporting him, she said it was retribution for his support of Jason West in the recent village mayoralty campaign. (West ousted Tom Nyquist from his multi-term stretch as mayor in 2003.)

And with Joseph Eriole the nominated candidate in District 12, we have another New Paltz pol (sort of), because while 12 is the Plattekill district, Joe lives in the southern tip of the school district and has his law office in the village.

Related note: The local Dem caucus will be in August. Yes, August. I don't have an exact date, will post it as soon as I do.

6 comments:

John Logan said...

So, you need to have"grown up in New Paltz" to be eligible for a Democratic Committee nomination according to Corrine Nyquist.

Jean Galucci?
Susan Zimet?
Toni Hokanson?
Jane Ann Williams?
David Lewis?
Tom and Corrine Nyquist?

I wonder how many members of the Democratic committee were "grown up in New Paltz"?

Meanwhile a couple of locals, "born and grew up in New Paltz", who never got the Democratic nomination without a caucus fight come to mind immediately:

Jeff logan
Mike Nielson
Phil Johnson

Meanwhile, the so-called "Village Democratic Committee" has met in private session and nominated...WHO? for our new County Legislative District.

Tom Cother is, I trust, a fine upstanding citizen, a native NewPaltzer, and a viable candidate. But, until I learn better, my vote belongs to Hector Rodriguez , a fine outstanding citizen, an alien from Plattekill (gasp!), and a viable candidate.

And, by the way, just when was this new 17th Legislative District Democratic Committee created, and by what authority, law ,or right?

John logan

Brittany Turner said...

No offense to Hector, but he *has* actively campaigned against the Democrat-although-we-pretend-we're-nonpartisan candidate for Village Mayor at least twice.

I have no problem with this, but he can't be surprised that his party does, can he? If you want to play with the big, mean Dems, you should probably be prepared to play by the big, mean Dem rules. Hector has benefitted from this big, mean game in the past, so by going rogue twice (albeit temporarily), it's logical to anticipate big, mean consequences.

Steve Greenfield said...

Hey, Brittany. You accidentally hit enter before you were able to disclaim your relationship status with another mayoral candidate Hector just helped to defeat, and your employment by Jason West in his first administration, that came in part from Hector's assistance with that campaign.

Brittany Turner said...

huh?

Brittany Turner said...

Also, it seems unethical for the Village Attorney to also serve as a County Legislator. Seems like it's possible for a conflict of interest to arise with a number of scenarios...

TPW said...

John,

The redistricting of the county, from 12 multi-member districts to 23 single-member districts (10 fewer legislators total) is one of the final pieces of the county charter approved in 2006 to go into effect.

The entire charter is available here: http://www.co.ulster.ny.us/chartercommission/Chartercodifiedversion.pdf

The new legislative district map can be found here: http://www.co.ulster.ny.us/reapportionment/docs/final_plan.pdf