The mayor of Watervliet won Tuesday’s Democratic primary.
Mayor Charles Patricelli beat challenger Timothy Cavanaugh with about 65 percent of the vote in the city of about 10,000. The final tally was 645 to 499.
Patricelli has dabbled in politics for 50 of his 69 years. He ran for Watervliet city council in 2017, then ran for mayor in 2020.
"We have only 3,000 Democrats, for, you know, Watervliet in itself," said Patricelli. "So, in the general election, naturally, it'd be a lot higher. I thought it was a pretty good showing of the number of people."
Patricelli says he never assumed he would win the primary.
“I always, you know, always feel that you can't take anything for granted," Patricelli said. "You can always feel like you're confident about what you, feel good about what you do. But there's always a worry of whether or not everybody else feels the same way. Everybody’s got, you know, has their own opinion about things. And sometimes you have to kind of like, stand back and take a look at yourself.”
Patricelli points out that he campaigned on his experience and past accomplishments.
"Being honest with everybody is an important aspect, can't just can't tell them what they may want to hear," said Patricelli. "You just got to tell them what the what the truth is, and how it will affect them. You know, overall, I keep on telling everybody, it's like, it's not for the individual. It's for the entire city as a whole. And that's the way you have to look at it."
Cavanaugh had been employed by the city of Watervliet for over 35 years prior to retiring in 2016. He has served as the Albany County coroner since 1987. The mayor says he would have welcomed a debate against the challenger.
"I had asked the League of Women Voters that reached out to them, asked them if they would host the debate," Patricelli said. "They reached out to my opponent and he refused. So unfortunately, there was no opportunity for a debate. So basically, there was no back and forth of any of the issues or the ideas.”
In Patricelli's case the primary was the de facto election for mayor. He'll be the sole candidate on the November ballot, appearing on the Democratic and Conservative lines.
"I'm going to continue on exactly how I've been working for the last four years, working to keep our finances in check, we, you know, we were able to do two years without a tax increase, you know, I made mention that, you know, I don't know if we're going to be able to keep that, you know, that promises, next years because, you know, sometimes expenses, and that things are out of our control, but things that we can control, we're working to do that, you know, we're looking to work more in more areas where we can share services to help reduce costs," said Patricelli.
Cavanaugh's office said he wasn't available for comment.
