After the last week introduction of the Terry Award – to be presented each year to the most malignant Ulster County politician – the following nominations were made via comments on this blog:
Len Bernardo
FROM NOMINATION: …I remember reading that Len Bernardo is the cancer of Ulster County politics, and I agreed one hundred percent…
Terry Bernardo
FROM NOMINATION: …the inaugural Terry should obviously go to its namesake…
David Donaldson
FROM NOMINATION: …who connived with Republicans on behalf of John Parete so he could become Vice Chair, #1 traitor with no moral character…
David O’Halloran
FROM NOMINATION: …he accepted the vice chairmanship of the Ulster County Republican Committee only to resign a few weeks later. He destroyed the local Republican party by giving access and power to the Bernardos, but didn’t stay on to fix the problems. He cowardly resigned the chairmanship of the town’s republican committee when his schemes didn’t work out…
John Parete
FROM NOMINATION: …just your self-professed average political tool…
Roger Rascoe
FROM NOMINATION: …Republican membership has declined during his tenure. The entire Route 209 corridor from Hurley to Wawarsing has been handed to the Democrats. But Jane, his wife, eased into the chair behind the Town Clerk’s desk with no challenge in the primary and general election…
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The deadline for nominations is January 31, 2014. The nominees will be featured in a poll, and your votes will determine the winner.
– Jon Dogar-Marinesco
Rochester Smoke Out 
Excellent summary, Jon. And it would be useful if all voters, not only readers of this blog, would have this information available. News come and go, bad politicians behave for a while, and we find year after year the same “malignant” ones still in power.
So, Rascoe continued the Bonacic, Bernardo, Catalano tradition – good for him! Make sure there are no challengers to the candidate you prefer, more so when the candidate it’s your wife! After doing this type of deals for years, do they expect to revive the Republican party in this county? What a shame…
Jon, are we allowed to vote for ourselves? If so, how many times may we vote?
It’s your vote, you can spend it any way you want.
Honor bound: one person, one vote.
In real life: one IP, one vote.
I predict a fight between those supporting nominees from Rochester and those supporting county characters. I think a winner like Len Bernardo would satisfy both factions, as he is a self-appointed Indy Party County Chair and also worked hard to screw up the Town of Rochester.
I cast one vote for Johnny Bonacic. He’s still able to manipulate Ulster County.
While I may end up being awarded the 1st Terry, let’s not only award those that are perceived the worst among us. Let’s also create another award/brick that would go to the person that represents the best in ulster county public service. It may be much more difficult to find qualified nominees for this award.
I’m not surprised that this comment came from one of the nominees. There are people that are performing public service in Ulster County with no personal interest or personal gain. This is a concept that the nominees and the company they keep (can’t say friends as any mammal with cannibalistic tendencies will devour their own) cannot understand.
Well said. There are many more good people than bad people, and they can be divided in two categories: those who “survive” as public servants despite the barriers raised by the bad people, and the others who gave up.
As this award is named after the former legislator from Rochester, Mrs. Len Bernardo, let’s mention as a first example of a good public servant the new legislator from Rochester – Lynn Archer. Serious, experienced, without an agenda or personal interest. That’s key – no self interest! All Terry nominees so far are kings of self-interest. All they do is self-serving. Tough to tell who deserves more the first Terry.
While I’m proud of my vote for Lynn, it’s too early to award her the Noble Peace Prize. Let’s not forget, Lynn voted to give Terry Bernardo the “Pride of Rochester” award shortly after she became the 1st Chairwoman of the Legislature. Best Ulster County Public servant – must be a person that does not receive a county dime, volunteers endless hours and contributes to candidates and events. Many would like to include paid public servants; they are called county employees regardless of how they got their county job (appointed, elected or civil test). Unfortunately, ugly partisan politics have forced out most of the unpaid volunteers.
Len Bernardo makes my skin crawl.