Upper Hudson Green Party Announces Candidate Slate

Green Party of Upper Hudson Media Release

June 2, 2015

The Upper Hudson Green Party announced a slate of candidates that will be running for office this year in Albany, Rensselaer and Schenectady counties. Daniel Plaat, Occupy Albany organizer and activist, will be running for Albany County Executive, Collin Fox Thomas for Troy City Council in Ward 4, and Richard Mara, Glenn Raymus, Alex Brownstein, Peter Looker, and Elmer Bertsch will be running for Schenectady County Legislature and Glenville Town Board. The Upper Hudson Green Party emphasized that the candidates would run to build an independent left and Green voice at the local level including issues such as ending police violence, curtailing tax giveaways to corporations, $15/hour living wage jobs for all, and a transition to a 100% renewable energy future.

"I'm proud to be running as a Green and alongside others who want to expand local democracy, social and economic justice, and a healthy environment," said Dan Plaat. "The Green Party wants to build a livable, vibrant local community for the real working class residents of our cities, towns, and communities. We reject the old politics of the Democratic and Republican parties that has given tax breaks to the wealthy and corporations while allowing our neighborhoods to decay, good-paying jobs to disappear and has spoiled our environment. It's time for a radical change in favor of the people and we invite everyone who wants to see a different, better Capital District to join us on these campaigns," concluded Plaat.

"We need to take action on the local level to eliminate poverty, reinvest in local productive jobs, remove the conditions of state sponsored police violence and reshape our tax structure to provide relief. The conservative 'leaders' of the Democrats and Republicans have shown us they are only interested leading corporations to troughs of taxpayer handouts, while ignoring the tremendous suffering they inflict. Troy can incentivize a $15 living wage, create a disarmed, community accountable, public safety group, and work to develop alternatives to high stakes punitive testing on a local level," argued Collin Fox Thomas.

"My campaign will focus on not wasting public money on tax breaks and giveaways to developers as the city of Schenectady currently does. We need public good from public money, like free tuition for Schenectady residents at SCCC rather than the $1 million giveaways in tax breaks like the Times Union reports the city IDA did in 2013 that resulted in no jobs created. I'm running as a Green because it's time we had elected officials and a party that represents the public interest rather than those of developers and the wealthy," said Elmer Bertsch, Green candidate in the city of Schenectady.

For more information:
Peter LaVenia, 518-495-8001, [email protected]

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