County Legislature Vice Chairman William Darden, D-Hillcrest, announced today that he would not seek election to the 95th Assembly District against incumbent Ellen Jaffee, D-Suffern.

“I thought about it for a period of time. I had supporters over there and I truly treasure their support,” Darden said this afternoon.

Even though he knows it’s cliche, Darden said he honestly likes what he’s doing on the Legislature.

Still, he said, a run for the Assembly is “not out of the future.”

Jaffee had been facing as many as five challengers from within her own party.  Of them, only one, Ramapo Town Clerk Chris Sampson, has decided to run. The others were Darden, Suffern Mayor John Keegan and former Legislators David Fried and Patrick Withers.

The Republicans are expected to run a candidate against Jaffee, who is finishing out her first term. The district includes Orangetown and parts of Ramapo.

Ramapo Town Clerk Chris Sampson has formally announced that he will challenge Assemblywoman Ellen Jaffee, D-Suffern, in the Democratic primary for Jaffee’s seat this fall.

Sampson was one of several area Democrats who said this winter they were interested in the seat. The others were County Legislature Vice Chairman William Darden, Suffern Mayor John Keegan, and former Legislators Patrick Withers and David Fried.

Jaffee and Rockland’s other state representatives are up for re-election in November. Jaffee is completing her first term.

The county’s Democratic convention is coming up in the next few weeks. We’ll be checking in with the four stragglers soon. Stay tuned.

My daily commute to The Journal News’ Rockland office takes me down Route 17 in Orange County. For the past few days road crews have been working on an overpass near Monroe.

I was driving along, cursing getting stuck in construction traffic during an already long commute, when I saw one of Patrick Withers’ campaign signs. Wha??

Withers, a Democrat from Suffern and a former county legislator, was one of several politicians last fall who used the sides and back of trucks to promote their candidacy.

And one of his old advertisements, albeit faded and peeling, has been parked along the side of Route 17 in Monroe for the last few days. The smaller details of the ad are almost gone—one can make out the word “keep”—but the Pat Withers, now dulled to a light gray,  is clear as day.

Withers was defeated last year by Legislator Joseph Meyers, D-Suffern.

The County Legislature at last night’s meeting honored four of its members who won’t be returning next year: Legislators Patrick Withers, D-Suffern, Bruce Levine, D-Montebello, David Fried, D-Spring Valley, and Theodore Dusanenko, R-Valley Cottage.

While the contributions of Levine, Withers and Fried were appropriately noted, the farewell was notably geared toward Dusanenko, also fondly referred to as “Teddy” and “The Dus.”  As Chairwoman Harriet Cornell, D-West Nyack, said his name, the Legislature and audience responded by giving him a standing ovation, upon which Teddy waved and took a deep breath.

He also left the meeting with a lot more stuff than he came in with. In addition to the Legislature’s certificate and portrait, given to all four outgoing members, Dusanenko was also given a certificate of mert from Clarkstown — he was a supervisor there in the 1980s —  plaques from the county Democratic Party and the county Solid Waste Management Authority and the 2007 Ramapo Freedom Award for excellence in community service.

Dusanenko was first elected to the Legislature in 1969 and has served since save for a four year break in the late 1980s when he ran for county supervisor. (NOTE: That should read county executive, not county supervisor.) Fried was elected in 2003. Levine was first elected in 1985 and served for 10 years, including as chairman, and was re-elected in a mid-term election last year. Withers was appointed in January.

The new Legislature, with 12 returning members and four new faces, will be sworn in Jan. 3.

Today The Journal News’ editorial board heard from the County Legislature’s District 12 candidates: Legislature Patrick Withers, Airmont Trustee Joseph Meyers and real estate broker Larry Weinstein. The editorial board was there to get information for its endorsement. I was there to get information for my story on this race.

It’s certainly not a rule, but in the other meetings I’ve been to (this year and the two years previously) the candidates typically take care to turn off or silence their cell phones. Or maybe no one called them while they were being interviews. Who knows.

But today, Weinstein took two phone calls and made a third in the middle of the interview. The first call was picked up to tell the caller he was in a meeting and he quickly hung up.

Call No. 2 lasted a bit longer with Weinstein again telling the caller that he was in a meeting and then going so far as to ask to borrow Wither’s pen to write something down.

