Women to provide election, campaign experiences

Niagara Wheatfield Tribune, April 5, 2007

Panelists for the Institute for Public Leadership luncheon on April 19 include, from left, former member of Niagara Falls City Council and candidate for mayor of Niagara Falls, Candra Thomason, Lockport City Councilwoman Flora McKenzie, Middleport Mayor Julie Maedl and Assembywoman Francine DelMonte.

A panel of politically experienced women will provide their election and campaign knowledge to those seeking to follow in their footsteps during upcoming leadership training sessions.

The 2007 Institute for Public Leadership will commence with a luncheon on Thursday, April 19, at Tattler’s, Buffalo Avenue and Fourth Street in Niagara Falls, from noon to 2 p.m.

The YWCA of Niagara is the force behind the IPL, which provides mentoring and training for women who plan to either run for elected office or manage a political campaign. The IPL is initiated by the Niagara County Commission on the Status of Women and the YWCA, and sponsored by the Niagara County Democratic and Republican committees.

State Assembywoman Francine DelMonte said a woman who plans to enter into elected office has to be willing to extend herself in a way not required of men.

“We just have to be a lot more prominent in extending ourselves so that the public becomes familiar with us,” DelMonte said.

The luncheon panelists include DelMonte, Niagara County Legislators Rebecca Cuddahee; Laura Monte, regional representative for Gov. Eliot Spitzer; Mayor of Middleport Julie Maedl; Lockport City Councilwoman Flora McKenzie; and former member of Niagara Falls City Council and candidate for mayor of Niagara Falls Candra Thomason.

A pair of two-hour training sessions are scheduled for Thursday, April 26, and Thursday, May 3. Sessions will be held at BOCES Tech Center on Saunders Settlement Road in Sanborn from 6 to 8 p.m. on both nights. The training sessions will cover most aspects of what you can expect in the campaign and election process.

Beverly P. McDonough, IPL coordinator, said: “This is a national program that has been in place for more than 25 years. The YWCA USA developed this in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s to train women for leadership roles and to take more of a leadership position and to achieve more elected offices.”

Thomason said she received similar training earlier in her political career in 2001. During a press conference March 23 in DelMonte’s Niagara Falls office, Thomason announced her intent to run for mayor of Niagara Falls as a Republican.

“I think that it brought me together with a diverse group of women from both sides of the party line, and I thought that was really important,” Thomason said of her past leadership training. “I really got a lot out of that.”

Thomason said she fought harder to be heard on the Niagara Falls City Council, and added that there is an old boys club that still exists.

DelMonte agreed that women running for elected office face different challenges than those faced by their male counterparts.

“You have to be, probably, more aggressive in reaching out to various interest groups for fund-raising purposes. Overall, they just have to be a lot more aggressive,” DelMonte said.

“And men don’t have to answer the question, ‘How would you balance work and a family with an elected office?’ They don’t seem to bring that up with men,” McDonough noted.

Maedl, mayor of Middleport, just finished her third two-year term. Women want to run for public offices, she said, and talking to veterans gives them more insight. Luckily for her, she had a mentor, Shirley Connor, a neighbor and former Pendleton supervisor, she said.

McKenzie of Lockport was elected in 2005, the first African-American to win a seat on the council. She said a program she took offered women views from candidates and a variety of successful women, and it made participants feel more comfortable and believe that their goals can be achieved.

“We all have different experiences, so you can bring something different to the table when you’re having this discussion,” DelMonte said, adding that each office has its own unique issues.