Tuesday, April 16, 2024 | St. Lawrence County, NY
By CRAIG FREILICH Two local elected officials say they have not endorsed Elise Stefanik in her campaign for a second term in Congress in spite of their names being included on a list of people her …
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By CRAIG FREILICH
Two local elected officials say they have not endorsed Elise Stefanik in her campaign for a second term in Congress in spite of their names being included on a list of people her campaign says do support her.
Norwood Village Trustee Mike Zagrobelny and Potsdam Town Supervisor Rollin Beattie, Democrats who were on the list of 84 officials from St. Lawrence County the Stefanik campaign released on Friday, say they are not in favor of Stefanik’s re-election.
“I never endorsed her,” Zagrobelny said Friday night.
“I didn’t endorse her either,” said Beattie Saturday morning.
The list of 84 elected and appointed officials from the county was released Friday by the campaign office of Stefanik, a Republican from Willsboro. The release said the 84 officials endorsed her re-election. Zagrobelny is at the bottom of the alphabetized list.
Zagrobelny said he has since spoken with members of the Stefanik campaign team and told them he wants a public apology.
“When I called the campaign office to complain, they said they were shocked, and that it must have been a clerical error,” Zagrobelny said.
“I said I was not happy and that I wanted my name off the list. I told them I wanted an apology on TV and they refused,” he said. He said they offered to release a revised list, but that he has heard nothing since and no revised list has been seen.
“I wonder how many other names on the list don’t belong there,” he said.
It turns out at least one other official somehow made it onto the list in error.
“I go a call from her office Monday or Tuesday inviting me to say something about her, but I said I couldn’t,” said Supervisor Beatie. “I told them I couldn’t endorse her.”
The press release said the officials were elected to office in St. Lawrence County, but Zagrobelny pointed out that village clerks, some of whom were also on the list, are not elected but are appointed by village boards.
An email sent to Stefanik’s campaign press contact asking for comment was not immediately answered Saturday morning.
The Friday story about the list based on the press release can be seen here.
