NEW YEAR, NEW FACES
Ulster County Legislature bids farewell to eight incumbents at final meeting of 2019
During their last meeting of 2019 on Wednesday, members of the Ulster County Legislature bade farewell to eight of their colleagues, among them the longest-serving current legislator on the body.
When the new Legislature meets on Jan. 6, the body will welcome six political newcomers along with two former lawmakers making a return to the policy-making body.
The departure of the eight incumbent legislators — six chose not to seek re-election and two were defeated at the polls — means that one-third of the incoming Legislature will be new to the 23-member body in 2020.
The changing composition of the board won’t shift the political balance on the body: Democrats will maintain their razorthin 12-11 majority on the board, but it could have an impact on who leads the Legislature in the upcoming year.
Currently, Tracey Bartels, an unenrolled voter who aligns with Democrats, is the Legislature chairwoman. Bartels was elected in a partisan vote by Democrats in 2019 after Joseph Maloney, who ran for election on the Republican line, switched parties midway through the first year of the two-year term and joined the Democratic caucus. That move changed the balance of the Legislature from a 12-11 Republican majority to a 12-11 Democratic majority,
But legislative history has shown that being the majority pick doesn’t necessarily ensure a victory when the issue goes to the floor.
In 2014, when Democrats gained control of the Legislature, Democrat John Parete seized control of the Legislature when he, his son Richard Parete, D-Accord, and David Donaldson, D-Kingston, joined forces with the minority GOP lawmakers to snatch the seat from Democratic pick Hector Rodriguez. In 2015, Parete again won election as chairman, but like in 2014, without the support of his own caucus.
Parete, D-Boiceville, could be in a position to be a spoiler once again. While he lost his 2017 reelection bid to Democrat Kathy
Nolan in a three-way race, he defeated Nolan, D-Shandaken, in a November rematch when he ran on the Republican line on the ballot.
Among the departing lawmakers who did not seek re-election was Legislator Richard Gerentine, a 28-year veteran of the Legislature.
“It’s time,” Gerentine said Wednesday when asked why he decided not to run for a 16th two-year term.
A Republican legislator from Marlborough, Geretine was first elected to the body in 1991. During his time on the Legislature, he held numerous positions, including serving as chairman of the Legislature and for 12 years as chairman of the Legislature’s
powerful Ways and Means Committee.
“It was a lot of fun,” Gerentine said to his fellow legislators. “I think we accomplished a lot of things, I think we’ve been very positive for the people of Ulster County.”
Gerentine said that in recent years, the tenor of the Legislature has changed and has become more political than the body was when he was first elected.
“I’m old-school,” Gerentine said. “I believe in rolling up your sleeves and getting the work done. That’s how I was raised.
“It isn’t like that here anymore,” he said.
Also leaving at the end of the year is eight-term Legislator Hector Rodriguez, a Democrat from the town of New Paltz, who announced he would not seek re-election in February as allegations that he used his position as a legislator to sexually harass women began to surface.
Freshman Legislator Joseph Maloney, perhaps one of the most controversial legislators of the past term, also opted not to run for re-election, as did freshman Legislator Julius Collins, who was forced to choose between retaining his seat on the Ellenville Board of Education or running for re-election to the Legislature. Collins, D-Ellenville, said he chose to remain on the school board because he felt he would be able to do the most good for his community there.
Also not running for re-election was first-term Legislator Legislator Lynn Eckert, D-Kingston, and Brenda Maloney, a Republican from the town of Ulster who was appointed to the position in August to finish out the term of her husband James Maloney, who died in August following a battle with pancreatic cancer.
Voted out of office in the November election were Nolan and fellow freshman lawmaker Brian Woltman, a Republican from Kingston.
Woltman was elected to the Legislature in 2017, when he defeated Democratic Legislator Jennifer Schwartz Berky for a seat that had historically been held by a Democrat.
But just weeks before the election, Berky found herself the subject of national scrutiny after a video depicting her emotional breakdown during a traffic stop in the town of Ulster was made public and quickly went viral, which many have said contributed to her electoral loss.
Woltman lost his re-election bid to Peter Criswell, a Democrat and political newcomer.
In addition to Parete, former Legislator Brian Cahill will return to the county Legislature after a 10-year hiatus from elected politics. Cahill, who served on the Legislature from 2003 to 2009 defeated Republican Andi Turco-Levin to regain the seat previously held by James Maloney, then Maloney’s wife Brenda.
Joining the body as newcomers are: Albert Bruno, R-Saugerties; Abe Uchitelle, D-Kingston; Peter Criswell, D-Kingston; John Gavaris, D-Ellenville; Thomas Corcoran, R-Marlborough; and Eve Walter, D-New Paltz.