HILLTOWNS — Conservative Chris Smith, who represents Albany County’s 39th District, is defending his seat for the first time since he took office in 2015. 

Rensselaerville Democrat Hébert Joseph — an engineer and United States Army veteran from Haiti, who is currently chairman of the Rensselaerville Democratic Committee — hopes to take Smith’s place in office, saying the incumbent legislator “doesn’t do anything.” 

Although Joseph is a Democratic leader, he failed to make his party’s ballot line due to a challenge by Smith that left Joseph with only 28 valid signatures out of the 280 he submitted. Joseph is instead running on the Working Families and Hilltowns First party lines, with the Democratic line sitting empty. 

Albany County has a high Democratic enrollment, including in the Hilltowns, which have historically been dominated by Democratic candidates. Enrollment numbers have lost their predictive value there, however, ever since Donald Trump won the region in 2016 and local Republican and Conservative-backed candidates systematically took over nearly all the town boards there. 

“[Smith] has been totally absent from our community,” Joseph told The Enterprise this week of the Conservative incumbent. “No one even knows what he looks like.” 

Smith, also a veteran, who himself took office after challenging an incumbent, Deborah Busch, all but laughed off this claim. 

As owner of Berne’s Maple on the Lake, along with Sons Deli in Clarksville, Smith has said that he probably sees “300 people a day in my restaurant alone.”

“I’m in the community every day,” he told The Enterprise this week, saying that he recently attended a firehouse breakfast in Medusa, and, in addition to knowing people through his restaurants, he has kids in the Berne-Knox-Westerlo School District.

A flier that Smith sent The Enterprise says that he has sponsored a bill that acknowledges Purple Heart recipients, and co-sponsored a youth deer-hunting program bill, a school-bus stop-arm camera bill, and a bill “calling on transparency in the County’s handling of the migrant crisis,” along with being involved in securing grants for different organizations. 

Joseph also accused Smith this week of not taking advantage of the county’s available American Rescue Plan Act funding. The county is to receive nearly $120 million in two separate tranches, according to its online ARPA portal. 

Earlier this month, the county announced the distribution of nearly $2 million of this money to cultural programming commercial/industrial revitalization efforts — the first of its external allocations. 

Smith told The Enterprise this week that he was formerly on the committee that oversaw use of ARPA money, but that, now that he’s no longer a part of it, he doesn’t see the applications that come in. 

“The tricky part about the ARPA funds is the structure of the … program,” he said. “Half of it had to go to not-for-profits that had to be directly affected by the pandemic itself.”

Smith said he didn’t “have an idea where more money should go,” and that he thinks the county is “doing a pretty good job dividing it up.” 

If anything, he said, more money should be spent on youth programming, but that, without many formal youth centers to begin with, getting that money would be difficult.

Other organizations that might meet the qualifications for future funding haven’t reached out to him for help, Smith said. 

Joseph did not have specific ideas himself (and also erroneously said that the county had $2.5 billion available for legislators to ask for), but said that he would “take the words of my district and I will go to downtown Albany” to get what’s in residents’ best interests, and remind leaders about the rural community’s needs.

He said in a pre-written statement that this included creating a “welcoming place” for Hilltown seniors and helping local farmers who are “feeling the pinch.”

Joseph also said, “Voting is the expression of our commitment to ourselves, to one another, this 39th District, and this county. Not voting is not a protest. It is a surrender. We [at] Hilltowns First, we are not going to surrender. It is time for a change, Hilltown’s First is on Line F. We are asking you to vote for Hebert Joseph. Regardless of your party affiliation we are standing behind Hilltowns First.”

The Enterprise also asked each candidate about their views on the county’s climate resiliency plan, a final version of which is expected to be released next week, according to county spokeswoman Mary Rozak.

The plan details various steps the county should take to mitigate climate change and its impacts, from conducting a greenhouse-gas emissions inventory to planting more trees, among scores of others — many of which will cost money. 

Both Joseph and Smith said they were in favor of the plan, but highlighted the county’s fairly limited role in the overall climate issue. 

“It is a collective effort,” Joseph said, tying this to another jab at Smith’s alleged non-efforts. 

Smith said that the county “has to invest in it,” but that the entire country has to get involved. “If we’re just doing it here in Albany County, we’re spinning our wheels.”

On improving access to resources in the Hilltowns — which struggle with high levels of poverty and addiction, worsened by long drives to places that might help — the candidates also struck similar, elusive tones. 

Joseph made broad promises about ensuring that “every family will have access to fiber optic internet, and one thing I will do is address the opioid epidemic,” which he said he’d do by improving education and awareness.

He also said he wanted to help seniors and small businesses, such as, in the latter case, by sitting down with potential entrepreneurs and go over the steps involved in starting a business. 

In essence, Joseph said, “I will be a legislator who shows up.”

Smith, meanwhile, said that the problem the Hilltowns face in terms of drug-treatment centers is a low population that, despite openly acknowledging the need for treatment, is less likely to actually take advantage of it. 

“All the addiction centers and all that are in the populated area of Albany because that’s where people can walk to it,” Smith said. “They’re there because the population is denser.” 

Smith said that the “sheriff’s office has done a great job getting out there and educating and helping,” but that many in the Hilltowns have moved there for a sense of independence, and that “for them to actually go ask for help, it’s hard for the Hilltowners.”