Many Albany County legislators attended County Executive Dan McCoy's “State of the County” address last week. They're riding the wave of optimism McCoy projected during his speech.
The Democrats who run Albany County say social and political victories of the past year are welcome fodder for election campaigns. The entire Albany County Legislature is up for re-election in November. County Legislature Chair Andrew Joyce says the panel is on-board with an agenda that complements McCoy’s State of the County: "With the next week or so we're gonna be unveiling what we call our 'lead agenda' for Albany County. We're gonna be focusing on labor issues. We're gonna be focusing on equality issues. Economic development. And democracy. We're gonna be talking about ethics and anti-nepotism and Board of Elections. And how do we improve, you know, voter education and turnout and all these different issues we've identified here in the county."
Republican Legislator Mark Grimm of the 29th District points out McCoy seemed to avoid issues the lawmakers are likely to fight over: "Paid sick leave, it mandates, for those folks who don't know, it would actually tell an employer how many paid sick leave days you have to give to employees, irrespective of all your other benefit plans. And it would even apply to part-time workers, so, a place like Guptill's Ice Cream would have to give paid sick leave to 100 teen-agers. So that hasn't come to a vote yet because they don't feel they have the votes. That's gonna be one of the fights in 2019."
Grimm says he'd like to see the legislature be more sensitive to the needs of businesses and non-profits.
The lawmakers recently appointed former Cohoes council candidate John Frainier to fill the District 17 seat vacated by Ralph Signoracci, who recently resigned to take a position with the County Comptroller's office.
Frainier will serve the rest of the year. The seat goes on the November ballot to fill the remaining two years of the term. Democrat Sam Fein represents the 6th District: "We have appointed a new person to the County Legislature, so I think we're, everything is going smooth now and we're all actually gearing up to run for the primary elections in June now."
Joyce expects the accelerated timeline will keep candidates "on their toes." "I personally am a fan of it, 'cause then I get to take a vacation in July."
Grimm has a different point of view. "When the state moved the primary from September to June that was very significant because the petition process has to be moved up too. So instead of passing petitions in June we have to start in February. You can imagine what that's like in upstate New York. So decisions about candidates have to be made in the next month. So you're gonna be hearing a lot about people who typically might not announce until May, they're gonna have to be announcing next month."
