Schenectady voters will decide five seats on the seven-member city council this fall. Voters will decide on three candidates to serve a full four-year term. Two other candidates will be selected to fill the remaining two years of the terms of Councilors Leesa Perazzo and Ed Kosiur, both of whom recently stepped down.
Republicans are hoping to make inroads on the council controlled by Democrats. Vivian Parsons and Brendan Nally are the latest GOP candidates to step forward, joining Kevin Hammer in the Republican field.
Nally ran unsuccessfully for city council in 2019. At 29, he’s the youngest declared candidate. Nally says he wants to bring a new perspective to the council.
“Everyone that I’ve met seems to have a heart for the city and seems to have the right motive and intentions, but I think they could use some fresh ideas and fresh perspective.”
Nally, who co-founded a property management company with two brothers and father, says he wants to focus on improving neighborhoods by assisting those who want to improve or renovate properties both commercial and residential. Speaking of his own experience, Nally says there’s still a lot of red tape to deal with.
“So you kind of find out about all of this red tape and it can be overwhelming. So it would be nice to create a path or maybe even just to have some sort of a liason between people that want to start businesses and the city so you can work together to bring peope through the process."
Vivian Parsons is joining Nally in the GOP field. Parsons, who is 36, is a mom of three and says her experience and challenges as a single mother give her perspective on the needs of everyday city residents.
Having purchased her first home in November, Parsons says the city’s relatively high property tax rate is a central issue.
“I don’t feel that we as Schenectady residents really get what we are paying for at the rate of taxes that we are paying."
Republicans have continued to push the message of the need for diversity of thought on the Schenectady City Council, which has been entirely controlled by Democrats for the last year-and-a-half. Parsons shares that sentiment.
“And I think that currently what has been happening in the City of Schenectady, which is evident in the policies that have been enacted and the way that money has been spent, is that there really is not much diversity of opinion.”
Joining the Democratic field of candidates is Damonni Farley. Farley, who is 40, ran for city council on the Working Families Party line in 2017, after his nominating petitions for the Democratic line were challenged.
The Schenectady Democratic committee has already endorsed two candidates for the two open seats – Haileab Samuel and Carl Williams. The party has endorsed councilors Marion Porterfield and Karen Zalewski-Wildzunas and city council president John Mootooveren for re-election to full four-year terms.
Farley says he intends to run for a full term.
“I’m a Democrat through and through and what that means to me is fair and open elections is something that we value. That is one of our founding principles, right? So I think…the best endorsement for a Democratic candidate will come from the people themselves,” said Farley.
Farley works as an outreach coordinator with the city school district and is a known advocate for the city’s youth population, but he says the challenges facing young people and struggling families are connected to the host of other issues affecting people of all ages.
“There’s quality of life issues that impact our youth, the adults, our elders, and they all impact us in a different way, but it’s all the same issue, right?”
Farley joins the race as community activist William Rivas is exiting. Rivas serves as Executive Director of the COCOA House, an after school program in the city’s Hamilton Hill neighborhood, and launched a brief campaign earlier this year.
Thearse McCalmon, an activist and educator, is also running for the Democratic nomination.
