Voters in the 121st state Assembly District will choose between incumbent Democrat Al Stirpe and Republican LaFayette town councillor David Knapp in the election this year.
The election is on Nov. 4, 2008.
Stirpe is running for his second term in the state assembly. In 2006, he won the 121st Assembly seat in a race against veteran Republican county legislator William Meyer.
The Republican challenger this time, Knapp, has been a Lafayette town councillor since 2000. Knapp did not respond to interview requests for this story.
Stirpe applauded Knapp for challenging him. As a voter, Stirpe said, he always hated to see an uncontested candidate in elections. “I am glad that I have an opponent,” Stirpe said. He added, “Mr. Knapp is a very nice guy.” But Stirpe also expressed confidence in winning a second term.
Stirpe also won praise from the Onondaga County Democratic Committee. Stirpe’s satisfying work in the district eliminated any need for a primary to choose the party’s candidate for the 121st Assembly District, said Diane M. Dwire, the party chairperson. “Democrats are very satisfied with the job he is doing.”
Here is an early look, as of April 29, at the candidates:
Al Stirpe (Democrat, incumbent)
For his second term in the Assembly, Stirpe has three priorities: education, health care, and what he calls “smart growth” for economic development in the district.
On economic development, Stirpe expressed concern over limited infrastructure for services in the town of LaFayette. That’s the town in which his new opponent, Knapp, has been an elected government official for eight years. “LaFayette has no grocery stores, sewers, water,” Stirpe said.
He often receives complaints from people about poor development in the town, Stirpe said. But the government resists any improvement, he said.
Stirpe also expressed dissatisfaction over the so-called “Scaffold Law” that provides protection to construction workers. The law, enacted in 2004, requires building owners and general contractors to provide workers with safety devices such as scaffolds, hoists and harnesses when working at elevations.
Stirpe contended that such laws work for big cities but only increases the construction cost in small cities or towns where high-rise construction is not a regular feature.
On taxes, he proposes to lower the school property tax, he said in an interview. He disagreed with the state’s School Tax Relief program, called STAR. “I think the STAR program is a bad program,” he said. He contended that if a family paid $3,000 more than what it could afford to pay as tax, an assurance that the taxes wouldn’t go higher than 4 percent is no relief to that family.
As a solution to what he sees as the unfair STAR program, he signed onto a bill called “Circuit Breaker.” The bill proposes to return the extra tax money that a family will pay over the stipulated percentage of property tax. But the legislators in the Assembly are still deliberating how to replace state revenue that would be lost under the Circuit Breaker bill.
For strong economic development, he said, the district needs “smart growth” – a balance between residential and commercial development planning.
Public transportation, for example, has a very limited reach near U.S. Route 11 in Cicero, he said. The shopping plaza on that route is too far away from the bus stop. On Route 31, there is no passageway to connect the two neighbourhoods, he said.
On education, Stirpe says he wants to make the State University of New York and City University of New York more affordable by securing enough state funds so the schools can resist tuition increases. “We need to make sure that our neediest students don’t leave college with over $100,000 of debt,” he said.
In the recently approved state budget for lower schools, Stirpe says on his Web site, he secured an added $700,000 for the Liverpool City School District’s pre-kindergarten program.
On health care, Stirpe calls for more neighbourhood clinics so medical care is closer to the homes of the elderly in the 121st District. In addition, he proposes to raise the hourly wages of home aids. They make about $7 an hour, he said, which is barely enough for survival.
Stirpe was born and raised in Clyde. Stirpe has lived in the 121st District for 25 years. He, his wife, Chele, and their 12-year-old daughter, Alexandra, live in North Syracuse. His stepson, Chris, 25, is in the Navy.
Stirpe and his wife, Chele, founded Familycapped. It is a not for profit organization for parents who have children with disabilities. Chele’s daughter, Jesseca, is disabled.
Nick Cappoletti, the executive director of Familycapped, praised Stirpe’s continued support to the organization as an advisory member. “He is very supportive of families who are raising disabled children,” Cappoletti said.
For over 26 years Stirpe’s family ran Albert’s Restaurant in Clyde. He graduated with a degree in economics from University of Notre Dame. Stirpe worked as a financial analyst with General Electric in Syracuse. Stirpe and four others formed CID Technologies, an off-shoot of General Electric’s Electronic Camera Operation. In 1994, Stirpe and his four partners sold CID Technologies to Thermo Electron. Following the CID Technologies chapter, Stirpe founded Qubec Software, Inc., that provided enterprise resource planning system and services to small and mid-sized manufacturers.
David Knapp (Republican)
The challenger, David Knapp, has been on the LaFayette town council since 2000. His priorities this election are freezing property taxes for seniors, instituting a school property tax cap and trying to make health care more affordable, says a report in The Post-Standard.
Knapp did not respond to interview requests. But Bill McConnell, Knapp’s fellow councillor and an long-time friend, calls him a “fervent volunteer.”
Knapp volunteers to organize fund-raising for the LaFayette Athletic Booster Club, said McConell. The club raises funds for school athletes in LaFayette. At the LaFayette Breakfast Optimist Club, a youth club, Knapp volunteers to organize activities for the youth of the community, McConell said. Knapp volunteers his time at Columbia Presbyterian Church every week.
Knapp was a competitive athlete, McConell said. “He was an all-star lacrosse goalie,” he said. He is now a volunteer coach for the Lacrosse team of LaFayette.
As a town councillor, Knapp led a successful effort to fund revitalization of Stafford Park, said Adrian Shute, another LaFayette town councillor. Knapp, he added, was “integral” in efforts to trim the town’s insurance costs by about 30 percent this year.
“From youth activities to government to charitable causes, there is very little that happens in LaFayette in which he is not involved,” said Shute.
(Trina Joshi is a graduate student in magazine-newspaper-online journalism.)
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