General News: Republicans Back Candidates in Town Election
April 30, 2011
The Cornwall Republican Committee has endorsed a new slate of candidates to run in the November 2011 election for town offices. In the town council race, four people were seeking the committee’s endorsement for two open seats and the committee chose to back a newcomer over an incumbent, Randy Clark.
Clark, incumbent councilman J. Kerry McGuiness, town tax collector Betty Longinott and Graham Kelder, a town resident who attends virtually every town meeting, all asked for the committee’s backing. After the committee members voted, McGuiness and Longinott had won the endorsement in the council race.
Later, Randy Clark said he wasn’t surprised by the vote because he first got on the ballot eight years ago by running a petition drive with McGuiness after they both failed to win the endorsement of the Republican committee. In 2007, no one opposed him.
He says that regardless of the committee’s vote, he intends to be on the ballot for town council in November and to continue being an independent voice on the council. “No one has ever left the room without knowing my opinion and I have done it with the best interest of the Cornwall community in mind,” Clark said.
Mary Ann Rose O’Dell, the town historian and aide to state assemblywoman Nancy Calhoun, won the committee’s endorsement for tax collector. Other office seekers who won the committee’s endorsement ran unopposed. They are town judges Frank Navarro and Joseph Thomson, supervisor Kevin Quigley, and clerk Elaine Tilford Schneer.
All candidates still have to file signature petitions to get their names on the ballot. Republican committee chairperson Lorraine Bennett said that about 160 names had to be collected between June 7 and mid-July. If more than two Republicans submit petitions for the council seats, a primary would be held in September.
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