Meet the candidates for Waterford RTM, zoning and assessment appeals boards

Waterford — All 22 seats on the town's Representative Town Meeting, Waterford's replacement for the town meeting structure, are up for grabs on Nov. 7.

Each member of the RTM represents 550 people in each voting district, and the RTM is the only board in town elected according to districts. The board serves as the town's legislative body, approving the annual town budget, as well as capital expenditures and union contracts, and appointing people to various non-elected commissions.

The town's 1st and 2nd districts, whose residents vote at Waterford's Town Hall and Quaker Hill Elementary School, have five representatives each. Residents of districts 3 and 4, who vote at Oswegatchie Elementary School and Great Neck Elementary School, have six RTM representatives each.

Each member of the RTM serves a two-year term. State laws about minority party representation on town boards means voters can elect no more than four candidates from one party to represent each of the four districts.

In District 1, voters at Town Hall will see incumbent Democrats Jeremy Grabel and Jennifer Mullen and incumbent Republicans Timothy Condon, Calley Merriman and Michael Perkins back on the ballot. Valerie Muckle, who previously represented District 3 as a Republican, now lives in District 1 and will be on that district's ballot on Nov. 7.

Democrat Christopher L. Bachant is new to Waterford politics, as is Green Party Candidate Andrew Frascarelli, who is cross-endorsed by the Democratic Party.

In District 2, whose residents vote at Quaker Hill Elementary School, Republican April Cairns and Democrat Sharon Palmer are the two incumbents back on the ballot. The rest — Democrats Gregory Attanasio, Mark Olynciw and Amaryllis Rodriquez, Republicans John Appicelli, Michael Hannan and Tali Maidelis, and the Green Party's Baird Welch-Collins — would be new to the RTM.

District 3 voters at Oswegatchie Elementary School will see incumbent Democrat Marc Balestracci and incumbent Republicans Steven Garvin, Richard F.Muckle and Paul Goldstein back on the ballot.

The new candidates for District 3 likely will be familiar to politically aware residents of Waterford: Democrat Elizabeth Sabilia serves on the Board of Finance, Republican Pat Fedor retired this year as the longtime principal of Great Neck Elementary School, and Joshua Steele Kelly, cross-endorsed by the Democrats, is a co-chair of Waterford's Green Party.

In District 4, where residents vote at Great Neck Elementary School, incumbent Democrats Susan Driscoll and Julia Kushigian-Secor are back on the ballot, as are incumbent Republicans Francisco Ribas, Michael Rocchetti and Thomas Dembek.

Democrat Donald B. Blevins, Republican Ivy Plis and the Green Party's Carl D'Amato, who was cross-endorsed on Democratic Party ticket, are new to the RTM ticket.

Ballots in all four districts also will ask voters to choose new members of Waterford's Board of Education and Board of Finance, as well as the Board of Assessment Appeals and the Zoning Board of Appeals.

The candidates for the Board of Education and Board of Finance are listed in separate articles. The candidates for the Board of Assessment Appeals and the Zoning Board of Appeals, which handle the assessed values of properties and zoning rules on property across the town, are as follows:

Board of Assessment Appeals (two of three seats open) Michael Buscetto (incumbent), Democrat cross-endorsed by the Green Party Gregg Swanson, Republican

Zoning Board of Appeals (three of five seats open)

John Morgan, Michele Kripps, and Joshua A. Friedman, Democrats

Paul Headrick and Anne Darling, Republicans

Billy Gene Collins, Green Party

Voters also will elect two alternate members to the Zoning Board of Appeals.

ZBA alternate candidates Danielle McCarty and Warren MacKenzie, Republicans

Darcy Van Ness, Green Party, cross-endorsed by the Democratic Party