As campaign season winds down, candidates in Saratoga Springs discussed their positions at a Skidmore College forum Wednesday night. But not everyone accepted the invitation.
First-term Democratic Mayor Ron Kim and One Saratoga-backed former public safety commissioner Chris Matheisen spoke first at the event hosted by Skidmore Democrats, a student-run organization.
“In the last 22 months we’ve moved this city forward, we’ve built bike trails, we’ve built a homeless shelter,” said Kim.
“I became a member of the Saratoga Springs Democratic Committee, I was a member for a very long time. It was—back in those days it was quite hard to elect Democrats, but we worked very hard at that,” said Matheisen.
Incumbent Democratic Public Safety Commissioner Jim Montagnino and independent challenger Kristen Dart also touted their goals and achievements.
“My third month of office I drafted and presented to the city council the ordinance that creates the Civilian Review Board and gives the framework for its procedures. That was passed unanimously,” said Montagnino
“I’d like to add social workers to our Police Department to work alongside our Police Department to work with domestic violence victims and the unhoused population,” said Dart.
Skidmore political science professor Bob Turner spoke with WAMC before the event and said he provided some guidance to student organizers.
“I think that local—Skidmore voters always benefit from hearing from all the candidates, hearing all the political perspectives, and seeing really for themselves that there’s a real big difference between what a local Republican talks about and what they think the national Republicans are based upon what they’ve seen and heard about Donald Trump,” explained Turner.
Saratoga Springs Republican Committee chair Mike Brandi advised GOP candidates against attending.
“So it’s hosted by the Skidmore Democrats, which inherently that’s fine, you know, they want to be politically interested and get their feet wet sort of thing." Continuing, Brandi said, "but, looking at their website and doing some exploring, reading right from their website; they're the official youth outreach of the Democratic Party. And the main purpose of this clause is to register and elect Democrats. So that was concerning. You know, the thought to me was, you know, sending my candidates into a form run by a group whose avowed purposes electing their opponents was concerning.”
John Safford’s campaign said the mayoral candidate would not attend what they labeled “a Democrat forum, hosted by a Democrat affiliated student group whose declared student club mission is to get Democrats elected.”
Tim Coll, the Republican-backed candidate for Public Safety Commissioner, said in a statement to WAMC: “Unfortunately, there were no clear protocols about the forum and no clear safety plan so I did not attend.”
Campus Safety was present at the event.
First-year student Sam Severs came with some classmates and was grateful to learn more about some candidates’ platforms.
“I feel like a lot pf politicians have a hard time staying away from the noise and not answering the question fully." Severs continued, "and I think the first part—Jim [Montagnino] was asked about like what his vision for Public Safety was and he didn’t really talk about it, whereas Kristen Dart brought up multiple issues—crime but also sidewalks and other things that people are concerned about. I think that Gordon Boyd I think first for county supervisor had a lot of good points. I also think that Matt Veitch even though he’s probably—he’s not the choice of some people here. But he was the only Republican here and I think that that speaks a lot to his willingness to be here.”
Boyd and Veitch are running, along with Michele Madigan, for two supervisor posts.
Jonah LeCompte is co-president of Skidmore Democrats.
“In reality, at the local level, there’s people sharing a lot more opinions than what’s probably talked about," said LeCompte. "So, it’s unfortunate that some of those large scale national values translate into a small town like this where we really want to hear everyone’s opinion. And, also, give everyone the chance to win the election. We honestly thought that it would hurt any candidates that didn’t come tonight because they were just going to be able to give a reason why they should get a vote.”
Election Day is Tuesday.
