“I’m supporting Jeff Katz for mayor,” Mayor Carol B. Waller

1-29-11

After all the support she’d voiced for her Democratic deputy mayor, Mayor Carol B. Waller sat mute as the village Republican Party, chaired by her husband Bill, nominated its own candidate, Trustee Joe Booan, by acclamation.
While she kept her counsel during the best-attended GOP village caucus in memory, perhaps in history – it packed 70 people into the 22 Main meeting room on Thursday, Jan. 21 – the mayor hadn’t changed her mind.
“I’m supporting Jeff Katz for mayor,” she repeated earlier this week, saying she believes his longer tenure on the village board better qualifies him.
Village Democrats, as anticipated, had nominated Katz at their own caucus, in the same room 24 hours earlier, attended by two dozen of the party faithful.
They also nominated Trustee Lynne Mebust for a second term, and village Democratic chair Richard Abbate for the seat now filled by Trustee Eric Hage, an independent who decided not to run again. 
Over the weekend, however, Abbate had second thoughts and withdrew.  He was replaced by Sally Eldred, retired executive director of the Greater Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, who moved to the village five years ago.
For the two trustee vacancies, the Republicans nominated Doug Walker, proprietor of 2 Chestnut B&B who also ran two years ago, and Alton B. “Chip” Dunn, III, a Laurens Central School teacher  long-active in the Cooperstown fire department and EMS squad.
Democrats nominated Leslie Freedman and Republicans Mike Molloy for the village justice position being vacated by Enid Hinkes.
Mayor Waller had announced last March that she would be supporting Katz, who she’d designated deputy mayor, to replace her in village elections now upcoming on Tuesday, March 16.
Her husband, as Republican chairman, when questioned about the potential conflict of interest, had insisted everything would be
above board.  Still, as of Monday, Jan. 18, three days before the GOP caucus, he had recruited no one to run for mayor or trustee.
That evening, Joe Booan, a BOCES administrator elected village trustee last year, announced he would seek the top job, and his supporters sprung into action to forestall what they feared was an impending Waller coup on Katz’s behalf.
Throughout Tuesday and Wednesday, Booan supporters manned the phones, urging Republicans to attend Thursday’s caucus and vote their views.
It later circulated that Bill Waller had been lining up proxy votes that he would then cast on Katz’s behalf.  Whether he was doing so or not – Waller denies it, saying proxy votes aren’t even allowed in a caucus – a push for Katz never materialized.
The Democratic caucus went forward routinely – Katz cited his longer tenure on the board in his acceptance remarks – but by 7 p.m. the next evening, every seat in the 22 Main meeting room was taken, and attendees were backed up into the hallway.
County GOP Chair Sheila Ross nominated Bill Waller as caucus chair, and he was approved.  When he called for nominations for mayor, Helen Chetner, Booan’s Irish Hill neighbor, nominated him; Lee Malone seconded.
Addressing the caucus, Booan, who was recently promoted from Milford BOCES principal, recalled finding old equipment – training vehicles, on average, were 26 years old – a deteriorating plant and a fragmented staff on arriving there nine years ago, (issues that, to a degree, parallel current municipal challenges.)
It took a while, but all of those issues have been resolved, he said, in particular “getting everybody on one bus going in one direction.”
Any more nominations? Waller asked.  “There being none, I cast one vote in the affirmative for the nominee.”
The room burst into applause.
Bill Waller said the caucus was the best attended in his 30 years involved in local politics.  He researched earlier village GOP caucuses in The Freeman’s Journals, going back several decades, and hadn’t found one to match this one.
Asked if the local Republican Party would be giving this year’s slate the same kind of support given to past candidates, Waller said he didn’t know and that the decision would be made by committee; he didn’t know when that committee might meet.
The backdrop of last week’s events was a year of transition on the village board, and two new trustees – Booan and Willis J. Monie, Jr. – discovered they were of a mind with two other trustees, Hage and Neil Weiller, in their concern about the village’s declining financial picture.
The four found themselves voting as a bloc on numerous questions, with Waller, Katz and Mebust in opposition.  Some see the March election as a referendum on the two approaches.
Katz, 47, a retired trader on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, moved to the village a half-dozen years ago with his wife and three sons.  In addition to elective office, he published “The Kansas City A’s & The Wrong Half of the Yankees,” a history of New York’s use of the A’s as a farm team.
Booan, 44, is currently one of two directors at ONC BOCES, seconds-in-command to Superintendent Nick Savin.  A fourth-generation Cooperstownian, he was a school counselor in Virginia, where he met his wife, Lisa, before moving home.  The couple has two children.