Porreca beats Clark in Greenport Supervisor race
Town of Greenport, NY, November 4 — While the Columbia County Board of Elections hasn't yet officially certified the results of yesterday's election, John Porreca's 1,005 votes to Clayton Clark's 639 mean that Porreca will take the reins from Kathy Eldridge to become Greenport's next Supervisor.
Greenport's contested elections from the past were often decided by narrow margins. In 2011, John Porreca beat Ed Nabozny by eight votes. Four years later, Nabozny eked out a victory over Porreca by 21 votes. In 2017, Kathy Eldridge beat Nabozny—then on the Republican and Conservative line—by 57 votes.
The current 366-vote gulf separating Porreca from Clark is therefore unusual, but this was an unusual election to begin with. What it came down to in this election was which of the two sides was more successful in distancing themselves from the disgraced current Supervisor Kathy Eldridge.
Clayton could have been supervisor now
Greenport Democrats and Republicans met behind closed doors twice earlier this year to discuss how to move forward in light of the numerous allegations brought against Kathy, most notably her questionable dealings with Hudson Valley Fisheries and her son, Greenport's code enforcement officer Al Eldridge, who had irrevocably lost his driver's license.
The Democrats, represented by James Dolan and Mike Grisham, suggested to Mark Taylor and Clayton Clark across the table that they would agree to Clark as supervisor and cross-endorse him in the November elections under the condition that Clark publicly ask for Kathy's resignation. The condition was not that Kathy actually resign, only that Clayton publicly ask her to.
For Dolan and Grisham that deal would have solved one pesky problem: The Democrats didn't have anyone to run in the election. The Republicans in return would get a Republican Supervisor without having to fight in a contested election they couldn't win. Surprisingly, Taylor and Clark did not go for this rather sweet deal and simply stated that they couldn't ask for Kathy's resignation.
The months leading up to the Democratic caucus saw the Democrats, Jim Dolan first and foremost, frantically looking for a suitable candidate to run against Clayton. Various names were considered, one of them John Mausolf at some point, before Dolan settled on John Porreca after Porreca had openly criticized Eldridge during the June town board meeting and called attention to the chaos at town hall .
Clayton's lack of institutional support
In the weeks leading up to the election, a thing that stood out was that Clayton Clark appeared to be running his own campaign without much, or in fact any, support from the Republicans. While he may have narrowly beaten Porreca in the number of yard signs, he trailed in every other respect.
Porreca knocked on doors accompanied by different people: Sometimes his wife Dawn, on other occasions it was Jim Dolan or Mike Grisham, or Highway chief John Mausolf. Clayton, by contrast, campaigned almost exclusively with family members.
The Democrats sent out two different mailers to every home in Greenport. Clayton sent out none. Mailing campaigns are often the most expensive part of running for local office and the absence of any Clayton mailers suggests a lack of financial support from the Republicans.
Even if everything had gone Clayton's way, a victory in this election would have been unlikely. He never fully and convincingly broke with Eldridge while national politics drove a record number of Democratic voters to the polls. In light of that, the Greenport Republicans' decision to decline the deal they were offered by Dolan and Grisham remains puzzling.
Greenport post-Dolan
The biggest event in Greenport of the past ten days or so wasn't even the lopsided election outcome but the sudden passing away of Jim Dolan on October 29, days after suffering a heart attack during a town board meeting.
The shockwaves this sent through the town, not just Democrats, is hard to describe. In the 24 hours after his death, in conversations I had with the Mausolfs, Mike Grisham, or John Porreca, there seemed to be a sense of resignation, as if anything that Dolan had been working on was now for naught. It didn't take too long for the mood to change though and Porreca snapped out of it first when he declared that he felt invigorated and obligated to follow Dolan's path towards a more transparent and better governed Greenport.
Where things are precarious now is the town board. At next week's board meeting, on November 10, the only three members present will be Supervisor Eldridge, Deputy Supervisor Clark and Guy Apicella, who on his best day can only be described as a wildcard. Three members is a quorum but any resolution will require a unanimous vote to pass.
The appointment of a fourth member, something that could be done by town board vote, is a necessity but should the current town board with the outgoing Supervisor Eldridge try to appoint a new member or should that be deferred until January when the incoming Supervisor Porreca replaces Eldridge on the council?
Democrats meanwhile, after their clear election victory, could make the argument that they should be allowed to replace Jim Dolan with a candidate of their choosing. Given there's two vacant seats, one Republican and one Democrat appointment would be a pragmatic solution.
Whatever the answer, local politics in Greenport is now entering a new phase—one that Jim Dolan, a master of its craft, would have relished.
The other Greenport races
A few more things were on the Greenport ballot, most of them uncontested. Eugene Keeler was the only choice for Town Judge after the Republicans failed to nominate a candidate of their own. Keeler received 1,118 votes versus 13 write-ins.
Debbie Mausolf, running for Greenport Town Clerk, and her husband John Mausolf for Highway Superintendent each were cross-endorsed and received a near identical high number of votes with John (1,471 votes) narrowly eking out his wife (1,463) by eight votes in this marital contest.
Finally, Proposal One, to increase Greenport's annual contribution to the Hudson Area Association Library from $95,000 to $125,000, was passed with 869 votes in factor and 728 opposed.
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