Evans wins mayor race by big margin
COXSACKIE — Republican Mark Evans defeated Democrat Veronica Foley Tuesday by a 2-to-1 margin to remain the village’s mayor.
Unofficial results posted by the Greene County Board of Elections give Evans a 354-161 victory, a nearly 69 percent plurality. He won an eighth two-year term.
Evans, 57, is the vice president of State Telephone Co., a Greene County business founded by his great-grandfather.
He is also president of Greene County Paramedics, which provides emergency services to 10 communities in the county, which has no hospital.
Speaking with the Times Union earlier this month, Evans noted as a signature achievement the village’s at- tainment of a
$4.5 million New York Forward grant for a municipality of fewer than 3,000 people. The state has the final say over projects the grant will fund, but Evans said he wanted to use some of it to address an affordable housing crisis in the community. He also pointed to a weekly farmers market every Wednesday afternoon in the village’s waterfront park, an upgrade of the village’s water system and a $3 million state grant to install a water tank to back up the system in case of water main breaks.
Foley, 33, an occupational health and safety specialist for the New York State Public Employees Federation and a board member of the New York Committee on Occupational Safety and Health, became deeply involved in local politics over the development of the Newbury, a boutique hotel attached to an events center on the waterfront.
The village halted the project with a stop-work order but only after residents, including Foley, began examining the project and found it had been built with an extra floor, one of several unapproved variations to the plan.
Foley began a newsletter to update residents on the project and she attended Village Board meetings. She also said a major issue is pedestrian and vehicle safety in the village’s center.
The unofficial results for the two trustee seats are: Republican Rodney E. Levine with 289 votes, Democrat Donald A. Daoust with 277, Republican Cesar O. Echavarria with 244 and Democrat Christopher J. Chimento with 206.
Elsewhere in Greene County, Democrat-republican David A. Schneider leads independent Lee Mcgunnigle by seven votes, 94-87. The results are unofficial.