ONE-ON-ONE SHOWDOWN
County executive candidates face off before packed house
BRUNSWICK, N.Y. » The parking lot and front room inside the Brunswick Community Center was packed Tuesday night, as more than 100 people came out to hear from the two major-party candidates for Rensselaer County executive.
Many guests stood through the hourlong forum hosted by the League of Women Voters of Rensselaer County featuring the Republican candidate, Assemblyman Steven McLaughlin, R-Troy, and Democratic hopeful Andrea Smyth, D-East Greenbush. Green Party candidate Wayne Foy was also invited to participate in the forum, but organizers say he did not respond to their request.
The forum was moderated by Mary Berry of the Albany County League of Women Voters, with the candidates each having two minutes for opening statements before answering questions submitted by the public before the program and finishing with another two minutes each for closing statements.
McLaughlin touted seven years of positive work in his 107th Assembly District, which includes parts of Rensselaer, Columbia and Washington counties.
“I’m running for one simple reason: to make your life in Rensselaer County better,” said McLaughlin during his opening statement. “I chose to do this, I could have stayed in the Assembly, I chose to do this because I think Rensselaer County needs to grow.
“We need to expand, we need to modernize, we need to rebuild our infrastructure, we need to control our spending as much as we possibly can. Quite frankly, the current county Legislature has done a good job of that and our cur-
rent county executive, [Republican Kathleen Jimino, who chose not to run for a fifth four-year term] has done a good job of that, and we need to continue that.”
McLaughlin earned the GOP line for the Nov. 7 general election by defeating Deputy County Executive Christopher Meyer in Republican and Conservative primaries. McLaughlin also picked up the Independence and Reform party lines after Meyer chose to accept the GOP nomination to run for Grafton town justice and suspended his campaign for county executive.
Smyth will appear, meanwhile, on the Democratic, Working Families and Women’s Equality party lines next month. She touted her leadership and executive management experience as a lifelong healthcare advocate at Tuesday’s forum.
“My campaign is about drinking water quality,” said Smyth during her opening statement. “It’s about aging infrastructure and the fact that our roads, our bridges, our pipes, all need to be addressed. Your property taxes are already high enough, without us having to put the burden of those repairs on top of that, so I will take the 30 years of policy work that I have done at the state and local levels of government and the expertise I have in accessing funding.”
McLaughlin and Smyth also addressed county infrastructure in response to a question from the public. McLaughlin reminded people he took an active role in aiding Hoosick Falls after summer flooding caused substantial damage.
“This year, I got $200,000 [through the Assembly], and all of that is going to go to Hoosick Falls,” said McLaughlin. “That village has been so crushed, not only by [contamination of its municipal water supply], but by the severe flooding that took place. It took away roads out there, so $200,000 will help a little bit, but there’s a lot more to do up there, so I’m very focused on that, still.”
Smyth, however, called out McLaughlin for not taking advantage when Gov. Andrew Cuomo offered $35 million in additional funding for floodaffected communities last week as incentive for legislators to come back to Albany for a special session.
“The governor wrote to legislators encouraging them to come back to Albany, so that they could enact some additional legislation so that funding would be available to flood-affected communities, but I did hear a request that Hoosick be included,” said Smyth.
In response, McLaughlin chose to use the opportunity each candidate had to take additional time to discuss one topic.
“I have been on the ground in Hoosick Falls since day one,” said McLaughlin. “And you must have missed the unending requests that I made to this governor for more money in Hoosick Falls.”
McLaughlin and Smyth both oppose a state Constitutional Convention proposition also on the November ballot, and they also agreed the NY SAFE Act, a package of stricter gun-control measures signed into law in 2012, is a “flawed” piece of legislation. Above, community members submit questions for the two Rensselaer County executive candidates during a community candidate forum Tuesday night in Brunswick.
Right, Mary Berry of the Albany County League of Women Voters introduces the two major-party Rensselaer County executive candidates to a standing-room-only crowd at the Brunswick Community Center Tuesday night.