Town Democrats are fielding candidates for town supervisor and two Town Board seats in the November election, a team the party’s supervisor candidate calls the “most viable” in years.
Democrats are putting up Cynthia Young for town supervisor and Carol Henry and Ryan Gregoire for town council seats. All will be going up against Republican incumbents in a town where Republicans have a significant voter enrollment advantage.
Young, 54, a self-employed bookkeeper and former chairman of the town Recreation Commission, will be running against Supervisor Paul Sausville, who is seeking his fourth two-year term. She has run three times for town clerk and once for Town Board in the last decade, losing each time.
“The people of Malta deserve to have a choice. It’s time for there to be someone other than a Republican on the board,” she said.
With the town expecting growth with the arrival of the GlobalFoundries computer chip plant in Luther Forest, Young said she differs with Sausville over downtown development.
“I think the current supervisor, his vision no longer fits with where Malta is going,” she said. “We need commercial development to support GlobalFoundries and to supplement the town’s tax base.”
Young lives in the downtown area and said she looks forward to being able to walk to retail businesses.
Sausville acknowledged differing with Young on downtown development, which he would like to limit to “hamlet-style” development. He continues to maintain the current downtown plan allows inappropriately dense development.
“I think it’s a question of scale. I don’t think urbanization is appropriate for Malta,” he said.
He said a dense downtown will lead to a need for more police and fire protection, services town residents would have to pay for.
Sausville, 71, a retired state Department of Environmental Conservation engineer, called Young “a fine person, and we’re friends.”
He said he’s running for re-election based on his decades of experience in town government, relationships he’s developed with state and business leaders and a record that includes keeping town taxes low.
Sausville had faced a potential Republican challenge from Ray Patterson, but Patterson did not submit the necessary petitions by the July 14 deadline.
Democratic Town Board candidates Carol Henry and Ryan Gregoire will be challenging incumbents Peter Klotz and Tara Thomas, each seeking a second four-year term. Klotz is pastor of St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, and Thomas is president of Tara Thomas Design.
Henry has been an outspoken citizen for many years, attending most Town Board meetings. She is chairwoman of the GlobalFoundries Citizen Review Board and a former chairwoman of the town Greenways Committee. She is director of project management at Campito Plumbing and Heating in Latham.
Gregoire is a 21-year-old town native who recently graduated from SUNY Brockport with a degree in political science. While in college, he had internships with former U.S. Rep. Scott Murphy, the Capital District Area Labor Federation and U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
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