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Democratic candidate Kenan Baldridge, running for New York State Senate, was at the Lansing Community Center Wednesday to talk about why voters should pick him to replace retiring Senator Mike Nozzolio (R).  Baldridge is challenging Republican Pam Helming and Floyd Rayburn (Reform Party) for the 54th District Senate seat.  Although the district skews to Republicans, Baldridge said he believes he has a chance to win the election.

“It has been an interesting ride in terms of being a Democratic supervisor in a Republican town,” he said.  “The town was formed in 1826 and in all those years there have only been three Democratic supervisors, all in the last two generations.  It’s a challenge. So we learn to work across the aisle, and we end up appealing to others on the basis of something other than party.  And we find that that works.”

Baldridge said the four key issues he wants to address in Albany are ethics in the Legislature, economic development, environmental protection, and more support for education.  He added that as a former paramedic he would like to see a loosening of stringent requirements for emergency responders to encourage more participation.


He then fielded about 15 questions from the audience of 27.  Questions ranged from the role of cable Internet as a basic utility to unfunded state mandates.  People asked his views on funding infrastructure, how Medicaid should be paid for, term limits, and his stands on fracking, gas pipelines and natural gas storage for sale outside of New York.

“I don’t see any benefit to the people here from pipelines,” he said.  “The price of gas is really low.  We don’t need gas here.  Why would you want to go through all the fracking to produce low value gas?  The answer is they want to run it down to Philadelphia and put it on ships and send it to China.  OK, nice that the Chinese would buy a product from here, but there are a lot of problems with getting the gas sending it there.  Who gets the problems?  If we are getting the problems, a Texas company is getting the profits, and China is getting the gas, where is the deal there?”

He disagreed with the assertion that upstate money goes to New York City and downstate communities, saying the opposite is true.  And he said that the State’s failure to pay for things is not because Albany doesn’t have the money.  He equated Lansing's struggle with the possible closing of the Cayuga Power Plant and the impact that would have on local property taxes to communities with closing nuclear plants, saying that there is about a five year window to replace the plants with other industries.  Baldridge suggested those industries should build on the area’s strengths — agriculture and electronics.

The campaign for Nozolio's seat in the Senate has been contentious, especially on the Republican side.  14 Republicans vied for the party endorsement, which was won by Pam Helming.  Seven Republicans and two Democrats were set to run in the primaries, but state Republicans and the Helming campaign challenged the petitions, which were required to have a minimum of 1,000 qualified signatures.

“In the legal process you have to file petitions in Albany with a minimum of 1,000 signatures, which we all had to do — and kudos to the Lansing committee — they came up with the most signatures of any other town,” Baldridge said.  “I had 1,951 signatures.  That proved to be essential because there were challenges to the petitions."


He said the Senate Republican committee challenged four of the Republican candidates, as well as a Democratic challenger, knocking two of the Republicans and the Baldridge's Democratic challenger off the ballot.

"They even went to court and they sued the Board of Elections and the candidates to prevent a hearing from being held," he said  "It has been a very negative campaign.  There have been a lot of daggers being thrown.  We just kept a low profile and didn’t want any part of that."

Republican Connie Wilcox said that State Republicans are spending a lot of money on the Helming campaign, accusing Albany of buying the election for her.  She noted that Lansing is only 3% of the 54th, but despite being a small community at the southern end of a large district Nozzolio was always very good to the community. 

"It really turned a lot of party members off because there was so much state involvement," she said.  "Mike Sigler from Lansing was one of the 14, but he got knocked out right away that night when we went to Geneva.  It was a wasted trip, because it was all done before we got there.  I think a lot of Republicans are disenfranchised with Pam Helming at this point because the nomination was bought.  That’s why I’m here tonight, to listen to you, because I haven’t made up my mind about who I am voting for yet."

Helming went on to defeat Rayburn in the Republican primary, but because Rayburn qualified for the Reform Party line it will be a three-way race for the Senate seat.  After the session some people speculated on whether Rayburn would peel enough votes from Helming to allow Baldridge to win.

After the formal questions period Baldridge stayed to talk to people on a one-on-one basis.

To date Baldridge is the first candidate specifically to come to Lansing since the primary election last month.  Rayburn visited Myers Park to meet voters before the primary, and he and Helming both attended a Tompkins County Republican dinner dance in Lansing that honored outgoing Senator Nozzolio.

Baldridge promised, if elected, that he would be a full time senator, not someone who split his time between Albany and another job, also saying he is currently a full time Supervisor in the Town of Rose.  He said he would not align himself with party politics, but represent the people of the 54th district.

“I’m not getting any money out of Albany or New York City,” he said.  “All my money comes from small donations and most of it comes from here within the district.  So my attitude is that if I go down to Albany, you’re the only people I owe.  I don’t owe Albany anything.”

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