Kevin Doherty will run for Albion mayor on independent line
Will seek to ‘Spark Some Action’ with focus on customer service from village and better relationships with EDA, neighboring municipalities
Kevin Doherty
ALBION – The election for the next Albion mayor will likely include three candidates. Kevin Doherty, the president of the Hoag Library board of trustees, announced today he will run for mayor under the independent “Spark Some Action.”
Doherty operates a communications maintenance business. He lives on West Park Street. He and his wife Linda have six grown children.
Doherty said the Democratic and Republican parties are backing candidates who won’t push the change that is needed in Albion.
“If re-treading candidates were an effective strategy, would the conversations continue to only be about the deterioration of downtown, property taxes and keeping everything the same? Quoting Ronald Reagan, ‘Here we go again!’”
The Republican Party on Tuesday backed Eileen Banker, a village trustee for eight years, as its mayoral candidate while the Democratic Party picked Joyce Riley. The election is March 20.
Doherty needs a petition signed by at least 100 registered voters in the village to be eligible to be on the ballot. He can start circulating petitions Feb. 6 and they are due in the Village Office by Feb. 13.
“The elected officials of our Village have and have had good hearts and great intentions, but their results have been limited,” Doherty states on his campaign website – kevindohertyformayor. “In this year when there is no incumbent mayor, I offer 40 years of experience highlighted by the building the Hoag Library, to lead the Village of Albion into a future of thoughtful progress through collaborations with all the people, not just the few and faithful Democrats or Republicans.”
Photo by Tom Rivers: Kevin Doherty, president of the Hoag Library board of trustees, speaks during a ribbon-cutting celebration for the new library on July 7, 2012.
Albion is the only village in Orleans County that has candidates run under the two major political party lines.
“Although the backing of a major party organization may still be necessary for election to county-wide and higher office, limiting the pool of candidates to party faithful in a village of 6,000 people is self-defeating,” he said.
Doherty, in his role with Hoag Library, was instrumental in the design and 2012 construction of their new facility on South Main Street. Prior to starting his own business, he was superintendent of Buildings and Grounds for the Albion School District, an industrial electrician at the A&P’s soap manufacturing plant in Brockport, and a field service technician, later Operations Manager, for Ronco Communications’ Rochester branch. He was a member of the Albion School Board for 12 years.
He said there needs to be “purposeful direction by the village leadership” to entice more people to invest in the community.
“We need to separate ourselves from our peers – coming to Albion has to be the best experience for homeowners and business locators,” he said. “The library folks may tire of the mantra, but they, and the village, need to be like Wegman’s. Customer service is so consistently high that you like to shop there. Albion needs to be the place where people want to come!”
Doherty said he would “diligently drill down into the numbers” of the village budget. He was chided during a recent forum on law enforcement efficiency when he suggested the village could reduce some costs in the police budget, which accounts for about half of the village tax rate.
Doherty said “whining” about more state aid and local sales tax revenue won’t lead to results. Albion can better attract people, businesses and investment by creating a community where people want to live.
“Anyone who visits the Village MUST be impressed with our outstanding customer service and willingness to support any effort to improve the tax base,” he writes on his website. “Any Village employee or elected official who leaves a less than exemplary impression, on a vendor, a constituent, another municipal employee or visitor will have to be counseled.”
Other nearby villages – Medina, Holley, Fairport and Mount Morris – are seeing success by working with their local and state economic development officials, and real estate professionals to market their communities, Doherty said.
“We are 30 miles from the Rochester Tech Zone, even closer to the coming Alabama Technology Park in Genesee County,” he writes. “Are we ready to build houses and welcome some of their projected thousands of employees?”
