The mood was jubilant at the Barbecue Recreation in Hoosick, where Republican candidates for both Town and County offices had gathered on Tuesday evening after the polls had closed. Republican Candidates for the County Legislature in District 5, Jeff Wysocki and Bruce Patire, have been spending much of their weekends going door to door throughout the District. By ten o’clock they were cautiously optimistic but still tense, but by about an hour later it was clear that they were headed for victory and they began to relax and to break out in broad smiles.
Jeff Wysocki received 2104 votes, Bruce Patire received 1946, while Democrat Michael Hickey received 1575 and Democrat Dennis Smith received 1421.
When asked about his goals for the County, Jeff Wysocki said uppermost in his mind to begin with is just to continue to provide County services and to keep costs down, but he also said, “Bruce and I are going to do all we can do to bring jobs here and to help the businesses that are already here to grow and prosper.”
Bruce Patire said he has many ideas that he wants to explore, but the two biggest things on his mind are school safety and helping existing businesses to do well and to be able to hire more people and expand their operations.
Patire said we need to be proactive about school safety and not wait until an incident at a local school gets us motivated. He said response times for police and other first responders are not as quick in the Eastern part of the County as they are in more populated areas. He feels every school district in the County should have a School Resource Officer (SRO), a specially trained police officer who works full-time at a school district on safety and law enforcement issues, including classroom teaching. Patire said with school budgets tight, the cost of hiring SROs is an issue, but he would like to explore whether the County can help with the expense, or whether homeland security funds might be available for this. He said he has discussed this with HFCS Superintendent Ken Facin and with County Undersheriff Ed Bly, and both had “great ideas” and were eager to collaborate on making it happen.
Patire was also eager to talk about ideas for helping existing businesses in the area, whether it be tax breaks that reward further investment, or loan programs for additional investments, or technical assistance and training programs to help businesses to create and to fill jobs in the local area.