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Incumbent Potsdam Trustee Hopke says campaign is on track, despite snubs from fellow Democrats

Posted 10/7/15

By CRAIG FREILICH POTSDAM -- Incumbent Democrat Trustee Eleanor Hopke says her third-party campaign to retain her seat on the village board is on track in spite of snubs by party colleagues. But one …

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Incumbent Potsdam Trustee Hopke says campaign is on track, despite snubs from fellow Democrats

Posted

By CRAIG FREILICH

POTSDAM -- Incumbent Democrat Trustee Eleanor Hopke says her third-party campaign to retain her seat on the village board is on track in spite of snubs by party colleagues.

But one of her fellow trustees, Steve Warr, thinks there are mistaken and unfair opinions of her circulating among some Democrats, and says he is “a proponent of her being on the board.”

“I have signs out and handouts to be copied and they’re ready to go. I want to try to make sure people have a choice,” Hopke said Tuesday. Since August, village Democratic leaders have twice passed her over as a candidate for the party.

She intends to campaign door-to-door until Election Day Nov. 3. “I expect we will. That’s the plan.”

Her seat and that of Trustee Ron Tischler are to be filled in the election. Tischler’s seat is open because he will be running for mayor.

But Hopke is still trying to make sense of what transpired at the nominating caucus Aug. 20, where she came in third for one of those two trustee nominations behind two newcomers, Michael LaSala and Nicholas Sheehan, in a close vote with a small caucus turnout. Hopke decided to run as an independent on the Sense in Government ballot line.

Her dismay deepened after LaSala dropped out due to rules about not holding office while in a government job and former county legislator Jim Bunstone was selected as the second Democratic trustee candidate on the November ballot, rather than her.

Despite not competing in the caucus in August, Bunstone was chosen at a meeting of the Democrats’ Vacancy Committee, which is appointed to resolve ballot issues such as when one nominee drops out.

Hopke said Vacancy Committee Chair Brandon Amo told her he had put her name forward. But he told her the other two members of the committee -- Bunstone and former Acting Village Justice Margaret Garner -- decided that Bunstone, a former St. Lawrence County legislator who lost a re-election bid last year, would be the second Democrat for trustee on the ballot.

Hopke said her reaction at the caucus of feeling unappreciated just deepened when she learned well after the fact that she was passed over again.

Hopke said she feels that some of her fellow Democrats just don’t want her on the board, in spite of praise from members of both the village and town boards.

“It was clear they didn’t want me. I don’t know what the issue is, but they didn’t want me,” she said.

But fellow Democratic Trustee Warr, who chaired the nominating caucus that shut her out, thinks she might be getting short shrift because some in the party don’t understand stances she has taken over the past few years.

Warr says he believes there are beliefs among some Democrats in Potsdam that she is against recreation programs and was against dissolution of village government, and that is what they hold against her.

But he believes those opinions are mistaken and unfair to Hopke.

“She was a staunch supporter of the village getting out of recreation and handing it over to the town,” Warr said of a move by Mayor Steve Yurgartis to place responsibility for the joint village and town recreation program solely with the town for the sake of organization and efficiency.

That effort failed amidst acrimony between the town and village boards. “Because of that people thought she was against recreation,” and was “perceived as anti-recreation, like anti-kids,” Warr said. He points out that she volunteered to work on the joint recreation committee after the dustup, and has been working to keep recreation programs going ever since.

“I wanted the town to take over because it would have been easier. When the referendum failed I signed up for the recreation committee,” she said.

“It’s just unwieldy the way it is,” Hopke said. “With the new joint recreation committee it’s better organized, but we’re still dealing with two budget years. The town budget year runs January to December, and the village runs June to May. The recreation budget we will be adopting has to be passed now,” to accommodate the town, “and we (village government) will be committed to a plan through to a year-and-a-half from now.”

In 2011, when the village wanted a plan to dissolve village government for the sake of economy, Hopke, not yet a trustee, volunteered to work on that committee.

A dissolution plan was just what Gov. Andrew Cuomo wanted as he encouraged local governments to take such steps to unburden property taxpayers.

But as the vote neared, Hopke believed the town was not forthcoming with ideas on how they could assume some of the services the village provided, according to Warr.

“Ultimately she didn’t think it was a better option, and she was spot on.” Warr said. “There were too many uncertainties” such as whether the town would run a police force, and would they hire people from village government, “and there was too much uncertainty in the way the town responded – ‘If it happens, we'll see, if it happens, we'll do this or that…’ That was my take on it,” he said.

Warr said the dissolution question is being interpreted by some Democrats as a partisan issue because Gov. Cuomo “is in favor of consolidating services and the Democratic Party is also in favor of it, and if someone is seen as against it, they won’t be viewed as loyal.

“It was perceived that she was totally against dissolution, that she was not even interested in discussing it, which was wrong.

“But if it comes up again, she’s not opposed to looking at it. She’s certainly not against it. But to paint her with an anti-dissolution brush is unfair,” Warr said.

“I’m a proponent of her being on the board. I have no axes to grind. She’s done a god job on the board. I don’t think she needs to be swept out because she’s anti-anything.”