New Paltz Village Election Results 2011

Two-year trustee

• Osborn 337
• Glenn 377

Full-term trustee

• Cohen 37
• Crocetti 73
• Sherow 187
• Bunt 262
• Ruger 299
• Rhoads 331
• Basco 372

Mayor

• Cohen 31
• Healey 158
• Gallucci 314
• West 381

Write-in votes for various candidates.

Help a gadfly sharpen his saw

I'm much better at observing what people do when they're already in office than talking to them about their plans if they make it.  To that end, I would like the help of my readers in interviewing candidates for the 2011 village elections.

Please tell me what issues you're going to be most interested in hearing about in the coming months.  I will take those data and create a poll so I can get a sense of the priorities of this particular slice of the community.  This will allow me to be consistent as I write about the candidates (which I plan on doing whether or not they talk to me directly), and it will also allow me to make sure I focus on the topics which others find relevant.

A reminder:  anonymous comments are permitted, and all comments are moderated.  If you would prefer your comment not be published, make a note of that in the comment itself and I will honor that request for this post.

Mayoral candidate profile: Jeremy Blaber

When I first saw bouncing around Facebook a post in which Jeremy Blaber declared his candidacy for New Paltz mayor, I said to myself, "why?"  He's a Kingston guy, I said to myself, so is this just some kind of stunt to generate some buzz? Luckily for me he was the first candidate to accept my invitation to chat.

It turns out that Blaber, who presently splits his time between Brooklyn and Kingston, didn't choose New Paltz without reason.  He lived in the village for three years before starting a job with the Working Families Party, which took him down to Brooklyn.  He's careful to point out that New Paltz has a very high transient population, and that his own ties here are at least as strong as some other rumored candidates.

So why New Paltz?  He told me when we sat down at the Muddy Cup Cafeteria today that he's probably going to return to the village in the near future, regardless of how his candidacy goes.  However, he plans to "run a very aggressive race" for the job, with plans to spend $10-15K on his campaign.  "I'm not trying to buy the race, but I am serious about it," he told me.

Blaber has reached out to all the possible candidates mentioned in the gossip pages, since (as far as I know) no one else has declared as yet.  He's hoping to run as part of a slate of candidates, and he's searching for the right mix. As for what their party will be called, he thinks he may run a contest for ideas.  All he knows for sure is that he will steer clear of anything that suggests affiliation with Working Families, because that kind of confusion has caused trouble for candidates in the past.

"2011 is going to be an interesting election year, and it all starts with New Paltz," he told me.  He expects the race to be interesting, and he understands that he needs to set himself apart from other younger candidates that may emerge.  Expect a platform of unifying the various factions of New Paltz; better communications with the village board, town council, and residents; and greater inclusion of District 9. In fact, he's planning on starting with a non-partisan voter registration drive targeting the thousand new freshmen arriving on campus this weekend.

Since he mentioned the "U" word, I asked him his views on merging our governments.  Like me, he's not willing to believe that it's a bad thing, or a good one, without more information.  I also asked him about one of my other favorite issues, that of districting up the village board so each member is elected from one district and the mayor is the only at-large official.  He believes it makes for a more accountable and responsive government.

Blaber doesn't expect this to be an easy campaign, and he's planning on winning it "block by block by block."