The town of Knox has about 40 appointed positions. Next month, a new board majority will decide who fills them.

For decades, Knox, like the neighboring Hilltowns, has had predominantly Democratic enrollment, and the makeup of the elected town board reflected that.

With Donald Trump’s candidacy in 2015, the blue-enrolled Hilltowns — with the majority supporting Barack Obama in the previous election — went red.

This year, in the local elections, Republican-backed candidates made inroads in all of the Hilltowns. In Knox, the GOP-backed candidates swept every post, ousting even the town clerk and long-time judge, as well as the town board members.

Gary Salisbury, the Republican party chairman, said after the GOP caucus this summer, when candidates from different parties were backed, that party lines didn’t matter; the point was to find the best person for the job.

“I’ve always tried to look at the people,” Salisbury said.

The effort was led by Vasilios Lefkaditis, a Democrat, who had been unable to get backing at the town Democratic caucus three years ago and so ran on just the Conservative Party line — and won. He ousted the 42-year Democratic incumbent, Michael Hammond.

For the last two years, at the Jan. 1 re-organizational meeting, where appointments are made for the new year, Lefkaditis has been frustrated that the board members would not agree with his proposals, for example, in replacing the town attorney or planning board chairman.

Last year, the deputy supervisor post was left blank because the four board members thought the deputy supervisor should be a board member, none of whom Lefkaditis wanted; Lefkaditis wanted to appoint Salisbury.

Lefkaditis also couldn’t get support last January for his choices to fill the open seats on the zoning board, planning board, and conservation advisory council. Most of the votes for the key appointments were 4 to 1, against Lefkaditis’s proposals.

“They’re clinging to an agenda the voters rejected in 2015,” a frustrated Lefkaditis told us after last year’s re-organizational meeting.

This year, Lefkaditis is expecting support from the two board members elected with him on the Republican ticket — Ken Saddlemire and Karl Pritchard. “What we’re trying to get away from is the old boys’ network … ,” Lefkaditis told our Hilltown reporter, H. Rose Schneider. (See related story.) “Cronyism is the rust on this great government’s metal,” he said.

He also said last week that the town board had already heard from 21 people interested in getting town-appointed positions, which Lefkaditis said includes planning and zoning board seats, town attorney, and dog-control officer — “virtually every position there is.” He added of the applicants, “And I expect the number to grow.”

An old saying often applied in situations like this is: “To the victor belong the spoils.”

That phrase is rooted in New York State history, spoken by a man with local ties: William Learned Marcy. In 1824, Marcy married Cornelia Knower in her father’s house in Guilderland, which still stands next to the Doctor Crounse House. He later became governor and had the state’s highest peak named for him, Mount Marcy.

Marcy was New York State’s senator in 1832 when, in the month of political appointments — January — he defended the nomination of Martin Van Buren as minister to England. Van Buren, another New Yorker, from Kinderhook, was briefly governor before becoming Andrew Jackson’s vice president and then president himself. He started his career on a political favor called in by his father: Martin had gone to a one-room schoolhouse until he was 14 but his father managed to place him as a law clerk.

Marcy said, on the Senate floor, speaking of United States politicians, “They boldly preach what they practise. When they are contending for victory, they avow their intention of enjoying the fruits of it. If they are defeated, they expect to retire from office. If they are successful, they claim, as a matter of right, the advantages of success. They see nothing wrong in the rule, that to the victor belong the spoils of the enemy.”

The Jackson administration was known for its purge of federal workers; about a tenth of government officials were removed from their jobs at the start of his tenure so that Jackson could put in his own people. Hardest hit were the postal workers with over 400 postmasters, most of them with records of good service, losing their jobs in a single year.

Eventually, citizens demanded reform, resulting in 1883 in the passage of the Pendleton Act, leading to the civil service system that today awards many, but certainly not all, government jobs based on merit rather than spoils.

The Knox openings aren’t protected by the civil service system. But we urge those elected officials who make the appointment to fill them based on merit. If someone is not doing a good job and there is an applicant who would, it’s wise to make the replacement. But if someone is doing a good job, he or she shouldn’t lose that job just because a new party is in power. Appointments and dismissals should be based on merit, not based on political reward or punishment.

Saddlemire, a farmer, and Pritchard, a mechanic, are both experienced in running their own businesses. This is the first time either has held elected office and we trust, when they face their first political test on Jan. 1, they will use the sort of good sense and hard work that has kept their businesses prosperous.

We urge the sitting board members and the board members-elect now, while there is still ample time, to look carefully and individually at each current office holder and each new applicant to see who would best do the work rather than voting on-the-spot Jan. 1 without doing independent evaluations ahead.

We hearken back to the words that Gary Salisbury spoke last summer after the Republicans chose their slate. “I’ve always tried to look at the people,” he said.

Finding the best person for each job is what will be best for the town.