McNally Clinches DA's Race

Another long day of counting ballots from the city of Troy and Democrat Rich McNally has increased his lead to 217 over Republican Greg Cholakis. These are the last ballots remaining to be counted in this cliff hanger.

We are told that an addition error in East Greenbush took about 40 votes from Cholakis while the first half of the day in Troy resulted in McNally gaining 45 votes. This included traditionally GOP districts in Lansingburg and did not include the traditionally Democratic areas of South Troy. Nor did it count Council District 5 in which Ken Zalewski won by about 500 votes. When all the ballots were counted McNally held a 217 vote lead.

Each side has challenged a number of ballots. The Democrats have challenged 147 while the GOP challenged 130. That’s a total of 277 unopened ballots. For Cholakis to overcome the 217 vote lead, he would need to carry 255 of the 277 ballots to be opened. That is simply not likely to occur meaning McNally is likely to be declared the winner and the next District Attorney.

McNally was gracious in his remarks calling his opponent a class act. We concur and congratulate Rich on his win and Greg for his great character in conducting this campaign.

Will Jack be calling?

Now that the DA’s office is about to enter Democratic hands, it’s job hunting time for the assistant DA’s employed and appointed by the GOP incumbent. County Chairman Jack Casey is likely to be making a call to Mark Evers whose GOP majority has a few attorney positions to appoint in January. Look for these soon to be job hunting assistants to become pressure points for Evers to appoint as a payback for that GOP endorsement. Look too for attorney Jack Casey himself to want a piece of the pie, the same pie he enjoys in Sand Lake which has the Chairman on the town payroll.

Schodack Supervisor Ballots Opened Today

The last 36 absentee ballots in this great write in race will be opened today. Write in candidate Ray Lemka leads incumbent Beth Secor by 10 votes. Stay tuned!

Metroland Features NG Rumble

Here is a link to this week's edition on the rumblling contrator and his critic.

Evers and Desso Arguing?

Rumors abound but we hear this pair are fighting about something. It won’t take long for the crew to figure out that Evers wants his way no matter what he has to do to get it. Just wait until GOP Chair Jack Casey calls telling Evers who to hire in the town legal department. If the DA’s race results in a Democratic win, Jack is going to be looking to place many Republican prosecutors in jobs. It’s good to know that Democratic Chairman Jeff Spain will be telling Evers, not so fast, those are our jobs! Yea, right.

Reichards Lane Zoning Hearing.

Looks like the Town Clerk got out the neighbors and in the process tried to tell them that Dan Ashley and Josh Sabo were backing a developer’s proposal to build a large number of homes at the end of Reichards Lane. Sorry, but neither party has any interest in the project but since they are on the Town’s Clerk’s hit list, she likes to make folks think her enemies are backing what appears to be an unpopular proposal.

It would appear that the project goals include too many homes to be desirable or acceptable to the neighbors, which includes a Connolly family residence and business. If only the Town Clerk and Supervisor cared half as much about the neighbors in DeFreestville and what they would like to see with regard to development, hey?