I'm still not sure what you mean. I'm not going to tell you I'm not enjoying a "free pass", but I do feel bad that voters don't have a choice. Are you implying I wouldn't be saying competition is good if I had some? It's possible you're right, I don't know. I'm also missing out on the anticipation and challenge of the race. I have been out campaigning even though I don't have an opponent, it is important for people to be able to vent and convey their views. Maybe (hopefully) you're right in that if people wanted the competion it would be there, but I think a better analysis is that it's difficult to find anyone who is interested. Yes, competition is always good, choice is always good.
Firefighters save Duanesburg home DUANESBURG — Firefighters doused a garage fire in the Hillcrest Mobile Home Park off Western Turnpike Monday evening, preventing flames from spreading to a nearby residence. The fire was first reported around 7:40 p.m., when a passing motorist on Interstate 88 noticed flames coming from the structure. About two dozen fi refighters brought the fire under control and were able to prevent it from spreading to other mobile homes in the park, fire officials said. There were no injuries and the building is considered salvageable. The cause of the fire is thought to have originated from poor disposal of ashes from a wood stove.
ELECTION RESULTS DUANESBURG Status quo was the response from voters in Duanesburg after all of the incumbent candidates were re-elected. In the town’s only contested race, Republican Rita La-Belle beat out challenger Camille Siano Enders for justice. Republican Supervisor Rene Merrihew retained her supervisor seat, while Republican board members Francis Potter and Philip Carlson were both given new terms. Longtime Republican Clerk Leah Lennon won another term, while Francis Spor was elected highway superintendent.
Congratulations Rene to you and the great team that we have in Duanesburg. Also my appreciation to my neighbors who came out on a raw day to express their preferences
Bravo, Tom Woodman for his [Nov. 4] Opinion column deploring the increasing boorishness of local politics! Disgusted by the unrelenting attack messages from candidates for Schenectady County Legislature, and reading in the Nov. 3 Gazette that there were no contested races in Duanesburg, I almost decided — for the first time in nearly 40 years — to abstain from voting. However, I since learned that there actually was only one open seat for town justice, producing a contest between incumbent Rita LaBelle and challenger Camille Siano Enders. So I went to the polls after all, with a fervent wish that, in many instances, I could pull a lever for “none of the above.” KRISTINE SMITH Duanesburg
I must agree w/ Ms. Smith's assessment of the political environment in Schenectady County. The attack ads, sent primarily by the Schenectady County Democratic Committee (abbreviated as SCDC to ensure anonymity), are testament to what those who desire power will resort to in promoting their candidates. As I had espoused in my (unpublished) Letter to the Editor of the Daily Gazette, there needs to be Truth in Advertising in Political Campaigns. Candidates need to be held responsible for both their own words and actions as well as those of the party to which they belong that is acting on their behalf. To disavow any knowledge of the existence of these attack ads, as done by Jasenski, Godlewski, and Cooke, should be unacceptable to the voters. The rulings of the League of Women Voters Fair Campaign Practices committee regarding candidate complaints are not communicated in such a manner as to inform all of the residents who received the attack ad mailings.
The residents of District 4 lost a knowledgeable and professional representative of the constituents with the defeat of Carolina Lazzari. It is my opinion that her defeat was a function of:
the deceptive and dishonest campaign of misinformation that was waged by the SCDC (Brian Quail)
the unopposed campaigns of candidates running for office in Duanesburg
the Daily Gazette article that lead voters in Duanesburg to believe that they had no choices to make.
the incorrect statement published by the Daily Gazette that there were two Town Justice seats to be filled by Rita LaBelle and Camille Enders. The Gazette subsequently published a correction to the story stating that the two candidates were running for a single seat (the correction was small and buried in the depths of the paper).
I am hopeful that Ms. Lazzari will run for office again. I found her to be a genuine and interested representative of the residents of our community.
I agree with Rene that the incivility of politics in Schenectady County discourages many qualified and interested persons from entering into government service.
Well than Ms Smith, step up to the plate and run for office or encourage others to do the same if you want choices. And while you think that choices are better than re-electing representatives that are already doing a great job, just take a gander at your surrounding communities and watch the mudslinging that goes on in the name of 'choice'. Clearly, not a pretty picture!
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
EDITORIALS Mobile home tenants don’t get any respect
The names and locations may have been different, but Wednesday’s story about tenants being evicted from the Hillcrest Mobile Home Park in Duanesburg had many of the same elements that stories about mobile home parks in this region have had for decades. Once again, people who rent space for their not-so-mobile homes have been told, on relatively short notice, to pick up and move because park owners neglected a sewer system so seriously and for such a long time that the state Department of Environmental Conservation is closing them down. Variations on this basic theme have occurred over and over again, most recently at mobile home parks in Greenfield, Saratoga and Stillwater. And while mobile home park tenants are protected in some counties by “bills of rights,” such laws are apparently uncommon in these parts. The situation in Duanesburg implicates the state and Schenectady County almost as much as it does the park’s present and past owners. The problem — a faulty sewage treatment system that leaks improperly treated sewer water into the Normanskill Creek (which feeds into the Watervliet Reservoir) — was first discovered five years ago. Though the county health department issued repeated citations and the state Department of Environmental Conservation levied some fines against the park’s former owners, the problems were never corrected. And now the park’s new owners have simply decided to walk away. Tenants have been given until April to vacate the premises. If they’re willing to relocate their trailers to one of the current owner’s parks in Saratoga County — nearly 30 miles away — they’ll be given a $4,000 moving allowance; otherwise, they get nothing. That’s unfair, of course, but permissible because of the lack of reasonable consumer protection laws in this state. As attorney general, Eliot Spitzer had a chance to do something for mobile home park tenants in Stillwater, who were getting a raw deal. He didn’t. Maybe now, Andrew Cuomo will step up for Hillcrest’s 53-odd squatters. It’s time someone at the state did something on behalf of these mostly low-income, oftenelderly citizens.
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