Somerset supervisor candidate back to square one

Benjamin Joe, Lockport Union-Sun & Journal, N.Y.
·2 min read

Apr. 25—"Lesson learned" is what Lauritz Dent takes from the experience of his Republican nominating petition being thrown out by the Niagara County Board of Elections.

No matter, he says, he's still running for the supervisor's post in the Town of Somerset. He'll just do so as an independent candidate.

According to the Board of Elections, all 54 signatures that Dent gathered on his GOP petition were tossed because Dent signed the GOP petition circulated on behalf of current supervisor Jeff Dewart, town board members Jon Hotaling and Frederick Leuer and tax collector Ruth Wendler.

Dent said he signed that petition to show support for his friend Hotaling.

"All the incumbents were on one petition. And I signed that one, then acted as a witness on my own (petition)," Dent said.

Dent's GOP petition was challenged by Michelle Dewart.

"There's nothing to really say. It was a mistake on my part," Dent said in a Tuesday telephone interview. "Lesson learned."

The GOP line was the only party line that Dent went after to run for supervisor, but losing it isn't the end of his campaign.

Dent said he intends to run as an independent candidate — which is not the same as a write-in candidate — and he'll be out gathering signatures on his independent / nonpartisan nominating petition between May 23 and May 28, the time frame prescribed in state law.

"It's time to regroup and try again," he said.

Dent is a Somerset native who returned home in 2018, with his wife and three children, after a 22-year career in the U.S. Army. He noticed immediately that while he was away, all the local businesses he remembered from his youth — the small shops where you could find just about anything you needed — had disappeared.

These days, Dent said, Somerset is like a "ghost town."

His run for supervisor is about doing something to change that.

As a young adult, Dent said, "I was like everybody else who couldn't wait to get out of town."

"But I came back to raise my family. I want the same opportunity for my children," he said. "With the help of everybody, I'd like to preserve our town."