Village candidates sometimes ran unopposed
By Erik Pekar
The topic of village elections has been on the minds of some for the past week, and with that we turn the pages of time back to 1951 and 1923.
First is this report from the March 22, 1951 issue of the Granville Sentinel: “While political contests were being held in villages throughout the state Tuesday, there was no excitement at the annual election in Granville, there being no opposition to the ticket selected by the citizens at the caucus in February. Dr. V. K. Irvine is the new mayor; Trustee Michael Caruso has been reelected to serve another two-year term and George R. Woodard, a newcomer on the village board, was elected for a two-year term. Albert Berkowitz, present police justice, was re-elected for a four-year term. The total number of votes cast was 52. The new village officials will be given the oath of office by the clerk, their terms commence at moon on the first Monday of April.”
The village election of 1923 had much of the same situation, as attested in the Sentinel of March 23, 1923: “Tuesday’s charter election in Granville was a quiet affair, there being no opposition to the regular ticket. The vote for officers was as follows: Whole number of votes cast, 52. For president, D. J. Evans, 45; trustees, Hiram Norton, 46; D. E. Roche, 43. Police justice, J. M. Potter, 45. Village clerk, Anna M. Stanton, 45. Treasurer, John H. Pember, 46. Collector, John S. Jones, 42. Assessor, L. Carr, 45. The vote on the proposition for the band, 33 for and 13 against.”
It is interesting to note that the same number of people voted in 1923 as did in 1952, a big coincidence. The major difference between the two elections is that many of the positions eligible for election were changed by state law later in the 1920s decade. This accounts for why there were many more positions up for election on the 1923 ballot, while the mayor, two trustees, and village justice were the only positions up for election on the 1951 ballot.
The situation will certainly be familiar, as the same idea of a ticket of village candidates being elected with no opposition played out this year, the only difference being that the Citizens’ Party has not existed in more than 30 years. With there being no formally registered party, there has been no need for a caucus since then, down to the present time.
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Spring is here, which means the time has arrived for the opening of Scarlotta’s Car Hop, which occurred on Wednesday, March 22. For the past month there has been much preparation and planning for the reopening.
Scarlotta’s is owned by the Barlow family – Wes and Laura, and their children Payton and Matthew – and is managed by Laura and Payton. This year is the second season back, after the Barlows acquired the village car hop early last year, renovating it and renaming it back to Scarlotta’s Car Hop.
There are changes for the second season. The interior has been redecorated with new flooring and a new heating and cooling system has been installed. A few changes have been made to the menu. Everyone has been anticipating the new season.
Scarlotta’s Car Hop is located at 45 Quaker St. in Granville. It is open seven days a week, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., excepting Tuesdays when it is open from 4 to 9 p.m. Best of luck, and may this season be successful.
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The snowstorm last week was quite something for many; lucky for area children and an annoyance for anyone that had to shovel the stuff. Last Monday, March 13, was rather warm, reaching into the high 40s and much of the snow left from earlier storms melted away. Rain came in by the evening. There were many who hoped that the precipitation would stay in the form of rain, but this was not to be. The switchover to snow occurred around 2 a.m. the morning of the 14th, and by 6 began to really accumulate. Roads became messy. Many area schools had snow days, including Granville. The snow was of the heavy variety. The intensity began to level off by 2 p.m., and roads began to clear up then. Light snowfall continued off and on to Wednesday morning.
The snowfall totals varied greatly in the area. The noon weather report on one of the Albany area stations had a report of an 11-inch snowfall in Granville. Some areas around did get over a foot of snow, and some even as much as two feet. Granville village and Middle Granville, on the other hand, had about 4 inches by 3 p.m. on Tuesday, and about 6 inches total when the storm finished on Wednesday.
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We received a correspondence recently requesting a correction to a section of a recent “Granville Then and Now” column where one character was off, resulting in the introduction of an error. This concerns the March 9 column, in the section about the incident in March of 1951 involving the fire truck of the West Pawlet Volunteer Fire Department and a patch of black ice in Pawlet on its way to responding to a fire on Route 3 in Pawlet. In that section, we noted of the history of the Route 3 designation and how it used to extent to Pawlet instead of ending in Center Rutland as is currently the case. The error was in the last sentence of the section, regarding the year Route 133 was assigned to the Pawlet–West Rutland state highway. The last sentence should have read: “The state highway from Pawlet to West Rutland was renumbered Route 133 in 1960 and retains that number today.” We regret the error, are happy to oblige, as leaving it would introduce a detail inconsistent to the historical record for anyone researching the history of the roads of Pawlet, or any other town along Route 133.
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