Village Board Results 2009

I tried to be fancy, and wanted to show a video of the results here, but my camera and computer are no longer getting along, so we'll do it the old-fashioned way.

Patrick O'Donnell:  98

Pete Healey:  94

Brian Kimbiz:  91

Jason West:  25

Brittany Turner:  7

A few stray votes here and there

All in all, a good race.  I don't think anyone can complain about a stolen election (and yes, I really hate that kind of whining, even when my guy loses).  Brian Kimbiz, whose petititons were invalidated because he didn't realize that he needed to be registered here in order to witness the signatures, got every vote he deserved regardless, so I don't think he could argue that he would have gotten three or four more if he'd taken the time to understand the rules.  Jason West and Brittany Turner were offered up as last-minute write-ins and got a respectable number of votes, given that they were only being talked about for hours at best.

I don't buy the whole idea of a stolen election, but honestly, if you want someone to run for office, do you think you could ask them far enough in advance that they could run a campaign, if you really want them to win?  Both were gracious enough to let me know that they were no opposed to being written in, but both candidates could have made a real showing if they had taken the time to do it right.  

• Jason just got back in town and simply didn't have the time - he wasn't here for the petition period.  But if he wants to re-enter local politics, I think a thoughtful campaign would do him much better.  He is a politician, and each campaign he undertakes should be part of his larger strategy, whatever that may be.  It was just too impulsive to offer his name up.
  
• Brittany caught a lot of flack for daring to run, last minute, for Town Council.  This time, she's starting to look like the perennial write-in protest vote.  Brittany is extremely knowledgeable about the local scene, but has never had the opportunity to express her views in a candidate forum.  I think she's too intelligent to be tossed in the race at the last minute - let's see what she's got and actually vote on her stand on issues, not just for the fun of it.

I think some of the votes for write-in candidates may have been protest votes - people didn't like the names on the ballot and voted for someone they didn't actually believe would win.  That, in my view, is a waste of the democratic process.  If I had my way no candidates would be on the ballot and we would have to actually pay attention to know who to vote for, but I don't have my way very often.  Some very talented people were written in and could probably have won, given the opportunity for a serious campaign.  A lot of races in this town could be decided very differently if folks started thinking about them earlier than, oh, the day before the election.

Congratulations to the winners, and kudos to the incredibly respectable showings for the other candidates.  Now go play nice.

Two weekends, two messy events

The past couple of weeks have been a whirlwind of activities in New Paltz, and I only got to go to some of them. However, I got a little time with some local politicians as part of the bargain.

New Paltz Clean Sweep
I don't remember what made me miss out on Clean Sweep last year, but I was delightfully surprised by the layout of food at St. Joseph's for the volunteers. I found Toni Hokanson sitting alone at a table designated for the Town Council (she told me about health issues that prevented two of them from showing up, and I later found out family obligations kept the other two away), and joined her along with Kraig Kallmeyer of SealTech Sealcoating.  We three scoured the area around Town Hall and Moriello Pool.  Our supervisor definitely is willing to work her butt off picking up litter, and that area is a real prize.  I pulled a tire out of the wetland north of the pool, and gave up on an moss-covered bumper (I would need two strong adults with waders, poison ivy resistance, and thick clothing to keep the brambles at bay to get that baby out).  Pretty sure I picked up poison ivy that day, because the stuff that runs rampant through my yard definitely couldn't be the culprit . . . 

New Paltz Regatta

I can't tell you a thing about the regatta, because my wife and I awoke that morning stricken by some horrible disease.  We were in bad enough shape to need medical attention, and FirstCare in Highland was the nearest place open on a Sunday.  They had a backlog, but nurse Jeff Logan took good care of us.  Turns out his grandfather built our house, and now that I'm no longer delirious I'm going to give his mother a call to learn more about its history.  No, we don't have swine flu (or any other), but we got tested even though the symptoms didn't match that well.  I wasn't so delirious that I felt that need to remind Jeff how he annoyed me last Election Day, but I give him credit - I don't think he would have done any less of a job caring for us even had I done so.  Looking back, and considering my own encounters with mindless school bureaucracy as I futilely tried to figure out what a member of HAC does, I'm sure district employees follow inane directions like "open the door despite the amount of heat it will waste for our taxpayers" because that's how the bureacracy trains them.  Our conversation showed me that he does think independently; anyone who's being sued by the chairman of his own party really has no choice.  (Corinne Nyquist, chair of the New Paltz Democratic Committee, signed on to Terry Dungan's village citizen lawsuit against the Town).

Village Elections

So today I'm healthy enough to vote in the village elections.  There are two official and the usual explosion of write-in candidates for the two open seats.  Please don't write me in - if you must write someone in, I would think Jason West is a better choice than the college kid.  I've read the petitions, and I know challenges can be used to intimidate, but his were so flawed I think he needs a little aging in order to be ready for an elected position.  I just found out Brittany Turner is being run as well, but apparently it's without her knowledge and I don't agree with that.  You could also vote for the candidates on the ballot, but please remember that these races are won by a handful of votes, so your vote really does count.

My Democrat Dilemma

Instead of going to the New Paltz Democratic Committee meeting tonight I am going to stay home and write about what I call my Democrat Dilemma.^*

New Paltz has a reputation for being a progressive community, but it was not always this way, at least electorally. In 1999, Sue Zimet was elected Town Supervisor on the tails of her successful work with in the anti-Walmart campaign. On the night of her election there were conservative Democrats at Republican headquarters sympathizing with the Republicans and grieving the election results.

