Write-In Campaign: How Did We Get Here?

For the past fifteen years, I have devoted myself to the Carmel Highway Department. In that time, I have formed bonds with many of my co-workers that will last a lifetime. These people have become family to me, so having the right person overseeing the department and looking out for their safety is not something I take lightly. Within the past five years or so, my boss, Mike Simone, and I have had numerous conversations about my desire to some day run for the position of Superintendent. Out of loyalty and respect for my mentor, and friend, I have always made it clear that I would not seek this position until he decided to retire.

When it was announced earlier this year that Mr. Simone would seek one final term as Superintendent I was happy to support him, as a longtime employee, a friend and as a member of the Carmel Republican committee. In a landslide vote this past February, my fellow committee members and I chose to endorse Mr. Simone over his primary opponent, Gerard Ahler. However, on April 12th, Mr. Simone filed paperwork with the Board of Elections to decline the nomination and withdraw from the race, leaving Gerard to run unopposed since no other party had nominated a candidate. Given the timing of Mr. Simone’s withdrawal, there was still a seven-day window where a potential candidate to fill the vacancy could be chosen, but several attempts on my part to request an opportunity to appear before the Republican committee for their consideration went ignored by its chairman, despite healthy support among other committee members.

In what would become a recurring theme in this process, I continued to get the runaround for long enough that time would run out, resulting in Gerard receiving the Republican nomination by default, as the only candidate to have collected the required signatures (he collected approximately 500). This left me with one final option to appear on the ballot in November, which was to seek an independent ballot line. To do so, I would need to collect 725 signatures, with only about three weeks left to do so. Instead, my team and I went out in the community and collected more than twice that many, gathering nearly 1,700 signatures in less than two weeks!

The validity of my petitions was never challenged; never questioned. They were solid. The next step in the process was to complete a Certificate of Acceptance, which I signed, had notarized and mailed in the day after submitting my petitions. The Board of Elections claims to have never received it, so they invalidated my petitions and set in motion what would become a 90-day court battle for me.

Upon filing my case against the Board of Elections, an Order To Show Cause needed to be signed by the judge hearing the case. All three Putnam County judges recused themselves; the last of which waiting until 4:30pm on a Monday. The case was then transferred to the State Supreme Court in Westchester County on Tuesday afternoon. Despite the time-sensitive nature of this action and persistent phone calls from my attorney, John Murtagh, it wasn't until Wednesday morning, June 14th, that a judge, the Honorable Hal Greenwald, was finally assigned to the case and signed the Order To Show Cause.

In late July, we had our day in court against the Board of Elections, who had now abandoned their claim of not receiving the Certificate of Acceptance, in favor of an argument that the Order To Show Cause, which needed to be signed by the end of the day on Tuesday, was signed by Judge Greenwald on Wednesday, after the deadline, and was therefore invalid, according to Election Law.

On August 29th, Judge Greenwald issued a thorough, detailed decision, ruling in our favor, stating that 1) once something is mailed, it is deemed to be accepted by law, and 2) the amount of time it took to assign a judge was out of my control, therefore I could not be held responsible for delays in the judicial system. For these reasons, he ordered that I be placed on the November ballot.

Almost immediately, the Putnam County law department, led by Compton Spain, appealed Judge Greenwald's decision; using taxpayer money to hire outside counsel. On September 12th, the Appellate Court in Brooklyn came back with a terse two-page decision that was both short on details and strangely made absolutely no mention of the Certificate of Acceptance that supposedly set off this whole debacle. The court's ruling was, regardless of the fact that it was out of my control, the Order To Show Cause was not signed in time, therefore I was to be removed from the ballot.

From day one I knew that this would be an uphill battle, but one that I was willing to fight. True democracy is a government of the people, by the people and for the people. The people of Carmel deserve a choice. On November 7th, you can make your choice by writing in Michael Stern on your ballot for Town of Carmel Highway Superintendent.