Strainer is what persistence looks like in Queensbury

Books stolen from Cafe Lena book exchange; Wine and chocolate event Nov. 10

By Ken Tingley

David Strainer is running to be supervisor at large in Queensbury - again.

He is one of eight candidates running for four positions to represent Queensbury on the Warren County Board of Supervisors, so it can be confusing.

This is NOT the supervisor position. John Strough is running unopposed there. There are four Republicans, three Democrats and one Conservative running for those four slots on the county board.. Their job is to weigh in on county business, not town business.

“Most people don’t know what a county supervisor does,” Strainer said.

But Strainer does.

He spent most of a decade preparing for it.

It took seven different attempts before he got there. That’s the price you pay in these parts for being a Democrat. That shouldn’t be the case in local politics, but sometimes it is.

You have to be persistent.

Strainer went to a lot of meetings, knocked on a lot of doors and read a lot of reports.

Then, when he finally was elected, he jumped in with both feet while serving three terms.

When our editorial board interviewed Strainer the first time, we were impressed. My recollection is that there were five candidates running for four positions - four Republicans and a Democrat - and Strainer lost. We thought it might have been the best candidate.

He didn’t quit.

He finally won in 2006 and served three terms before losing again when Republicans Doug Beaty and Rachel Seeber were elected.

“People really believed they were going to cut taxes,” Strainer said.

Strainer made his most of his time on the board.

“I got along with everyone,” Strainer said. “If Dan Stec wanted me to do something, I did it.”

Strainer was asked to be part of the search for a new president at SUNY Adirondack.

“It was the hardest thing I had to do,” Strainer remembered. “My sister had cancer at the time and was not doing well. I had clients you are dealing with, but I committed to doing the search for the college. We narrowed down 35 or 36 resumes to eight and I had picked seven of the eight. I had one goal, someone who would stay. Then we got it down to four and I had picked three of the four. My pick was Kristine Duffy and she has worked out pretty well. She has been there for 10 years.”

It was the highlight for him amidst many regrets from his time on the county. They included not extending the airport runway, selling the nursing home to a higher out of town bidder instead of Fort Hudson and not purchasing the Traveler’s building in downtown Glens Falls.

Strainer is 66 and still selling real estate.

So why run again?

“I hadn’t planned on it,” Strainer said. He says he was asked to by current members on the Warren County Board of Supervisors. He says five of them were Republicans. “Win, lose or draw, I’ve been going to the meetings. People (running for office), think they will pick it right up, but it’s not that easy. You’ve got to go to the meetings. I went for a long time before I figured it out. You have to go to the committee meetings.”

And he’s knocking on doors. Strainer says he has visited 750 to 800 houses around town this fall and hopes to do a couple hundred more before Election Day.

Voters complain incessantly about not having good candidates to choose from. That is not true here.

The Little Liberty Library at Cafe Lena had all its books stolen this past week.

Library vandalism

Cafe Lena in Saratoga Springs has a small structure in its courtyard it calls “Little Liberty Library.” People can exchange books or take any book they want for free.

I learned this week that the structure was vandalized and all but one of the 40 books were removed. The one book left was “The Hate U Give” about race relations with police.

Last month, I took part in a reading of banning books at the Saratoga Springs Public Library to celebrate Banned Books Week. The event was co-sponsored by Cafe Lena.

Apparently, a similar act of vandalism was reported at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation Church in Saratoga Springs last month.

We’ve got a big problem when people start going after our books.

Return to sender

The folks down at the New York News Publishers Association had a new problem this year.

After canceling its awards luncheon earlier this fall - sadly there was a lack of interest - it sent out the award plaques to the winners. As someone who has won a few of its awards over the years, I can tell you these are nice plaques. And they weigh a lot.

But in recent weeks, box after box of the plaques were returned to sender at the publishers office.

The problem was that a number of newspapers across the state not only had changed locations, some no longer had an office at all with all their staff working from home.

I found out about the problem when a member of the publishers staff reached out to me to ask me about The Post-Star’s new address. I assured her that it was the same because I had dropped off a package just a couple weeks ago. But for some reason, the awards had been returned to sender as well.

Another disheartening sign of the times.

Special guest essay

As a special treat for readers of The Front Page, Bob Henke will be our guest writer on Thursday.

This brings Bob and I full circle. It was some 30 years ago I hired the former DEC officer to be our outdoors columnist at The Post-Star. He has developed quite a following over the years.

A little while back, I offered him the opportunity to keep writing on The Front Page. Bob took me up on that offer this week.

Stay tuned Thursday morning for a column from Bob Henke.

Wine and chocolate

There is still time to get tickets to the Chapman Museum’s Wine and Chocolate event at the Queensbury Hotel on Friday, Nov. 10 from 5:30 to 8 p.m.

Tickets are $50 for the wine and chocolate tasting - there will be spirits to taste too - and can be ordered online at chapmanmuseum.org.