HILLTOWNS - A campaign ad that ran in last week's Enterprise caught a local developer off guard.
"I was shocked when I saw The Enterprise," said Jeff Thomas.

A smiling Thomas was pictured standing between Travis Stevens, a Republican making his first run for Albany County Legislature, and Linda Carman, a Knox resident who has been an advocate for senior housing in the Hilltowns since her mother was forced to move to a nursing home in Guilderland.

Thomas is pictured holding a drawing of a senior retirement community he plans to build in Berne. He is also building two senior-housing projects in Guilderland.
"Supporting Plans for Senior Housing in Berne," says the ad, and names the trio. The bottom of the ad says, "Paid for by Hilltowns Citizens for Change."
"That's just a title I gave myself," said Carman who paid for the ad. Carman, a Republican, said on Election Day, "I'm after different officials to be voted in."
She said she asked Thomas to pose for the picture two weeks ago. "He didn't realize it would be in the paper," Carman said. "It was a misunderstanding." Thomas called Carman after he saw the newspaper, she said, and asked her to write a letter to the Enterprise editor, explaining, and she did. "He was very upset," said Carman.

Thomas told The Enterprise this week that, after a recent meeting dealing with senior housing, Carman asked him to pose for a picture with her and her nephew. "She said he was running for the county legislature," recalled Thomas. "I did it as a friendly gesture. I thought it was a picture for the mantle. Then it showed up in an ad.
"We don't endorse candidates with projects," said Thomas. "I was shocked."
Thomas, the owner of WeatherGuard Roofing, lives in Knox and is enrolled as a Republican. Thomas went on to say both political parties have been supportive of his senior housing. And he said that Carman has been "a great supporter of senior housing."
Stevens, who lost his bid to represent the Hilltowns to long-time Democratic incumbent Alexander "Sandy" Gordon, said he, too, was surprised by the ad. Stevens went to a recent public hearing in Berne on the housing project, he said, and Carman, whom he said is not an aunt but a distant relation, asked if he wanted his picture taken.
"I didn't think anything of it," said Stevens. "Everyone there was in support of the senior housing."
He went on, "All the ads for my political stuff, I did myself." This was not one of them.
"It's a non-issue," concluded Stevens yesterday.
"I think it was innocent," Thomas concluded of the mix-up. "There was no harm done."