By Dave Canfield
The Record
NORTH GREENBUSH — The town Republican Committee recently announced its November election slate.
According to committee Chairman Greg DeJulio, the party has chosen again to endorse incumbent town Supervisor Mark Evers, a registered Conservative, who is seeking a third two-year term.
“He’s worked to restore the contingency fund in the town. He’s proposed budgets with no tax increase,” DeJulio listed among the highlights of Evers’s tenure as supervisor.
On the remainder of the Town Board, where the four-year seats of Ernest Kern and Alan Michaels are up this year, Republicans are endorsing Kelly Hoffman, a member of the town’s Zoning Board of Appeals and the Wynantskill school board, as well as Joe Bott, a small businessman with Bott Brothers Electric, Inc. and a lifelong town resident.
For town justice, the GOP has chosen two “crackerjack attorneys,” DeJulio said: Kathryn Dell, a one-time Democrat who ran for district attorney against Ken Bruno but is now a registered Conservative, and Stephanie Piel, who was appointed to the judge seat by the Town Board Thursday but must run for a full term in November.
Dell, an attorney with Dell & Kolakowski, will vie for the spot held for the last 25 years by Raymond Elliott III, who has announced his intention to run again. Piel, who works for the Hinman Straub firm, is expected to face former town attorney Joshua Sabo in an effort to hold on to her seat.
Republicans have not made endorsements for the positions of town clerk or highway supervisor, which are currently held by Democrats Kathryn Connolly and Mark Premo, respectively. DeJulio said a town clerk endorsement is possible in the future, but no interested candidates for highway supervisor approached the committee.
“No one approached us interested in highway supervisor,” he said. “We didn’t go recruit. We had people come to us.”
Three candidates each were interviewed for the town board and town justice slots, while two were conducted for supervisor, he said. The other interested person for supervisor was Councilman Al Spain, a Democrat.
In a town where political fighting and cross-endorsements are common, DeJulio said he hopes the town’s politics become less hyper-partisan — a situation he blamed on members of both parties.
“That’s been plaguing the town for the past six or seven years,” he said. “We interviewed people from all political parties, and we went with the best candidates we saw.”
“I feel very good,” DeJulio added. “I think we’ll do very well this November.”
Town Democrats have yet to officially endorse their candidates. Their endorsement process is more complicated than that of the GOP: candidates are chosen by committee but then must be voted on in a caucus vote, usually in August, when the picks become official.
Beyond Sabo, Elliott and Premo, the Democratic Committee has yet to select which candidates it will send to a caucus vote.
Dave Canfield can be reached at 270-1290 or by e-mail at dcanfield@troyrecord.com