A majority of New Paltz Democratic Committee members got behind Edgar Rodriguez as their candidate in November’s election for the town council seat to which Rodriguez was appointed earlier this year. The process was not a smooth one, however. One committee member, Alexandria Wojcik, has been accused of using that vote to retaliate against Rodriguez’s opponent, Suzanne Holt, for signing an ethics complaint against Wojcik. Soon after that vote was taken, members of the ethics committee who reviewed that complaint — which, until Wojcik referenced it, had been a private affair — released their decision, in which they found that while content Wojcik posted on to a political social media account was racist and posting it was “reckless and without due consideration,” there wasn’t evidence that Wojcik shares those bigoted values.
The competition was “really strong”
According to Evan Holland-Shepler, the committee’s chair, Rodriguez received 12 votes and Holt five. Holland characterized the competition as “really strong,” and believes that the fact that Rodriguez now holds the seat weighed significantly in the decision. Rodriguez was appointed to replace Amanda Gotto, who fleetingly held the seat to which Daniel Torres had been elected, and from which Torres resigned a year ago. Gotto resigned after a month, based on erroneous advice that a sitting council member could not be considered to replace Supervisor Neil Bettez, who resigned earlier this year. Gotto was, ultimately, named to replace Bettez, and Rodriguez to replace Gotto, until the end of this year. Both will stand for election in November, to allow voters to decide if they should complete the terms to which their predecessors were elected.
The impact of the campus protests
Swirling around this entire process are the campus protests that, in early May, were broken up by a phalanx of state troopers who arrested about 130, while dismantling an unauthorized encampment and discarding personal possessions as garbage. That encampment was one of many protests that occurred in response to the way Israeli leaders have been prosecuting a war in Gaza, and the civilian deaths — including those of journalists, relief workers and children — that have resulted there. The war itself was a response to a Hamas surprise attack on October 7 of last year, which included documented atrocities including the murder of infants and the raping and killing of other civilians. Many community members — including Holland-Shepler, who was among those arrested on May 2 — have blasted the decision of Darrell Wheeler, the campus president, to call in police; Wheeler has not yet responded in any way to several requests for an interview on that topic. At the same time, some members of the local Jewish community feel that the decision was justified, as they found that the campus climate to be unsafe due to what they saw as clearly antisemitic messaging.
Just days after those arrests, the weekly peace vigil of the Women in Black was greatly expanded by students and others who turned what is normally a bearing of silent witness against war into a raucous event, rife with loud chants and angry energy. Among those protestors moved Joey Garcia with a camera, asking provocative questions and being called an “agitator” by some. When Garcia questioned Rodriguez, the latter claimed to support the killing of Israeli babies in a manner that has since been characterized as “gleeful” by some Jewish observers. A friend of Garcia’s released the video without authorization after Rodriguez was appointed to the town board, and Rodriguez has since issued an apology.
Wojcik was also impacted by the campus arrests, having worked closely with student organizers and counseling them to accede to demands to dismantle their tents. The arrests occurred despite such concessions. On instagram, Wojcik shared posts on social media accounts for “Deputy Mayor Alexandria Wojcik” that were created in response to those events on campus. It was these that were the subject of the ethics complaint against Wojcik, which was signed by 54 registered Democrats who alleged that Wojcik had violated the bylaws of the Ulster County Democratic Committee through their dissemination. The content included a comparison of fascism and zionism, use of the term “intifada,” and references to Wheeler — who is African American — as an “Uncle Tom,” and also used the word “coonery.” After being publicly called about by members of the New Paltz Jewish Congregation (NPJC), Wojcik responded in part by saying, “I am sorry to learn that, unfortunately, some of my work has not landed the way I had intended. I sincerely appreciate JCNP for letting me know that [that] is the case.”
Ulster Democrats’ panel reprimands Wojcik
Impacting Wojcik more was the complaint filed with county party officials. According to Linda Geary, one of the complainants and self-described member of a “steering committee” of the group, it was made in response to what they saw as discriminatory language by a committee member and elected official in violation of the bylaws of the county party. Geary said that the entire process is intended to be private — at least up to the decision — and declined to share the complaint itself, for that reason. As for that decision, which characterizes Wojcik’s decision to share the content as “reckless,” Geary said, “I consider it a reprimand” for the deputy mayor. “We think we got a good decision.”
Wojcik appears to have gotten a different message, as evidenced by this comment to one reporter: “After witnesses and parties agreed that the ethics process would be confidential, the complainants seem to have forgotten the fundamental findings of the jury: I did not violate the Ulster County Democratic Committee bylaws, and the parties need to find common ground on our own time. My lines are open. I look forward to meeting with folks from the Jewish Congregation of New Paltz later this month, and hope to see all concerned about this topic at many phone banks and canvass launches so together we can ensure actual fascists don’t come into power.”
