IN THE NEWS

Locals Protest Possible Park Point PILOT
New Paltz Oracle, April 18, 2013
Kerr said he’s against Wilmorite’s PILOT requests for two reasons — the first is that Park Point will require police and fire service, which costs taxpayers money, and the second is that 80 percent of the land in New Paltz is “off the tax rolls,” making the remaining 20 percent “very high” in local taxes.

“I welcome Park Point as long as they don’t want to crash on my (tax) couch,” he said. “A PILOT request is not required to make this project viable. Can’t blame Wilmorite for being greedy, but can’t blame the residents from stopping them either.”

New Paltz Village Board Candidates Unveil Their Platforms
New Paltz Times, April 11, 2013
When asked for a response to their petitions being challenged, Kerr said that in his estimation, “The New Paltz political machine has taken to heavy-handed tactics to interfere with our nonpartisan village election. Not content to let the voters decide, elected and appointed leaders in favor of the Cohen/Rocco ticket have cynically tried to control whom the Village of New Paltz residents will have the opportunity to vote for.”

Rotzler responded in a similar vein. “The petition challenge relates to the question of why I decided to run for office. During the petitioning period, I discovered that only Tom Rocco and Jon Cohen were gathering signatures for two positions. Fortunately, Don Kerr stepped up and I followed, and now we are being challenged. In a democracy, our citizenry should have the option of a choice. I wish the best to Cohen/Rocco, but if the County Board of Elections does not recognize our signatures, Don Kerr and I will be engaged in a write-in campaign.”

Rotzler added that they’re even more passionate about campaigning post-challenge to provide residents of the village with a choice.


2 Booted New Paltz Trustee Candidates Plan Write-in Efforts
Times Herald Record, April 11, 2013
Kerr said he was more disappointed than surprised by the challenges."It's unfortunate the political machine in this town has seen fit to control the public's choices," he said. Rotzler said she believed a write-in campaign could be "good enough to be successful."

New Paltz Village Board Candidate Donald Kerr Vows to Keep Running Despite Petition Being Rejected
Kingston Freeman, April 11, 2013
Kerr contends the effort to keep him off the ballot has shown that people in favor of merging the town and village governments are working to avoid challenges to questionable information used by supporters of the merger.

“Many numbers that have been presented in public have been subsequently withdrawn or modified,” he said. “It is impossible to make any sort of good decision or good evaluation of the question of consolidation given the information that’s been presented to the public.”\

Also, Kerr said, “there are people who are looking at this as a one-issue election, and that also is unfortunate because there is a lot of stuff going on.”