Candidate wants opponent off ballot
Kennedy claims GOP City Council choice no longer lives in District 6
TROY, N.Y. » Less than a week before voters are scheduled to go to the polls, the Democratic candidate to represent District 6 on the Troy City Council asked that his Republican challenger be removed from the ballot, claiming he does not actually live in the district.
In a complaint filed Wednesday with the Rensselaer County Board of Elections, Democrat TJ Kennedy asked that Jeffrey Belschwinder be disqualified from the race because, city city and county records, he said Belschwinder purchased a home this summer outside the district he is looking to represent on the seven-member council. If Belschwinder were to be elected, Kennedy argues, it would be in violation of the City Charter, which requires that “council district members shall be at the time of nomination, election, and during their terms in office, qualified electors resident from the district from which each is elected.”
“Jeffrey Belschwinder does not live in City Council District 6 where he is legally required to live per Troy City Charter in order to be an eligible candidate for the 2017 election cycle,” Kennedy writes in his complaint. “The Candidate’s residence at 16 Clark Ave. is located in City Council District 5, and therefore his name should be removed from the election ballot.”
Accompanying the complaint, Kennedy provided copies of records indicating Belschwinder and his fiance, Brittany Bishop, purchased the Clark Avenue home from Paul and Donna Pignatelli in June for $127,500. Those records also indicated the couple acquired the property using a mortgage through the Federal Home Administration that requires the home to be owner-occupied.
Belschwinder, who has lived on 2nd Avenue in South Troy with his parents and formerly provided photographs for The Record, denied any wrongdoing in a statement emailed Friday afternoon. He explained that FHA regulations only require one of the borrowers to live in the Clark Avenue home, and while his fiance does live there, he remains with his parents.
“I was born and raised at 412 2nd Street in South Troy,” Belschwinder wrote. “This desperate, last minute attempt by my opponent to distract from his ineffective campaign is sadly more politics as usual. Unlike him, my campaign is based on issues important to Troy voters, and I have presented them with solutions, which is why I’ll win this coming Tuesday.”
The District 6 seat was a source of controversy earlier in the year, as well, when city Republican leaders refused to endorse incumbent John Donohue in his re-election bid, even though he had the party’s support when he topped Democrat Wayne D’Arcy at the polls in 2015 to replace Gary Galuski after that Democrat reached the charter-mandated limit of serving no more than four consecutive two-year terms. Donohue had every intention of running for a second two-year term, gathering twice the needed signatures to assure himself a spot in a Sept. 12 GOP primary against Belschwinder, but county election commissioners Edward McDonough and Larry Bugbee threw out all of Donohue’s signatures because Donohue did not correctly complete required certifications on his petitions.
Donohue claims he was set up by Bugbee, the Republican commissioner, whose incomplete instructions he blames for being thrown off the ballot. Unwilling to reach into his own pockets to pay the estimated $7,000 cost to challenge the disqualification in court, Donohue initially bowed out of the race altogether, but changed his mind and decided to mount a write-in campaign to take a stand against the political gamesmanship he believes discourages people who could be of great help to the city from getting involved.