All women’s ticket promising change
They aim to flip local government that is under control by Republicans
Sara Pruiksma grabbed the gray package from her husband on a fall 2019 morning and noticed a pungent smell.
She had spent much of her time trying to help Democratic candidates get elected to local office in Coeymans that election cycle. She had been vocal in her advocacy for new leadership. But as she opened the package, she got a sense of the town’s dirty, political strife: A clear plastic bag filled with feces was inside her mail.
“You have been pooped on,” a label on the bag read. Police were called, but they never pinpointed a suspect. For Pruiksma, and the other Democratic candidates who also received a feces-filled package at the time, the message was clear. Opponents of the Democratic candidates, Pruiksma said, were trying to mess with them. “It was really awful. It felt very threatening,” Pruiksma said. “It’s completely unacceptable.”
Now, Pruiksma, an artist, has decided to take an even more public stance by running for town board.
Joining her are two other Democrats. Cindy Rowzee, the town’s clerk, is challenging Town Supervisor George Mchugh for his position, which he won in 2019. Yvonne Shackelton, a data analyst, is vying for town council.
Together, the women — who are marketing themselves as the “A-team,” a nod to their “administrator, artist and analyst” jobs — are aiming to flip a local government that is controlled by Republicans. The candidates say they want to bring “transparency” to their town and rebuke the insular approach to government that they say was especially evident last year, when the town passed more local laws than usual during a pandemic, which made giving and receiving feedback more difficult.
And the women say the recent homophobic comments from Albany County Legislator George Langdon IV, who was formerly a Coeymans Town Board member, is an example of the repugnant attitude that has plagued Coeymans politics for years. The town is 15 miles away from Albany, but mostly rural — now a contentious dichotomy between those who moved to Coeymans for its pastoral setting and historic homes near the Hudson River, and those who grew up when the Lafarge Cement plant on Route 9W was king and want to continue to see industrial development flourish.
Mchugh could not be reached for comment on this story after several attempts by phone and email. All of the town’s board members, Daniel Baker, Linda Bruno, Zachary Collins and Brandon Lefevre, also could not be reached for comment. Bruno, the only woman on the board, and Baker are up for re-election this year.
Following calls for his resignation, Langdon apologized in a statement last week, saying that he has “never been homophobic,” and that he deeply regrets “the foolish off-the-cuff comment that has caused so much pain.”
The current Coeymans Town Board put out a statement Wednesday that said they were “unfamiliar with the context” of Langdon’s comments or of the event he attended.
“However, all of us have many close friends, some lifelong, as well as family members within the LGBTQIA community, and if they or anyone else felt insulted by Legislator Langdon’s remarks, then we would hope he would publicly apologize for his comments and clarify any remarks or opinions he may have shared that were offensive,” the board wrote. “Albany County Legislator Langdon’s opinions and comments certainly do not reflect the beliefs or opinions of the Coeymans Town Board.”
Albany County Legislature Chairman Andrew Joyce, a Democrat, said at a rally Friday that the legislature will vote on articles of censure against Langdon, the first time it’s been done in the body’s 52-year history, at its April 12 meeting. The censure is the largest rebuke the legislature can do; it cannot remove an elected member.
The three Democratic candidates said they didn’t believe the town’s statement went far enough to support the LGBTQ community or to admonish what Langdon said.
“I am deeply disturbed by (Langdon’s) comments,” Pruiksma said. “It’s cruel and completely unjust.” One of the ways Rowzee wants to bring transparency to Coeymans is by instituting financial disclosure statements for elected officials.
“We want to bring a change to Coeymans,” Rowzee said. “We want to bring back that hometown feel.”
And bringing back that hometown feel, she said, means running a scandal-free local government.
Former Town Supervisor Stephen Flach, who hosted the seminar where Langdon made the homophobic comments, gave himself a $15,000 raise while in office. He narrowly lost the next election cycle to Democrat Philip Crandall after suspicions arose about Flach being too favorable to the Port of Coeymans and its owner, Carver Laraway. The town police chief investigated Flach for allegedly releasing information that allowed Laraway to win a town bid on a house, but Flach was never charged.
And Crandall, who was in office after Flach, faced controversy himself in 2014 when he faced disciplinary charges for intervening in three cases involving his relatives and elected officials. Crandall resigned his judgeship, but he denied the allegations.
As Mchugh took over as town supervisor, he too faced questions of being too tied up with the port, given that he was a former general counsel for Carver Companies. He was also a real estate agent who represented a Carver warehouse at another port location in South Carolina.
As the three Democratic challengers wait to see if voters give them an opportunity to govern, Pruiksma said she will have “zero tolerance” for the kind of harassment she experienced a couple of years ago.
“If anybody is starting that kind of stuff, or does that kind of stuff, it’s not going to be met with any kind of relaxed opinions,” she said.