Legally, “service” of papers typically means to deliver notice to people that they are being sued and/or must appear in court.
The two photos above represent what the Hudson Republicans and the Hallenbeck campaign consider service. These depict two belated attempts around mid-day today to alert two Hudson residents that just a few hours later, the GOP would be in court trying to prevent the Democrats from having a Mayoral choice.
Kinderhook Attorney Bill Better was spotted tramping around Hudson with sheafs of paper in his arms, attempting to track his quarry—evidently with little success and even less care. (Note: The above method of service is known to lawyers as “nail-and-mail,” though it appears in this case in person delivery is required by New York State election law... and here might be, um, better described as “tape-and-escape.”)
The GOP ought to have served them notice well beforehand, but had neglected to do so. The Republican side somehow “forgot” to name the three Dems responsible for the contested petitions in their lawsuit filed earlier in the week, only specifying Board of Elections commissioners Virginia Martin and Jason Nastke... But one of them apparently rolled out of bed this morning, realized their blunder, and had to hustle over the Courthouse for leave to correct it. (In fact, the first version of their Board of Elections complaint wasn’t even signed, and also had to be re-submitted.)
Better evidently was acting out instructions from GOP chair George DeJesus and candidate Bill Hallenbeck, who reneged on DeJesus’s publicly-stated words published just last week in The Register-Star:
“I feel for Mr. Haddad. It was a mistake,” DeJesus said. “During petition time you have so much going on. I can understand the mistake.”
DeJesus said the situation will make it much harder for the Democrats, as they have now opened the door for anyone to be a write-in candidate for the endorsement. The Republican added that he will not campaign to get people to write in his mayoral candidate William Hallenbeck’s name on the Democratic primary ballot because residents deserve a choice between two strong candidates.
“I just hope, for the sake of the city, that they have a choice and an opportunity to pick a mayor they believe will do the best job,” DeJesus said.
But now, instead of keeping DeJesus’s word and honoring the above sentiments, the GOP filed suit on Monday to block Democrats who might want to write in a candidate for Mayor. But in challenging the Democrats on a narrow technicality, they themselves stumbled all over basic legal requirements in bringing their suit.
Which brings us to this afternoon in the Columbia County Courthouse, where DeJesus and Hallenbeck huddled with Linda Mussmann and Tony Kellar, while lawyers for both sides duked it out before Judge Hummel of Rensselaer County.
By 4 o’clock, Hummel had delivered a setback to Better & Co: The Republican legal eagles had screwed up the wording of their complaint. This caused Hummel to find that their complaint had already been satisfied once the County Board ruled today that the Democratic petitions were valid—and thus could not be pursued as currently constructed.
As a result of Hummel's decision, the threesome of Better, Hallenbeck and DeJesus indicated they'd scurry off to re-file their case by 5 pm in hopes of getting a second bite at the apple, including a second chance to try to “serve” the affected parties... which is doubly ironic, since they don't want any Democrats who made technical mistakes to get any second chances. Apparently, the Hudson Republicans think that only their tribe deserves a do-over, while Democrats had better dot every i and cross every t.
Assuming Hallenbeck’s crew get their paperwork in order this time, Hummel will reconvene the parties at 9 am on Monday. Meanwhile, Hudson Dems remain in suspense about whether they’ll get the chance to have a nominee.
