Clifton Park Republicans Easily Dominate LOWV Debate
October 27, 2009
With a crowd estimated at 150 concerned voters at the Clifton Park - Halfmoon Library the Clifton Park Republican candidates for Town Supervisor and Board clearly dominated the evening. The debate was sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Saratoga County.
In the Town Supervisors Race between Republican Phil Barrett and Democrat Bill Casey both men did a very nice job of telling the voters about their records of accomplishment and plans for the future as part of their opening statements. Mr. Barrett clearly stated that his record of accomplishment keeping no town tax, retiring town debt all while maintaining the same level of services. He laid out the many accomplishments and promised to deliver the same stewardship of our town if re-elected. Mr. Casey talked about his record of serving on the School Board and CAPTAIN and how his experiences will help him as Supervisor. Mr. Casey defined himself as someone who would listen to the residents with respect and also be a full time supervisor at a part time salary.
That is when the sparks began to fly as Supervisor Barrett responded to extended comments regarding ethics and fundraising from Mr. Casey both verbally and in a press release from his campaign. Mr. Casey who is running for office as Bill is known in Albany as Ray where is is a Lobbyist for Vandervort and a consultant to the Albany Airport Authority. Mr. Barrett challenged the omissions in campaign literature and even the League of Women Voters candidate questionaire about his employment relationships. Mr. Barrett also questioned the veracity of Mr. Casey's claim regarding the number of undisclosed donors to his campaign. Mr. Casey claims that "only 5 donors who contributed $99 were not disclosed" which after researching the State of New York Board of Elections reporting system Mr. Casey's statement is wjat appears to be factually evasive of the total picture as we were able to find over $3800 in undisclosed donations in his filings. We were also able to easily find his employment relationships with Vandervort and ALB by doing a simple google search. With the facts being clear Mr. Caseys desire to be designated the transparent candidate who would work full time as Supervisor was totally blown out of the water by Mr. Barrett.
Phil Barrett's clear command of the issues on the financial front on the retired debt, no town tax and healthy surplus versus Mr. Casey said the surplus was good but too big but did not elaborate on where he calculates his $2 to $3 million figure although he acknowledged the future revenues are unpredictable. Mr. Casey on the financial front made some stunningly uninformed and illegal statements regarding Fire District Taxation and flex pay of taxes. His financial plan included a way for people to not have to pay the lump sum taxes on their due date which is in clear violation of NY State Law. Currently Escrow accounts are the vehicle used for collecting taxes, but his plan which we believe would be post warrant date would underfund items such as Schools and Medicaid causing money to be borrowed increasing the tax burden on those who pay on time. His statement about why Fire Districts and Library Districts are broken out on tax bills is unbelievably naive for someone running for Town Supervisor. These are obviously not town or county wide districts and with the Library it crosses town lines for tax purposes. You would expect the former School Board President which is a multi jurisdictional entity and budget to understand these concepts. This left voters questioning if the statements by Mr. Casey were from ignorance of low or just good old fashioned political pandering by a professional lobbyist. Instead of refuting all of Mr. Casey's plans Mr. Barrett chose to verbalise to his background in Banking and community involvement which he claims allows him to be an effective steward of Town Government.
Voters interviewed after the debate had more questions than answers about Mr. Casey and one voter interviewed after the debate indicated "I heard nothing here tonight that would make me want to fire Phil Barrett."
In the race for 2 at large Town Board seats being sought by 4 candidates 2 Democrats and 2 Republicans things were very civil with the challenging Democratic candidate even being complimentary of the accomplishments of the incumbents. The only incumbent is Lynda Walowit because of the retirement of Sanford "Sandy" Roth from the Town Board. The Three non elected candidates are Democrat Margaret Catellier, Republican Jim Romano, and Democrat Wanda Zygmuntowicz. Margaret Catellier was not able to attend the debate due to a family illness. The League of Women Voters graciously read an statement on Margaret's issues of having a more open and transparent government along with here service on various town committees.
Without absolutely no fireworks and actually besides the issue of listening to residents all the Town Board candidates similarly stood on all of the issues with the exception of Traffic. Lynda Walowit stated how as a Town Board member she proactively commissioned a traffic study for the town. Jim Romano talked about how other towns impact this area especially traffic on US Route 9. Wanda Zygmuntowicz said she just avoids the area. When it came to solutions all the candidates staunchly stated they were for fixing the flow of traffic problem. The Republican Candidates strongly stated their opposition to Traffic Circles or Roundabouts while Ms. Zygmuntowicz said she would look at all options.
The main reasons given for change more political than sustentative which has been a really quiet and positive election season and when you are challenging the incumbents you need to drive them to the polls. After this debate is was hard to see any of the devout supporters of their candidates getting their minds changed tonight.