GOP councilman’s plate fills up
Troy’s 1 rank-and-file Republican to sit on all council committees
Councilman Jim Gulli will soon have the unique role of serving as the lone rank-and-file Republican on every City Council committee.
Luckily for Gulli, who represents District 1, the committees meet infrequently except for the Finance Committee. At least there he’ll be joined by Republican City Council President Carmella Mantello, who chairs the committee.
Gulli’s committee appointments come as a result of former District 2 Councilman Mark Mcgrath’s resignation following the release of an audio recording of him making racial slurs.
“I’m here. I’ve got to do it unless they want to put a Republican in the District 2 spot,” Gulli said about the Democratic majority’s plans for filling Mcgrath’s seat, which represents the North Central and South Lansingburgh neighborhoods.
Gulli noted that he usually attends all the committee meetings. He said now he’ll have a vote at each meeting. The committees tend to meet when an issue arises.
Gulli is adding the Law, Planning, Public Safety and Public Utilities committees to his portfolio, which originally included the General Services Committee plus the Science and Technology Committee.
Gulli’s council district covers most of Lansingburgh. The councilman is a two-term incumbent, who plans to run for a third term in November.
Gulli’s lonely position shows how the Democrats have established control of the City Council. The Democrats hold all six of the city’s seats on the Rensselaer County Legislature. And Mayor Patrick Madden is a Democrat.
Former Councilman Mark Wojcik, who’s leading the GOP candidate recruitment, said the party isn’t walking away from the city.
“We have people interested in all the districts,” said Wojcik, who anticipates announcing a full slate of candidates, including for mayor, before petitioning begins Feb. 26.
“People, taxpayers are getting tired,” Wojcik said of the Democrats. He cited the sanctuary city debate, the attorney general’s investigation of city land sales and the trash fees as issues that the Republicans can use in the campaign.
Republicans can’t count on numbers to give them an easy election run.
Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly 3-to-1 — 9,455 to 3,372 — in the city, according to the Rensselaer County Board of Elections. The Republicans aren’t even the second largest block of voters. That spot falls to unaffiliated voters of which there are 6,264. The Republicans barely outnumber the minor party voters, of which there are 2,987 in the city.
Democratic Councilman Anasha Cummings of downtown’s 4th District said Gulli is in this situation due to the Republicans not having the breadth of representation across the city that the Democrats have. Cummings said, “We as Democrats have to look beyond electability to building a team that is representative.”
The Democrats have not yet selected a person to appoint to the District 2 seat.