9/15/07 - Infighting ushers in Democratic primary

Incumbents defend seats as party endorses challengers in 2nd, 4th wards.

Bob Ellis/staff photographer
Neighbors on Lincoln Avenue have differing views on who should be their next Common Council representative. The primary will be held Tuesday

(As published by Cortland Standard, Evan Geibel reporting)

On Tuesday, tensions between two sitting aldermen and some members of the Democratic Committee will see at least partial resolution.

Aldermen Shannon Terwilliger (D-2nd Ward) and Nick DeCarlo (D-4th Ward) face off against Clay Benedict and Brian Tobin, respectively, in a Democratic primary that has left the incumbents feeling abandoned after their party endorsed the challengers.

Terwilliger and DeCarlo, the only incumbents in the county facing primary challengers, announced their candidacy jointly after a Common Council meeting on March 20 — anticipating the contests with Benedict, who sent out a press release announcing his bid for the Ward 2 seat a week later, as well as Tobin.

On June 14, the Democratic Committee met to endorse its slate of candidates for this year’s elections. Committee secretary Sean Mack said approximately 40 to 50 people were in attendance and that a quorum was exceeded including both those present and those represented via proxy.

Each committee member’s vote — there are two committee members per district — is weighted based upon half of the number of people in the district, regardless of party affiliation, who voted for the Democratic candidate in the last gubernatorial election.

The 84 members of the Democratic Committee have a combined weighted vote total of 5,875, Mack said, and there were 4,118 weighted votes present at the meeting in the form of proxies and members in attendance. A quorum amounts to a majority of the total number of weighted votes.

According to Mack’s notes from the meeting, Benedict received the Ward 2 endorsement overwhelmingly — 3,942 votes for Benedict versus Terwilliger’s 199 votes. The Ward 4 endorsement tally was closer, with Tobin receiving 2,425 votes against DeCarlo’s 1,731 votes. Some committee members abstained from certain votes, Mack said.

Although Mack was unable to provide the exact number of committee members at the meeting, both he and Democratic Committee member Michelle Farron said it is not unusual for many of the votes to be cast via proxy.

Tom Terwilliger, Shannon Terwilliger’s husband and a member of the city Planning Commission, had asked Farron in advance of the meeting to attend personally and cast her own vote. Farron said she would not have it any other way, and endorsed, in person, Benedict and DeCarlo.

Terwilliger and others have alleged that many of the endorsements for Benedict had been proxy votes and that it did not adequately represent the wishes of the party; Farron said that of those present, those endorsing Benedict amounted to “quite a landslide.”

Tobin announced his candidacy publicly within the next few days, but Democratic Committee Chairman and county Election Commissioner Bill Wood would not confirm the endorsements for a June 20 Cortland Standard article.

Mayor Tom Gallagher, a Democrat, did not receive the party’s endorsement either although he is running unopposed for his third term. In May, he sent a letter to Wood and members of the Common Council — including Democratic Committee members DeCarlo, Terwilliger and Susan Feiszli (D-6th Ward) — announcing his candidacy and indicating he was interested in the party’s nomination.

“I think it’s very unfortunate that they’ve taken the position of not supporting an incumbent mayor, and at this point, I don’t understand why the party would not endorse two sitting council people,” Gallagher said.

Mack said that during the committee meeting, the committee likely “fully intended” to endorse Gallagher, but if no one was on hand to make the mayor’s case, it’s entirely possible that the endorsement, although important, “slipped through the cracks.”

“It’s kind of a flowing program,” Mack said. “The bottom line is, don’t take anything for granted.”

Since the endorsements, Terwilliger and DeCarlo have alleged that Wood and other high-ranking party officials orchestrated the primary challenges.

In an interview Friday morning, Tobin said he had approached the Democratic Party with his intention to run for a city office.

In a letter to the editor published in Thursday’s Cortland Standard, Benedict said “I am not running for office because anyone in any position in the party wants me to.”

Although he indicated a willingness to speak to a reporter earlier this week, Benedict has since declined to be interviewed.

His dissatisfaction with the Cortland Standard stems from controversy surrounding independent nominating petitions filed by Terwilliger and DeCarlo near the end of August.

Both incumbents filed petitions as members of the Crown Citizens Party (which they created) on Aug. 21, the deadline for filing. The independent nominating petitions would have allowed Terwilliger and DeCarlo to appear on the ballot no matter what the outcome of the primary.

But those challenges were rendered null and void after Wood researched state Election Law and found a section that requires candidates to accept the nomination of a party other than the party that they are registered as a member of.

Although the two aldermen had submitted a coversheet indicating their creation and acceptance of the Crown Citizens Party nomination, Wood said the law requires the candidates to fill out an official form, which they had not.

In his 10 years in the Board of Elections office, Republican Election Commissioner Bob Howe said he has never seen that point brought up.

Howe said Wood researched the law and found the provision after the five-day period for filing an official nomination acceptance form had passed. The form was due Aug. 24.

The candidates were informed about the final fate of their petitions on Sept. 5 at a hearing scheduled to review challenges filed against the petitions the week before.

Citing technical problems with the petitions, one resident of each ward filed the challenge to the respective petitions.

But 2nd Ward resident Ann Doyle later said Wood had presented her with a challenge with her name already on it, and misrepresented what the challenge meant — when she signed it, Doyle said she believed that it was a challenge to Terwilliger’s Democratic nominating petition.

Doyle claimed she would not have submitted the challenge if she had known it would potentially prohibit Terwilliger from appearing on the ballot in November’s election, should the incumbent lose the primary.

Wood said before Doyle’s admission that he had not seen the objection to Terwilliger’s petition, and held firm afterward.

Terwilliger said Wood had been actively seeking a reason to throw out the petitions she and DeCarlo submitted because the challengers had not filed independent nominating petitions of their own, leaving Benedict and Tobin off the ballot should they lose the primary.

Terwilliger said she had heard that independent nominating petitions for Benedict were being circulated.

Benedict has firmly stated that he neither circulated nor gave anyone permission to circulate an independent nominating petition on his behalf.

An Aug. 30 article in the Cortland Standard quoted an elections office employee as confirming that Democratic Committee member and former mayor Mary Leonard brought an independent party petition from the 2nd Ward to the office Aug. 21, two days after the deadline for filing such petitions.

That employee, Democratic elections clerk Sandra Harrington, has since clarified her remarks, saying she was not sure who the petition was for or what ward it came from. She said Wood was present in the office at the time and spoke with Leonard about the petition.

Wood would not clarify what petition or petitions had been brought in that day, nor would he confirm that such petitions ever existed.

Harrington said she is certain that Leonard brought in at least one independent petition, but that the petition was not filed because of the missed deadline.

On Friday, Leonard emphatically denied that she had attempted to file an independent nominating petition for Benedict, and was not clear on whether she had attempted to file anything that day after the deadline.

“I didn’t try to file anything,” Leonard said, and later added, “It’s none of your business.”