Milton Dems host caucus
Candidates eye positions
BALLSTON SPA, N.Y. » Democrats from Milton met Wednesday at the Factory Restaurant in Ballston Spa to nominate candidates for town positions.
Approximately 30 people showed up to caucus, which is the procedure followed by members of the Democratic party to choose their candidates.
Milton town elections will be held Nov. 7 with four positions up for grabs, including town supervisor, two seats on the Town Council and town justice.
The Democrats have candidates running for three of the four positions. There is no Democrat running for supervisor.
Local Democrats are energized by their recent victories in the Ballston Spa elections, where two of the three Democratic candidates who ran won seats on the village board in March.
The meeting was called to order by Ellie Dillon, co-chair of the town of Milton Democratic Committee. Her fellow chair person, Ed Williford was chosen to act as the Presiding Officer.
The three candidates were each given an opportunity to state their platforms and talk briefly about their goals for the town of Milton.
The candidates are Meg Stevens and Sergia Coffey, who are running for seats on the Town Council, and Mark Juda, who is running for Town Justice.
Meg Stevens is a 30-year resident of Milton who has a history of being politically active in the community. She is currently a member of the town’s planning board and she exhibited an extensive knowledge of the issues facing the town during her remarks, including the three-year budget shortfall the town is operating with and which she said needs to be remedied.
Stevens is running on a platform of more transparency, greater responsiveness to residents and keeping the existing Ethics Code in place. She also stressed that the board should look at making cuts to remedy the budgetary shortfall.
This is Stevens second candidacy. Her last run was for the position of town clerk, where she won 49 percent of the vote. Given the recent village victory, Democrats feel energized in anticipation of the upcoming September vote.
Sergia Coffey was the next candidate to speak. While she is a newcomer to the local political scene, she is a 19-year resident of Milton and has a background in economics. Like Stevens, Coffey has also been an active participant for the past several years in town meetings, and she would like to see greater responsiveness from town officials and more accessibility for the public to information and agendas. Her campaign strategy will include extensive outreach and education of the public about her credentials and her position on issues, including keeping the existing Ethics Code in place and being attentive to the direction residents want to see their community go in.
“I would hope that whatever I did as a board member, I would carefully consider all of the issues beforehand,” said Coffey. She added that all the meetings she has attended are full and there are people in the community with strong opinions about the direction they want their town to go in.
“People are looking for a democratic – with a lower-case D – process,” she added.
Mark Juda, who is registered as an Independent, has also run for office before. He has lived in the town of Milton for 17 years and has practiced law for 23 years.
“Because I am a former prosecutor, I know what it takes to run an effective justice court,” said Juda. He added that, “Most people don’t realize how important the justice court is. You need a person with background and experience and my opponent lacks that experience.”
Juda is running against Sheriff Tim Brown.
When Juda ran in 2009 for the same position, he received a better than expected result. Juda won 1,859 votes to his opponent’s 1,969 votes.
Democrats present all expressed enthusiasm that, with three people on the ticket and the continued energy and excitement surrounding politics, they have a realistic chance of winning seats in the Town of Milton for the first time in decades, if not years.
Dillon closed the meeting by saying that everyone present needs to help the candidates. She said that she and her husband have lived in the area for 42 years and they have never seen the energy that they are seeing now.
She also encouraged the group to attend the garage sale at 116 Malta Avenue this coming weekend, June 10 and June 11, which is the only fundraiser being held by the Democrats.