After telling us he was late for a closing—the meeting was running a half-hour late at that point—Weinstein then made a call to postpone his closing explaining that the meeting had run over.

All this was done seated at our table with Weinstein sitting across from us and in between Meyers and Withers. And the latter two were made while the other candidates were trying to answer their questions. On the third call, Meyers simply gave up and waited for Weinstein to finish his conversation.

*** NOTE TO READERS Reporters often sit in on these meetings, but we do not have any input in who the editorial board chooses to endorse. We are not asked for opinions nor are we allowed to give them. Because these are on-the-record interviews reporters attend for any news that may be discussed.

The latest piece of campaign literature to come out of the District 12 County Legislature race contains an error that some say really isn’t an error at all.

Sent out by Preserve Ramapo in support of Airmont Trustee Joseph Meyers, the back side of the glossy mailing talks of Legislator Patrick Withers’ support from Ramapo Town Supervisor Christopher St. Lawrence, former Assemblyman Ryan Karben and Legislator Ilan Schoenberger, D-New Square.

D-New Square?

Schoenberger has never lived in New Square. He lives in Wesley Hills and has since the early 1980s. The village of New Square is included in his legislative district.

That was not a mistake on the mailing, he said.

“I think it’s an attempt on their part to appeal to the people who are anti-Semitic,” he said.

I’ve tried to reach Preserve Ramapo Chairman Robert Rhodes, but my phone message wasn’t immediately returned. I’ll update once I hear from him.
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UPDATE: Rhodes said that he knows Schoenberger lives in Wesley Hills, “but he has always been the representative from New Square.”

When I told him about Schoenberger’s comments that the mistake appealed to anti-Semitic supporters, Rhodes said he was “full of [doody.]” Except he didn’t say “doody.” Sorry- it’s a family newspaper.

Rhodes also said that Schoenberger has made a career out of calling his opponents anti-Semitic.
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Withers, D-Suffern, and Meyers are vying for the Democratic nomination for District 12. The primary is Sept. 18.

Legislators David Fried, Ian Schoenberger, Philip Soskin, Bruce Levine Patrick Withers and Vice Chairman William Darden, all Democrats from Ramapo, have issued a press release stating that they are planning to draft legislation that would call on County Executive C. Scott Vanderhoef to investigate whether the county could acquire the New York Country Club in New Hempstead.

But Donald Tracy, the New City lawyer of country club owner Joe Cho, said today that his client has already signed a contract with S & G Golden Estates and that he was amused by all the recent political attention paid to the property.

The only way the county could get the 165-acre property now is through condemnation, he said.

“It makes good political rhetoric, for the constituents,” he said of the legislators’ push, “but it’s highly impractical.”

The Rockland Conference of Mayors last week voted to ask the county to buy, or acquire the property through condemnation.

“It sounds ridiculous,” Tracy said.

Jenn Profenna, a spokeswoman with the county executive’s office, said today that Vanderhoef had not received any details from the Legislature.

Legislators Ilan Schoenberger, D-Wesley Hills, and Bruce Levine, D-Montebello, could have some thinking to do the Legislature approves a proposal to prohibit county legislators from being employed by the county or a Rockland town or village. Schoenberger is the Ramapo finance director and Levine is the Spring Valley village attorney.

The proposal, introduced by Legislator Patrick Withers, D-Suffern, isn’t aimed at any one legislator, but would eliminate the appearance of impropriety that comes with legislators holding both positions. The county already has a “two-hat” rule that prohibits legislators from also holding elective office in a Rockland town or village.

The proposal calls for the amendment of the “two-hat” rule to take effect in January 2008 so that anyone seeking election or re-election could make a decision before mounting a campaign.

Schoenberger, for one, agrees with Withers and is supportive of the idea. Levine, who had not heard of the proposal until he heard of it from The Journal News, said he thought Withers was proposing this on behalf of the political structure in Ramapo.

This structure, is said is threatened “because I present a challenge, a daily challenge to the system, to the way the county has operated,� he said.

Levine already has one person gunning for his spot next year—former Legislator Alden Wolfe. Levine soundly defeated Wolfe in last year’s primary. Wolfe recently announced his campaign to get his seat back and among his chief concerns was the fact that Levine is answerable to both the people of Rockland County and the village of Spring Valley.