That comment gives the impression that someone other than Wojcik appears to have violated that confidentiality, but the evidence does not support this. Wojcik revealed that fact in an email to New Paltz Democratic committee members on July 30, several days before the decision was made public on August 2. In lieu of asking questions of town council candidates in person Wojcik, who could not attend the meeting, sent in some questions in writing. One of the ones directed to Holt specifically read in part, “you signed a letter filed with the Ulster County Dems calling me antisemitic and racist for reposting student organizations’ reflections of the mass arrests to my disappearing stories, on my social media accounts you do not follow. This letter . . . has impacted my life and livelihood negatively in tangible ways, including by not limited to: essentially being in a time-out at my day job, being denied the paid campaign roles that I rely on for survival every fall because I’d be a lightning rod on any candidates’ [sic] payroll [and] being denied a job that would actually cover my rent due to solely the press hits on this topic,” among other concerns.
One of the allegations is that Wojcik removed the offending posts; the reference to “disappearing stories” speaks to the mechanic on facebook and instagram, through which shared content automatically becomes unavailable a day later.
Wojcik works for the majority conference of the state senate as an external relations associate, earning $68,250 in 2023 according to public employee data. Asked for comment on this story, Wojcik wrote back, “I’ll . . . lose my job if I speak to anyone.”
In the email from Wojcik to committee members, which was provided to this reporter, Wojcik alleges that the complaint was only signed by “white people” who “repeatedly spoke [racial] slurs.” It’s not clear what slurs Wojcik is referring to, as the process was purportedly confidential. One of the complainants did express the view that the content Wojcik had shared would have been more strongly condemned if the language had been disseminated by avowed white nationalists, rather than a progressive advocate on the village board. Wojcik has repeatedly said that those posts were taken out of context, and has been supported in that. At least 473 individuals signed a petition condemning the use of antisemitism as a weapon, which reads in part: “The attacks have impacted Alex’s livelihood, made her housing even more unstable, made simple tasks like buying food scary, alienated Alex from her various volunteer roles, and left her out of various community events (she was even asked to not attend the annual Memorial Day parade). These attacks have led to Alex’s future being uncertain at best. Furthermore, these attacks have made Alex’s work on housing justice an even more uphill battle than ever before.”
According to the unsigned press release accompanying the petition, of the signers, “at least 160 are current New Paltz residents, and at least 280 are current residents of Ulster County; the vast majority of the remaining 200+ signatures are either current students who are living at their parents’ home for the summer, recent alumni who’ve moved away from the area since graduating, or current Hudson Valley residents in areas outside of Ulster County. . . . Among the signatories are seven current Democratic elected officials representing districts within Ulster County on the local and county levels; as well as three former Ulster County Democratic and Working Families elected officials.” These include county legislator Limina Grace Harmon and village trustee Stana Weisburd. Weisburd’s self-identification as Jewish was overlooked in a previous article by this reporter, due to a hearing disability. The error is regretted, and an apology was conveyed.
What caused furor among New Paltz Democratic committee members was that Wojcik wrote in a later response to Holt in that same email thread, “I will absolutely not be supporting you, and urge my fellow committee members to join me in voting for Edgar [Rodriguez].”
William Wheeler Murray, who serves with Wojcik on the village board and may be the longest-serving current member of the Democratic Committee, considered it a retaliatory attack against Holt for signing the complaint against Wojcik. “We’re supposed to all be Democrats on the team,” Murray said, but instead Wojcik used tactics that were reminiscent of those attributed to former committee members, and which Murray had hoped were a thing of the past. “It rankled a number of members,” Murray said, adding, “Some of us felt it was going to skew the vote.”
Holt would not go on the record for this story, but Holt’s linkedin profile shows a history of volunteer work for the Jewish Congregation of New Paltz. Murray, who is not Jewish, said that “antisemitism was not contemplated” as motivation for Wojcik’s emails, which were “seen as an attack” nevertheless, because they had “all the hallmarks of retaliation.”
One committee member resigns
Adele Ruger is Jewish, and a relatively new committee member who said, “I knew there was something wrong with Alex’s email,” and that it had “undue influence on the committee.” The issue did not get raised “until we lost a committee member.”
That member was Tricia Bowen, who served as an appointed county legislator between the resignation of Eve Walter and the election of Limina Grace Harmon. In emails provided to this reporter, Bowen quoted the county party bylaws, which explicitly state that members are not allowed to retaliate against anyone for filing such an ethics complaint. Bowen, who has since resigned from the local committee, did not respond to a request for comment.
It’s not clear if it violates the bylaws for Wojcik to have made that complaint public, and since the process is intended to be confidential, it is not known if Wojcik will be subject to an additional ethics complaint for being seen as retaliating against Holt.
Holland-Shepler acknowledged that committee members had to consider Holt’s experience “at the highest levels of Ulster County” government — including heading up economic development efforts — against Rodriguez’s decades of advocating for members of marginalized communities and service on the school board. The chair characterized what followed behind closed doors as a “robust debate,” and believes that students might prefer Rodriguez for that history, given the color of events that clouded the end of the last school year. Holland-Shepler anticipates that there will be accountability for university leaders over the decisions that “traumatized a lot of people.”
Others have suggested that the “robust debate” Holland-Shepler described was actually an ugly affair, but the committee chair declined to comment on that, explaining that it was an internal matter.
According to Ashley Torres, one of the county’s two elections commissioners, this closes the last window for getting a candidate’s name on the ballot for town council in New Paltz for the 2024 election.
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