In 2003, in the village we elected the first Green Party mayor in New York State. We are the home to one of the very few communities across the nation that has ever had an elected official solemnize gay marriage. However, since Jason West lost his reelection bid in 2007, the local Green Party has lost its steam. Aside from getting Edgar Rodriquez on the school board in 2007, and despite a competitive run by Margaret Human for Town Board, the local Greens have not gained any local seats since 2004.

Most of the local Green Party people I know are ideologically pretty much equivalent to most of my progressive Democratic friends. So, how come progressives don’t flock to the Green Party? How come they, like me, are registered Democrats?

• Greens are Spoilers. Brittany Turner’s late entry into the recent Town Board race reinforced the spoiler argument. A steadfast environmentalist with an impressive civic resume - Democrat Bob Hughes - lost by about 30 votes to a more moderate Jeff Logan. Brittany garnered about 125 votes. Her presence in the race was indicative of the same math that came into play when Gore and Kerry lost the presidencies in 2000 and 2004. Old school Democrats have not forgotten or forgiven the damage they found Ralph Nader guilty of inflicting: eight years of George W. Bush. The local Greens gained no new friends as a result of Brittany’s short campaign, and perhaps may have even lost of a few of their own.
• Infiltration! The progressive Democrats I know that sit at the committee table all believe the only way to beat the system is from within. Registered Democrats in general question the efficacy of the Greens with their outsider status. While the Green Party’s platform may be quite in line with their own vision, they believe the only way to achieve the goals of such a platform is within one of the two mainstream parties. As one Dem committee member likes to say, “You have to be in the house, not out on the street.”
• Primaries and Caucuses. I was registered independent for many years, but when I moved in the summer of 2007 I switched my status to Democrat so that I could vote in the Ulster County D.A. primary that fall and the presidential primary the following spring. I figured I would switch back to independent after the primaries, but at times I have considered going Green. Yet, I still find myself a registered Democrat.
  

I am not a member of the New Paltz Democratic committee. Last fall I started going just to check things out and have found these meetings to be equally boring and scary…

When Sue Zimet joined the New Paltz Democratic Committee in the late 1990s the table was chock full of conservative Democrats. And while yes, there may now be more progressive members on the committee and in elected positions in both the town and the village, what has it gotten us?

For example, with such overwhelming Democratic presence, how can it be that we have no wetlands protection law in either the town or village? How come it took like what felt like ages to get the village employees a signed union contract? And as Don Kerr recently said on New Paltz News – I paraphrase - why with all of our elected town leaders being Democrats is the Crossroads development even on the table? (Although I must give a shout out to our mayor and village board members who have been highly critical of Crossroads: Terry Dungan, Michael Zierler, and Shari (ok, Holden) Osborn.)

There are some weird dynamics going on right now. Our current Town Supervisor Toni Hokanson, who will be up for reelection next year, will be lucky to get the Dem votes from her peers at the committee table who oppose Crossroads, but ironically these very same people are aligned with the conservative old school cadre – which is pretty much lead by the Nyquists, both formally and informally since Corinne Nyquist is the Chair and Tom Nyquist (the incumbent mayor that Jason West ousted) is the temporary Treasurer. I posit that because of her stance on Crossroads, in the general election, Toni will get the support of conservative Democrats, many Republicans, and perhaps senior citizens irrespective of party. But who will the Democratic electorate support at the caucus? Will a progressive candidate emerge to steal the stage? Will perhaps even a Green storm the caucus and grab the nomination? (Margaret Human nearly did so in 2007.) And what about the two town board seats that will be up?

So, I guess I will stick it out with my Dem registration status so I will be permitted to continue to be pesky at the committee meetings. You can only attend if you are a registered Democrat; to which Rachel Lagodka (a registered Green) can attest is strongly enforced as she is regularly kicked out (it is often the only fun of the night). Despite my misgivings, I have been trying to get young upstarts like Dan Torres and Jeff Fonda to come along. Maybe, if you are like minded and are registered with the party, you would like to join me sometime? The meetings are held the second Thursday of the month at Village Hall.

And yup, I think I really want to keep my ability to vote in the 2009 caucuses… But I must say the Working Families Party is looking better every day. What’s a gadfly to do?

^* I just heard through the grapevine, there is a sign on the door to Village Hall, tonight’s meeting was canceled due to weather.

Local Gadfly is Born

So when Brittany Turner, in musing on New Paltz's write in campaign for Town Council, referred to me in passing as a "local gadfly," I was amused and honored. And annoyed, but not at Brittany.

• Amused. I didn't realize I was such a pain in the ass that anyone actually ever noticed me.
• Honored. It's a title my father would have worn proudly, so I can only imagine that he is proud of me now.
• Annoyed. My fifteen minutes of fame is fleeting, because the online archive of Ms. Turner's editorial is not forever. I have discovered, in my secret life as a Wikipedia editor, that one cannot easily cite any Ulster Publishing article as a source there, because they eventually (read: in a year or so) take down the information! Not so with real newspapers, and a pretty crappy policy overall. Mind you, I don't care if me being listed as a gadfly is immortalized, really; the whole situation just reminded me of how cheap Ulster Publishing is that they purge their old articles from the web.

So I'm a gadfly, local to New Paltz, and the mantle of gadflydom has been thrust upon me. I figured I might best live up to these vast responsibilities by creating a blog that no one will ever notice. Yes, I could just write in a journal at home and know that nobody was reading it, but there's something satisfying about knowing that someday, perhaps long after I'm gone, my words will have meaning to somebody.
After all, Google owns Blogger, and they don't purge their database of old material.