Schenectady mayoral candidate Hull says McCarthy should resign

PHOTOGRAPHER: Kathleen Moore

Two weeks after City Council President Gary McCarthy became acting mayor, his opponent in this year’s mayoral race demanded that he resign.

Hull compared McCarthy to a dictator and said he was subverting democracy.

“For eight years Schenectady had been a city ruled by one political party. Now we have become something even worse. We are now a city ruled by one man,” Hull said in a press release sent out Tuesday afternoon. “The City Council killed off the idea of checks and balances in City Hall and nobody else was even invited to the funeral.”

McCarthy said he will not resign from either position. Under the charter, the council president fills in for the mayor whenever the mayor is unavailable, including in times of resignation. Mayor Brian U. Stratton resigned on April 3 to take a state job as director of the Canal Corp.

Under the state’s ethics law, McCarthy can’t resign from the council to take the mayoral position. He can only fill in without pay. The council could choose to appoint an interim mayor instead, but is forbidden from choosing a member of the council. After the ethics law was considered, McCarthy agreed to work without pay for the rest of the year, working part-time until summer and then taking a leave of absence from his full-time job as chief investigator in the District Attorney’s Office.

He said he is following the steps described in the city’s charter.

“It’s been researched,” he said, adding that he’s not a dictator.

“I don’t think my actions come close to any of those allegations,” he said. “If it’s true that it’s ruled by just one man, then Union [College] would be making a great big PILOT to the city and everything would be perfect. And it’s not.”

Hull was the president of Union College, which has repeatedly refused to make a payment in lieu of taxes to cover the city’s costs of fire and police protection. The college is exempt from property taxes because it is an educational institution, but many other private colleges pay PILOTS.

Hull said he decided to call for McCarthy’s resignation now, rather than when he took the job two weeks ago, because he was spacing out his press releases. Another release, regarding General Electric, went out around the time McCarthy took over, so Hull decided to wait on this one.

“We’ve been just waiting for the right time to do it, and this seemed like the right time,” Hull said. “Have you ever heard of anyone being the chief executive officer and chief legislative officer at the same time? It’s just totally inappropriate.”

Hull has formed his own party, the Alliance Party, and has gained the Republican endorsement. McCarthy, a Democrat, has not officially announced his candidacy yet. However, he is fundraising and has already been endorsed by one of the city’s Democratic committees.

He plans to announce whether he will run on April 26.