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Lake Pleasant supervisor points out rival’s health insurance position change

Lake Pleasant town Supervisor Dan Wilt wants to set the record straight after a July 11 Enterprise article titled “Two supervisors outed in Hamilton County primary” did not give the full story on town board health insurance.

In the Republican primary on June 25, Betsy Bain received 180 votes, beating out Wilt’s 176. Wilt, who is also a member of the state Adirondack Park Agency board, is still running on his own independent line and will challenge her again in the Nov. 5 general election.

The article stated that his opponent in the Hamilton County Republican, Conservative and Independence primaries, Bain was “running on a platform of … eliminating town-paid health insurance for members of the Lake Pleasant Town Board.”

“In fact, the reason Betsy Bain lost her re-election to the Town Board in the last election is because she was against eliminating town board health insurance for members of the Town board,” Wilt wrote in an email to the Enterprise. “Also, if she was reelected in the last election, she would have received the health insurance for life under the previous resolution.”

A May 15 Facebook post on her campaign page showed she had changed her stance.

“As a candidate for Town Supervisor, I support the idea that as of January 1, 2020, no member of the Lake Pleasant Town Board will be eligible for Health Insurance paid for by the Town,” she wrote.

Bain spent eight years on the town board, four when Wilt was supervisor. She said that if she had been re-elected for a third term two years ago, she would have been eligible for health insurance for life, but she lost the general election then.

Around the same time, Wilt was pushing to get rid of insurance, a move Bain then opposed. She said there were several people on the board who had been on the insurance for years.

“I didn’t think that was fair to cut them off,” she said.

She said she had wanted to do the change gradually.

“The health insurance for Town Board members was eliminated by a resolution in May 2019 by resolution brought forward to the board by myself and supported with a vote of 5 in favor, none against and also supported by all candidates for office except Betsy Bain,” Wilt wrote.

The issue is pretty much over now.

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