Richard Moody reports for Columbia-Greene Media that Linda Mussmann has refused a request to debate William Hughes, Jr. for the contested Hudson Fourth Ward Supervisor seat before the Nov. 7 election. Mussmann has little incentive to meet Hughes at a public forum, as she narrowly defeated him in the Democratic primary. Hughes, a longtime Democrat, is now on the Republican and Conservative Party lines, hoping for an upset in a Democratic-leaning ward to retain his seat. Mussmann, sounding like Republican Rep. John Faso, dismissed the entire concept of a public forum. “The old ways of having a 90-minute debate where each side plants people in the audience to ask questions and plays a game of ‘gotcha’ is not something I am interested in doing,” Mussman wrote in response to the debate request from Hughes. “The notion of random audience questions, in this day and age, is naive. I will be spending my time from here on out, as I have in the weeks leading up to the primary, talking to the people of the newly drawn Fourth Ward.” Likewise, Hughes reveals a unique appeal to Republican and Conservative voters. “I’m a registered Democrat and I will remain a Democrat. I believe in the Democratic ideology,” he said. Read the full story in HudsonValley360.com.