She’s been known to sleep out in a field with a shotgun to protect her sheep from coyotes. He’ll don a hardhat and climb a ladder with a bail of shingles in support of his family construction business.
Republican George Amedore and Democrat Sara Niccoli, candidates for senate in the five-county 46th district, call themselves hands-on types who can relate to working people in their mid-Hudson district.
Republican Amedore, 47, a former assemblyman from Rotterdam who was first elected to that body in 2007, is seeking his second term as state senator.
He lost in 2012, another Presidential election year, after a recount, to Cecilia Tkaczyk, by 18 votes out of more than 125,000 cast, in what opponents charged was a district created specifically for him to win. He then returned in 2014 to defeat Tkaczyk handily.
He’s a principle in the family-owned Amedore Homes in Montgomery County.
Niccoli, 40, the town of Palatine supervisor, heads the Labor-Relations Coalition of New York State. She and her husband operate a family-owned sheep farm in Palatine.
The district includes all of Montgomery County and parts of Schenectady, Albany, Greene and Ulster counties. With just over 30 percent of its population, Ulster constitutes the biggest county in the district of about 310,000 residents. The district includes the city and towns of Kingston, Saugerties, Woodstock, Esopus, Ulster, Hurley, Lloyd and Marbletown.
Left-right
Given their left-right political orientation, Niccoli and Amedore didn’t agree on many issues, but found common ground in opposition to pay raises for legislators, forfeiture of pensions for felonious legislators, term limits, dealing with the heroin epidemic, 2nd amendment rights in their rural district, pipelines and oil tankers.
They differed sharply on allowing legislators outside income (Amedore yes, Nicoli no), climate change (Nicoli believes — “Climate change is the defining global issue of the century;” Amedore doesn’t, calling only for ‘good public policy’ regarding the issue) and campaign funding.
Amedore serves as chairman of the senate’s Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Committee and is a member of the senate committees on veterans, homeland security and military affairs banks, consumer protection and elections.
Niccoli is also endorsed by the Women’s Equality Party, Amedore by Conservative, Green, Independence and Reform parties.
Term of office is two years. Legislators are paid base salaries of $79,500 with Amedore’s chairmanship carrying a $15,000 additional stipend.
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