MONTICELLO, NY — In Sullivan County, all nine county legislators are up for election in the same year. In the two previous elections, the results were that six of the nine were replaced with new legislators, and the possibility exists that in some future election all nine legislators could be replaced with new legislators.

Moving to ensure that doesn’t happen, at a meeting at the government center on July 20, legislators began considering options for moving to staggered terms. County Attorney Cheryl McCausland said she had been working on the option of the members being divided into three groups of three each. One group would run for a two-year election, another would run for a three-year election and the fourth would run for a four-term. After the initial election, all groups would then seek four-year terms.

There was discussion about how it would be decided which legislators are matched with which terms. Legislator Scott Samuelson suggested that some lawmakers may be willing to or wish to run on the shorter term.

McCausland said she thought the numbers of the districts should be placed in a hat and drawn. She said, “It is my opinion that it is probably fairer to do it blindly because it’s about your constituents… I think it has to be done randomly.”

She then said splitting the legislature into three groups would have an impact on four appointments made by the lawmakers: the county attorney, the clerk of the legislature, the director of the Veterans Service Agency and the county manager. She said the appointment of these officials is dependent on when the legislator is seated, and that determination would probably change under the three-groups scenario.

In a brief discussion about using a two-groups scenario, with four legislators initially running for two-year terms, and five running for four-year terms, McCausland said that that would still result in the possibility that five new legislators could be elected in one election.

Legislator Joe Perello said, “That’s not so bad.”

McCausland said the five-four division would be the easier of the two, and she believed that a change could be made to the legislative terms without a change to the county charter. It would, however, be subject to a permissive referendum, so that if 5% of voters who participated in the last election signed a petition to do so, the matter would need to go before the voters.

Legislator Ira Stengart said that he would prefer it if McCausland could determine the full impacts of both scenarios and return to the legislature with all of the impacts of both scenarios. It will be discussed again at a future meeting.

Night meetings considered

Perello suggested that the legislature consider meeting in the evening one time per quarter to give people who work in the daytime a chance to attend a meeting if they wish to.

He said the legislature could try it for a couple of quarters, and if there were no interest from the public, the practice could be ended. He said, “People have concerns; things are changing in the county.

Legislator Nadia Rajsz said she thought it was a good idea.

Legislator Ira Steingart said, “We have nothing to lose. We tried it before and the response was not great, but there’s no harm in trying again.”

The details remain to be worked out.