With the Cayuga County Democratic Party making its major nominations last week for this fall's elections, it was no surprise that Democratic Party Chair Katie Lacey was able to find a candidate to run for mayor, after her characteristically blunt comments about not supporting city councilor and mayoral hopeful David Dempsey.

It seems clear that Dempsey, who has been blocked from running for a third term on the council (unless he wants to run in a three-way primary) with the nomination of newcomer Gilda Brower, still plans on running for mayor.

This may be based on what he believes is the strong support that he seemed to receive within the City Democratic Committee with a 37 to 27 to 1 (for Earl Staring Jr.) defeat.

He may believe that he has a chance to win a primary against political newcomer and former Auburn Fire Chief Michael Quill, who is now the party's mayoral nominee.

It now comes down to an effort to see who can get their organization (the Democratic City Committee for Quill and supporters, possibly among the 27 who supported him, for Dempsey) to get the required signatures of at least 5 percent of the those registered as Democrats in Auburn.

With Peter Kotzer as an Independence Party nominee for city council, it is not clear if incumbent Thomas McNabb and fellow Democrat Brower will be on the ballot alone. Cherry Love-Duncan, who received a handful of votes at the Democratic meeting, may also run in a primary. As of yet the GOP still has found no one to run for the two city council seats currently held by Dempsey and McNabb.

Now that it is clear who the Democratic nominees are, there is still a chance that Republicans might be able to field a candidate or two.

On other fronts, there are still several spots within all four political parties to find candidates for the eight seats open this year for Cayuga County Legislature. Democrats may be looking at interested challengers to freshman Peter Tortorici, R-Auburn, and Legislature Chairman George Fearon, R-Springport.

There is also a possibility of a Democratic primary in the city's 14th district (a seat now held by term limited Michael Lepak, D-Auburn), between endorsed Democratic nominee Daniel Sincebaugh and perennial school board candidate Sean Stanyon with no Republican emerging to run.

Campaign 2007 is underway with the next phase of the political process in full swing.

Cosentino is a former mayor of Auburn and can be contacted at cozguytho@aol.com