Skirmish Over Signs Launches Campaign

8 Candidates Vie For 4 Cooperstown Trustee Seats


By JIM KEVLIN & TOM HEITZ: COOPERSTOWN

Democrats and Republicans Tuesday, Jan. 25, nominated full slates of candidates for four vacancies on the Village Board in the March 15 elections, and the first skirmish of the campaign to come emerged.
Some 30 Republicans, meeting at 22 Main, followed the lead of the Village GOP Chair Mike Trosset in opposing the use of lawn signs in this election season.
The four nominated trustee candidates -- Jim Potts and incumbent Matt Schuermann (three years), Phil Lewis (two years) and Joan White (one year) -- agreed it was undesirable to litter the village during campaign season.
“We run on our plans, on our stances,” said Schuermann.  “We don’t need signs.”
At the firehouse on Chestnut Street, where 90 Democrats caucused, Village Democratic Chair Richard Abbate said Trosset had suggested the idea to him, but his executive committee is unenthusiastic.
“We feel we have three unknown candidates,” said Abbate, “and this is an inexpensive way to get name recognition in the village.”
Minutes before, the Democrats had nominated incumbent Jeff Katz and political ingenue Ellen Tillapaugh-Kuch (three years), Walter Franck (two years), and Jim Dean (one year).
On the Republican side, Potts is a vice president at New York Central Mutual Fire Insurance Co., Edmeston; Schuermann is proprietor of The Leatherstocking Group, a mortgage broker; Lewis is president of Leatherstocking Insurance Co., and Joan White is a grandmother long active in community life.
On the Democratic side, Katz worked on the Chicago Exchange before moving here, and is a published baseball writer; Tillapaugh-Kuch is a conservator; Franck is a retired physician (Bassett Hospital President/CEO Bill Streck nominated him), and Dean is a self-employed master craftsman and environmentalist.