Republican Chris Koetzle was re-elected to a fourth four-year term as Glenville Town Supervisor last week.
Koetzle chaired the Schenectady County Republican Committee, until recently stepping down the from the role after two years to focus on his re-election as supervisor.
WAMC’s Southern Adirondack Bureau Chief Lucas Willard caught up with Koetzle to discuss local issues as well the results of the county’s elections, including the elections for county legislature, where two newly-elected Republicans will join the Democrat-majority body.
Chris Koetzle:
We put some very good candidates out county-wide for the first time in a long time. And when you do that, and to give the voters an opportunity to look at some, some different folks, they're going to, you know, help us choose the right people for the job. And I think we had a good night, across the county winning two legislators, =legislature seats was astonishing, you know, is was something we're very excited about.
Lucas Willard
So the the GOP couldn't keep the Niskayuna Town Supervisor seat, do you think that says something about the town or the way the suburban communities are going?
Chris Koetzle:
You know, I think each race is individual. And when you look at that, I think there are some pretty nasty stuff that came out late, hit a hit job on the candidate of the Republican candidate running that, you know, may have had some impact, it got negative. I think that's one of the few races in the county that actually got negative. And, you know, we can't take away the fact that Jamie ran, you know, good race, and you have to give her credit for pulling the wind out in a night where it was really about the Republicans.
Lucas Willard:
So you were also reelected. So what's on the list for another four years?
Chris Koetzle:
Well, you know, we have a lot. First of all we've talked about throughout the campaign, Freeman's Bridge Road is being one of our focuses for redevelopment. And we're going to try to take the same kind of blueprint that we redevelop Town Center and bring that to Freemius, Bridge Road and really focus on that, that corridor for redevelopment. We want to continue to develop our parks, we need to develop a Parks Department, which we do not have, we have new parks that we need to develop. One of them is Legacy Park. So there's a lot of work there for our veterans to get that park off the ground. You know, there's a lot of there's a bunch of walkability type projects out there that we've gotten grants for that we now have to get into the ground and get those sidewalks and walkways built. And of course, you know, we have a lot of personnel issues with some vacancies that we're going to have to address. And that's becoming harder and harder. And two of them are in our police department, we just can't seem to find candidates for the police department at this juncture. And so, you know, between the personnel issues, and of course, keeping taxes below the tax cap at the very least is also high on the list.
Lucas Willard:
So Glenville is opting out of recreational marijuana sales. Why do you support that?
Chris Koetzle:
Yeah, so I think it's it's, as I said before, it's a defensive position for for the town, it seems a little backwards to me for the state to say, okay, towns, you have until the end of this year to opt out, or you can never opt out again. But by the way, we're not going to give you the rules of the game until next year. So you know, the way the law was written was it allowed communities to opt out by the end of 2021. And you could always opt back in at a future date. So when we learned the rules, then it would make sense to make that decision at that point. If you don't opt out by the end of this year, then you're stuck with whatever rules are handed to you from the state. It makes sense to me to at least wait and learn what the rules of the game are before you decide to play the game.
Lucas Willard:
And let's talk about the Glenridge Road bridge struck three times this month, twice, on Monday, I think in the same day within 20 minutes. And I grew up in Glenville. And so I'm very aware of the bridge and the issues that it's had. And you and I have talked about this before. And there was a letter that was drafted with your support as well as a Senator Tedisco, Assemblywoman Marybeth Walsh, what do you want to see, particularly from the state DOT at this point?
Chris Koetzle:
Well, just to correct. So it was struck four times already this month, once Monday, the first and then three times, just the other day and one day, so all in one week for four times. And there was a near miss, as well. So that's five incidences in a week. You know, we have we have been lobbying and advocating both the rail company and DOT to find a solution to this today. You know, DOT keeps telling us well, we have we're looking at this laser deployment system. And we think we're going to deploy it here in 2022. And we think it's going to work. Well, we really needed to address this today. And I've suggested to DOT numerous occasions, just close the road to truck traffic. It's simple, it's affordable, and it's a solution that will address all the issues not just the bridge strikes, but once a tractor trailer gets down Glenridge there's no turning around. So it creates a massive traffic jam. Even if it just gets down there and stops. You have to keep the trucks off of Glenridge road if a truck cannot traverse under that bridge, then it makes sense to close that route. truck traffic. They have been resistant to do that so far and really there's no good logical reason. They say that a truck route is it's going to be too difficult to kind of map out a truck route for a driver. I don't think that's true. I think it's it's pretty easy. Just go around the river. It's a little bit further than people like but it's the only answer to the problem.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
