Voters are heading to the polls in Saratoga Springs today to choose the city’s next Public Works Commissioner.
Voters are slowly trickling into the Canfield Casino polling site in Congress Park. By this time Wednesday they will have selected who will serve as the head of the city’s second-largest department for the rest of the year.
Karen McLean is one of a dozen poll workers on hand.
“The structure of the ballot is almost unheard of. This is a very unusual ballot structure as you can see on the table out there—they only have one DPW official typed in and the other one the voters have to write it in,” said McLean.
The only candidate on the ballot is Republican Chuck Marshall.
In October, Hank Kuczynski was appointed to fill the empty DPW seat that had been vacated by fellow Democrat Jason Golub in August. At the time Kuczynski, said he had no plans to run for the seat again. He since changed his mind.
“The Democratic Committee said, ‘we’d like to give the people a choice, would you do a write-in campaign?’ and I said, ‘well I’ve never done one, but if you’re willing to do the work, I’m glad to be your candidate because I love the job,” said Kuczynski.
City Democrats failed to nominate any candidate for the mid-winter vote. They argued the election timeline sent to the Saratoga County Board of Elections was only a proposal after the Republican Commissioner initially balked at the idea of holding a special election.
The city council seemingly called off the election, opting to keep Kuczynski on through the end of the term, but after a suit from the city Republican Committee Chair Mike Brandi and Marshall, a State Supreme Court Justice ordered the election to move forward with only one name.
Paul Finley voted for Marshall and says he’s unimpressed with the runup to the rare January election.
“The Democrats couldn’t get the petitions in on time so they’re running Hank Kuczynski as a write-in candidate,” said Finley.
Marshall began leading the city’s planning board last year and is the real estate director for Stewart’s Shops, which secured Finley’s vote.
“I think his qualifications, his background, are above what Mr. Kuczynski has. Kuczynski’s a good man so I could settle for either one winning and be happy with it but I think Mr. Marshall has the civil engineering background which the DPW is involved with a lot so I think that will help him,” said Finley.
Bob Kelly has lived in Saratoga Springs for nearly three decades and says he’s rarely missed an election.
“Well, I voted for the only name that was on the ballot. And I have to admit I don’t know too much about him but I figured that I always want to vote. So, I did see a couple of recommendations for him online from people I know. And that’s about all I know about this candidate. I know there was another guy who was a write-in but I frankly didn’t know how to spell his name. That’s the truth. Yeah, if it was one, I could’ve come up with then maybe I would’ve written him in,” said Kelly.
Nancy Nelson and Jeffrey Cannell wrote in Kuczynski.
“Can you spell his last name for me?”
“No! Sorry,” said Nelson.
“No! But I can look it up, though,” said Cannell.
“So, what did you guys just put on the ballot?”
“I put—you know, phonetically how it’s spelled so hopefully it works, you know. I just thought it would be written in there so I didn’t bother to write it down because it’s a tough one. But I’ve been reading about him and I decided I wanted to do the write-in,” said Nelson.”
By the end of early voting Sunday, 597 Democrats, 424 Republicans and 186 no-party voters had submitted their votes. Marshall is endorsed by the non-partisan One Saratoga group.
Polls close at 9 p.m.
