Republican candidate for Saratoga Springs Finance Commissioner Rob Barile’s petitions were successfully challenged by Bill McTygue. The result is that he will not appear on the ballot in November on the Republican line (he will still appear on the Conservative line) and whoever wins the Democratic primary will in all likelihood be the next commissioner of Finance.
As Bill McTygue has been heavily involved in Patty Morrison’s campaign, I contacted her. Her only response was “no comment.”
I contacted Matt Hogan, chair of the Saratoga Springs Republican Party. He offered the following:
“I haven’t been able to confirm that his petitions were disqualified. If they were, I can only say that these things are best decided by the voters rather than the lawyers.”
I contacted Michele Madigan, the current Commissioner of Finance, who is Ms. Morrison’s opponent in the Democratic Primary. She told me, “I considered challenging his petitions but decided against it. The public is best served when they have a choice of candidates.”
Saratoga Springs Politics 
One of the main complaints we heard frequently from the charter change group of whom Patty Morrison was/is an active member was that candidates often ran for city office unchallenged. So now we have a Republican challenger and what does that group do? Challenge his petitions and get him knocked off the ballot. So much for welcoming a choice in candidates. I guess they only want the public to have certain choices available and they seem to want to be the deciders in what those available choices should be.
And of course it’s also more than a little odd that someone like PM who dismissed the commission form of government as unworkable now promises to do great things (although what those things are remain vague and unspecified) if elected. One has to wonder too if she will do this without asking the city to pay for a deputy which she and her supporters characterized as being so useless that they could be easily eliminated without being missed.
I guess consistency is not a trait we can expect to see much of in PM’s campaign against current Commissioner Michele Madigan.
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