AGAIN, POWERS

TILTS AT CLARK

Board Reorganizes Wednesday 

By JIM KEVLIN • for AllOTSEGO.com

COOPERSTOWN – Veteran county Rep. Jim Powers, R-Butternuts, is again seeking to bump county Rep. Kathy Clark, R-Otego, from the chairmanship, according to representatives whom he’s approached asking for support.

The Otsego County Board of Representatives, which Clark has chaired for four one-year terms now, will  hold its reorganizational meeting at 10 a.m. Wednesday in the County Office Building on upper Main Street here.

Powers, a dairy farmer and beekeeper, again turned back a challenge from Democrat Theresa Winchester of Gilbertsville in the Nov. 3 election.  Clark, retired food services manager at SUNY Oneonta, again ran unopposed in the Otego-Laurens district.

Last year, Powers, who served as board chair in 2008 and 2009, also tried to take the chairmanship from Clark, even meeting with Democrats at county Rep. Kay Stuligross’ Oneonta home to try to form a bipartisan majority.   That effort failed.

Reached this evening, Stuligross said she has again been approached by Powers, but declined to say any more.  “You’ll have to come to the meeting,” she said.

Incoming county Rep. Andrew Stammel, D-Town of Oneonta, said Powers had contacted him over the weekend.

With the Republican majority on the county board rising from 8-6 to 10-4 in the November elections, a Republican-Democratic alliance seems even more unlikely now.  However, with the retirement of Don Lindberg, R-Worcester, a counter-balancing force to Powers in the Republican caucus has been removed that may create an opportunity.

Clark, Powers and Ed Frazier, R-Unadilla, Clark’s vice chairman, didn’t return calls or messages this evening.

Powers – he is a senior member of the board, along with Clark, Stuligross and Keith McCarty, R-East Springfield – served only a single one-year term as chair; then his colleagues elected now-retired county Rep. Sam Dubben, R-Roseboom, to replace him the following year and held the chairmanship in 2010 and 2011.

Clark was elected at a dramatic reorganizational meeting the following year, when Democrats Stuligross and Linda Rowinski, also of Oneonta, threw the balance in her favor.

It is said that Clark was dissatisfied with Powers’ chairmanship in 2014 of the Public Safety & Legals Affairs Committee, and she removed him from any chairmanship in 2015.

One issue was rancor between Powers and county Sheriff Richard J. Devlin, Jr., over an independent 911 office.  The second was unhappiness at the pace of progress in implementing the long-awaited emergency telecommunications system.