And the race begins

Two Republicans, one Democrat announce DA intentions

By FRITZ MAYER

MONTICELLO, NY — Glenn Kroll wants to replace Stephen Lungen as the county’s top law enforcer. Lungen, the Sullivan County District Attorney (DA) for the past 28 years, is stepping down at the end of this year and an election in November will determine his successor.

At a press conference at the government center on March 5, Kroll, a Democrat, a lawyer and a village judge in Bloomingburg, announced his candidacy. He tied the slumping economy to rising county crime statistics. He said, “The economic crises has caused a high level of crime in our county to become even worse. Drug use, drive-by shootings and illegal guns and assault weapons on our streets have increased dramatically in just the past few years.”

The speech drew a healthy lunchtime crowd of more than 75 people.

A large crowd also turned out on February 12, when assistant district attorney Jim Farrell, a Republican, announced on the steps of the courthouse that he is going to run for the office. He said, “The DA is vitally important to the safety of all of our communities, making sure that the guilty are punished and that the innocent are not made to suffer.”

Farrell has the backing of Lungen, who said that the new DA has to be able to hit the ground running and that there is no time for “on-the-job training.”

But Farrell is not alone in his desire to run on the GOP line. Michael McGuire, a Liberty lawyer who also drew an impressive crowd at his announcement at a Liberty restaurant on February 26, has experience as an assistant district attorney and is very actively seeking his party’s nomination.

According to John LiGreci, county Republican Party chairman, there will be a party convention on April 16 where some 138 members of the county’s 15 Republican committees will vote on which candidate the party will endorse.

At that time, LiGreci said, he expects the losing candidate to help unify the party and back out of the race. But the losing candidate has the choice of running against the party’s choice in a primary later in the year.