Hilltown Archives — The Altamont Enterprise, August 25, 2011
GOP chooses Milner and Palmer for town board
Rapp runs for super again, still unopposed
By Zach Simeone
WESTERLO — The slates for the coming fall election have been set now that the town’s major political parties have caucused.
Richard Rapp, chairman of the town’s Democratic Committee, has been the supervisor of Westerlo for more than 30 years, and is running unopposed to keep his post. Just prior to the Democratic caucus earlier this summer, Rapp said he was undecided on whether or not he would be running again this year.
“It’s a job where I give up all my personal life for the town,” Rapp said. “I talk myself into it in the morning, and talk myself out of it in the afternoon. I enjoy it, but it’s a lot of work.” Rapp had said in 2005 that he would not be running for office again, but has continued to hold the post ever since.
Republican Councilman Jack Milner is running for his first complete term, after defeating Susan Walter in 2008 to finish out the remaining three years of Kristen Slaver’s term. Slaver was removed from her post due to a job conflict outlined in the Hatch Act.
Also running for town board on the Republican ticket is Laura Palmer, who had planned to run for town judge in 2009, but dropped out of the race because of her mother’s declining health.
Milner and Palmer were nominated at the GOP’s caucus last week; the new Republican chairwoman, Dorothy Verch, had also hoped to run for town board, but received fewer nods than Milner and Palmer at the caucus last Friday. Milner got 21 votes, Palmer got 12, and Verch got 10, according to Bonnie Kohl-Laub, who had served as the committee’s chair until earlier this year.
Democrats Alfred Field and Anthony Sherman will oppose Milner and Palmer in the race for town board. Each is running for a four-year term. Sherman now serves as chairman of the planning board, which recently completed the town’s first comprehensive land-use plan.
Gertrude Smith, the longtime town clerk, is not running for re-election this year. Kathleen Spinnato, Smith’s deputy clerk, a Democrat, is running unopposed to become clerk.
Robert Carl has been cross endorsed by the Democrats and Republicans to run for the open town justice seat, which carries a four-year term.