The Other Shoe Drops

At the end of September, incumbent First Ward Supervisor John Musall, who has not been endorsed for reelection by the Hudson Democratic Committee, ended his brief affiliation with the Democratic Party, charging that Democratic leadership had "employed the most malicious and vengeful tactics to undermine my position and my constituents' trust with innuendo and slander." In today's Register-Star, Musall's wife, First Ward Alderman Geeta Cheddie, who has been a Democrat for much longer than her husband's two years and who like Musall was not endorsed by the Democrats, announces that she too is now registered as an NOP (no official party): "MY VIEW: Why I have no party."    

Cheddie's statement contains a lot of vitriol, much of it directed at Democratic Committee chair Victor Mendolia, but Fourth Ward Supervisor William Hughes, Second Ward Alderman Abdus Miah, and the legislative body on which she has served for the past two years (and which she repeatedly refers to as the City Council) also come under attack--even Gossips gets a glancing blow. She calls Democratic leadership in Hudson "corrupt, small-minded, reprehensible" and accuses the Democrat-controlled Common Council of "incompetence" for making decisions that are "costing the taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars": "We [the Common Council] approved the hiring of an outside assessment company to complete an assessment that has already been done; we extended public comment periods [for the LWRP] beyond what was required; we tried to rid the City of industry that pay taxes because outside parties object to them; we do not question contracts that are payouts to individuals who purport to act in the City’s interests but are really thinly disguised attempts to skirt the law." She even takes voters to task for complaining about the large chunk of the City budget taken up by the Police Department and then not showing up for a budget hearing. One wonders if this orgy of spite and anger will win Cheddie votes in November.