Our own Patrick Ryan was one of the first members of Congress to call for the resignation of The Great Fabricator, Republican George Santos of Long Island. Can’t say I disagree with him, even if post-election follow-up reports by The New York Times pretty much confirmed Santos was a lying snake.

Santos has so far refused to quit, contending that while he might have “exaggerated” parts of his resume, voters elected him because of the issues he presented in his run against Democratic businessman Robert Zimmerman.

If Santos won’t jump, then it remains for the House to give him a push. For a lot of practical reasons, chief of which is a precarious five-vote Republican majority, that’s not about to happen. Nor should it. Elections should be decided in congressional districts, not in Congress.

Compared to victory margins put up by local congressmen Ryan (1 percent) and Marc Molinaro (2.2 percent), the 3.8 percent Santos won by practically a landslide.

Absent any criminal convictions of Santos, Congress should not interfere with the results of this election. To do so would establish a precedent that Congress, not district voters (however misled), has the final word on which candidate will represent them in Washington.

A careful reading of the lengthy, albeit belated, Times report indicates that some of the pillars of our democracy were lacking in this case. In our two-party system, we count on the opposition to keep a watchful eye on the other, and for media to watch both. None of that happened with Santos. Zimmerman told the Times he had heard rumors of questionable activities during the campaign but chose to spend his limited funds on his own campaign rather than investigating his opponent. A small Long Island weekly (The North Shore Leader), which probably should get a Pulitzer for its reporting, had the story substantially right, calling the Republican a “fraud” before the election, but nobody followed up. Santos was able to hem and haw his way to a 10,420-vote win.

What to do. Speaker McCarthy should marginalize this character for the remainder of his two-year term. If in the unlikelihood that Santos seeks re-election, better-informed voters will give him what he deserves.

This has been a sorry affair, more about the breakdown of our election processes than the egregious fabrications of one congressman.

What About Dave?

They call him The Ponderer, Ulster DA Dave Clegg. He goes round and round (not to be confused with county judge Bryan Rounds) over his political plans for the immediate future.

A few days after former opponent Republican Mike Kavanagh announced he had left the Republican Party to run again for DA, Clegg said he was still thinking about it. OK. Fact alone would have dictated a decent interval between Kavanagh throwing down the gauntlet and Clegg throwing in the towel. But the clock is ticking and Democrats, most of all, will want to know for sure before the end of this month so they can beat the bushes for a Kavanagh opponent. Dems have scheduled their unofficial nominating convention for Feb. 22 and nominating petitions begin circulating by March 1.

Another Cahill Departing

Ulster legislator Brian Cahill had the decency to alert constituents that he would not seek re-election before going public last week. Decent was a word often associated with Cahill during his four (split) terms in the legislature.

Unlike his older brother Kevin, the former assemblyman, Brian Cahill went about his business in a quiet way. He had a talent for seeing both sides of an issue, something not much in vogue these days. His departure will leave a secure Democratic seat in jeopardy, not that Dems, with a 17-6 majority, need to worry about retaining it.

A footnote on the ex-assemblyman: His successor, Democrat Sarahana Shrestha, moved into Cahill’s former offices in the Governor Clinton Hotel in Kingston on Jan. 2, after cleaning out the Guinness empties. (Here, I’m reaching for a gag. To my knowledge, nobody ever imbibed in Cahill’s office during his decades-long residence there.) Sixteen days into her term, the state still hasn’t removed Cahill’s old fading office sign and replaced it with Sarahana’s in front of the building.

I trust this obvious omission is more about traditional state government snafuery than anything deliberate, like taking revenge for the defeat of a popular, well-connected former colleague on his conqueror.

Where There’s a Will

I don’t think it came as a huge surprise when a few weeks ago developers of the long-delayed and mongo-controversial Kingstonian upscale apartment complex in Kingston’s Stockade District asked the Ulster County IDA for a two-year extension of its tax-breaks deal.

Launched five years ago to immediate and sustained opposition from litigious Uptown property owner Neil Bender, low-income housing advocates and many who just don't want to see the radical transformation of Uptown that it would bring, the Kingstonian's development costs by now must have zoomed way past the original pre-pandemic estimate of about $55 million. What with runaway inflation and supply issues, builders I talked to thought it might have approached double that.

Now, former city alderman and architect Brad Will has put a number on it.

In a letter to Kingston Wire and a full-page ad in the Freeman last week, Will placed his own “back of the napkin” cost assumptions at a whopping $132,087,560. I’m not sure how Will came up with such an exact figure, although Woodstock architect Bob Young says “any competent architect can estimate a project with reasonable accuracy.”

If this be the case, and unless money grows on trees in Kingston Plaza (its owners are prime developers), it could be we’ve seen the last of the Kingstonian.

If so, I hope they reopen the former Uptown Diner on the site of the would-be Kingstonian. This town could always use another good diner.