SCHENECTADY Lack of pay phones sparks city woman’s campaign for mayor BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter Reach Gazette reporter Kathleen Moore at 395-3120 or moore@dailygazette.com.
The lack of a public pay phone at one of the city’s Dunkin’ Donuts has inspired one woman to run for mayor. Lorinda Kay Angers announced a write-in campaign last Thursday after she went to the police department to complain about the lack of pay phones in commercial buildings. An officer told her she’d have to take it up with the mayor. “That was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” Angers said. She drew her own political signs, colored in crayon, and went doorto-door last Thursday to ask neighbors to support her campaign. She also advertised her candidacy in The Daily Gazette. Angers, 64, was born and raised in Schenectady. She lives in her childhood home, a house on Lexington Avenue, and works as a volunteer peer advocate at Ellis Hospital. As an advocate, she splits her time between the emergency room and the psychiatric ward, offering patients support. She is unmarried and has one adult son. Her quixotic mayoral campaign focuses on more than just pay phones. She also wants to improve the police. “We have to have a whole new police force and training. Training from the ground up: What is the difference between right and wrong?” she said, adding that some officers “don’t understand there’s a great deal of honor that goes with his authority.” She said she wants to focus on police improvements because of several unsatisfactory experiences with officers, including one instance in which she called for help after being shot with a BB gun. “I was shot in the eye with a BB gun at Stewart’s. The glass fell out of my glasses,” she said. “I called and there was no response. I thought it was an atrocity. I mean, someone was trying to shoot me in the eye!” If elected, she said she would also insist on pay phones at public buildings that used to have them before cellphones rose in popularity. She said outdoor pay phones are often unsafe. “When I was at Dunkin’ Donuts, the only option was a pay phone by an alley, where if anybody wanted, they could take a crack at me,” she said. She is running against Democratic incumbent Brian U. Stratton and Republican challenger Michael Cuevas.
Write-in candidate makes mayoral bid November 1, 2007 by Lauren Stanforth, Staff writer If you read through the A section of the Times Union today (Thursday), you might have seen a large advertisement on page A10 for write-in candidate Lorinda Kay Angers for mayor of Schenectady.
This is only the second time we had heard about Angers, after she apparently also put an ad a few weeks ago in the Daily Gazette.
We tried to contact Angers then, and were unsuccessful. On whitepages.com there is a listing for someone bearing her name, but it’s backwards (listed as Kay A. Lorinda) which must be some kind of bizarre mix-up. The multiple times we’ve called that number, however, there’s been no answer.
Perhaps we’ll hear from her after this blog, and can provide more info on the candidate, who included a picture of a dog in her ad saying “Wow, thanks for your support on election day!!!”
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