Dan Donohue to succeed late dad Ed as GF Councilman

The Glens Falls Common Council is expected to approve Dan Donohue tonight as the interim Ward One Councilman succeeding his late father Ed, Chronicle managing editor Cathy DeDe reports.

Dan Donohue, a registered Republican, will also replace his father on the June 24 Democratic primary ballot vying with Kevin Stephenson for Democratic nomination in November.

Ed Donohue passed away on Sunday, June 1. He was seeking his second term as Ward 1 Councilman.

“It was my father’s wishes that I do this,” the younger Mr. Donohue told The Chronicle Tuesday morning.

Democrats had a 10-day window after Ed Donohue’s passing to name a new candidate on the primary ballot.

Jack Diamond, Ward 1 county supervisor from Ward 1 and a member of the county Democratic Committee, provided the needed okay for Mr. Donohue to run in the June 24 Democratic primary.

Mr. Donohue says he is the process of changing his party affiliation to Democratic in time for the November election.

“I think that’s the right thing to do,” he said. “I’m not a big political guy, one way or the other. I’m a moderate, really.

“I know it looks weird: ‘Oh, he was a Republican’….I just want to try to honor my father’s wishes at the end.”

Mr. Donohue, 39, who lives on Walnut Street, said he is a senior-level accountant in the Warren County Tourism Department, “for almost 14 years now.”

“I’ve lived on the east side of town for almost my whole life, except for a couple semesters before I graduated from Siena.”

He said that when his father ran for his first term, “I was in charge of a lot of his campaign. I’ve been very involved with what’s been going on with the City for least for the past couple years.

“My dad would ask me a lot of times, any financial questions involving the City, if this is the right move to do, if it’s a wrong move.”

“I would walk the ward with him (during the campaign), and (after election) we’d do sidewalk checks together and make sure which streets needed to get paved or more prioritized.”

Mr. Donohue said, “I would get a lot of constituents calling me, and I’d just say, yeah, we’ll talk to the mayor, I’ll talk to my dad, and we’ll try to sort any problem out in the First Ward as it came about.”

Whatever the outcome of his Democratic primary race with Kevin Stephenson, Mr. Donohue is guaranteed a spot on the November ballot, taking his father’s place on the “Glens Falls Forward” line that Ed Donohue shared with Mayor Bill Collins in the mayor’s race versus Ward 3 Councilwoman Diana Palmer.