Peter J. Campione is a retired Little Falls appliance dealer who has led the Herkimer County Legislature since May 2025, when the chairman before him resigned the post from jail. A Republican who also runs on the Conservative line, he represents District 14 and won a second year as chairman in January 2026. He is not on the Nov. 3, 2026 ballot.
So who is Peter Campione, what has he done, and what do his critics say? The record runs through 38 years behind the counter of a Main Street store, a vice chairmanship that turned into the top job during a legal crisis, a new rule for removing leaders, an unopposed 2025 race, and a county budget passed 16 to 1.
Quick Facts
- Party
- Republican (also on the Conservative line)
- Hometown
- Little Falls area, N.Y.
- Date of Birth
- Not listed in sources reviewed
- Current Position
- Chairman, Herkimer County Legislature; District 14 legislator
- Background
- Owner of Best Buy Appliance Center in Little Falls for 38 years
- In Office Since
- May 2025 (chairman); first legislature term not confirmed
EARLY LIFE AND FAMILY
PagPol could not confirm Campione’s date or place of birth, his parents’ names, his schooling, or any military service. What the public record shows is a long working life in Little Falls, the small Mohawk Valley city that anchors his legislative district, according to MyLittleFalls, a local news site that profiled him in 2025.
He opened Best Buy Appliance Center 38 years before that profile, starting with used appliances on West Main Street. He later sold new and used machines and moved the store to East Main Street. His sister, Mary Ann, worked beside him for more than 20 years, and he has five grandchildren, the site reported.
His district covers the Town of Danube, the Town of Little Falls, and the fourth ward of the City of Little Falls, according to the county’s District 14 page. The page lists him as an ex officio member of all legislature committees. PagPol could not find the year he first won the seat or the results of his earlier races.
A bridge over the Mohawk River in Little Falls, the city at the heart of Campione’s District 14. (Photo: Dougtone, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
THE HOLLUM ARRESTS, 2024
In January 2024 the legislature elected Robert Hollum, a Republican from District 4, as its chairman. On May 19, 2024, Hollum was arrested in the Village of Ilion on misdemeanor charges of drug possession and an open container violation, according to WIBX, which published a timeline of his case.
On Sept. 11, 2024, State Police charged Hollum with failing to store a firearm safely. In November he pleaded guilty to the drug charges under a deal that carried 30 days of house arrest and three years of probation with drug and alcohol conditions, WIBX reported. The plea also settled the gun charge.
During this period Campione served as Hollum’s vice chairman. PagPol could not find when he was first chosen for that post or any public comment from him on the charges. The arrests made the legislature’s top job a regional news story and set up the leadership change that followed in the spring of 2025.
TAKING THE GAVEL, 2025
Hollum was sentenced in January 2025. On April 25 he was charged with violating his probation and jailed without bail. On May 1 he signed a letter resigning the chairmanship but keeping his seat, and he backed Campione to replace him. Legislators had scheduled a special meeting for the next day to debate removing him, WIBX reported.
At that May 2 meeting the legislature voted unanimously to name Campione interim chairman until the end of the year, according to WKTV. Members began drafting a rule to remove leaders for unethical behavior, criminal activity, incompetence, misuse of public funds, or breach of trust, the station reported.
“We have by laws that are from a long time ago, and we need to put something into the by laws that, in case we ever get in a situation again, we can move forward,” Campione told WKTV. He added, “There is a lot of legal things you have to.” A vote was expected at a special session the following Monday.
At that May 5 session the legislature made Campione chairman for the rest of the term and chose William Weakley of District 17 as vice chairman, according to the Rome Sentinel. It also adopted the new removal rule, which requires a two-thirds vote of all members.
PRIMARY, RETIREMENT AND REELECTION, 2025
On June 24, 2025, Hollum lost the Republican primary for his District 4 seat to Gene Wedemeyer Jr., 91 to 18, and was sentenced the same day to 120 days in jail for the probation violation, according to WIBX. Hollum kept a third-party line for November.
MyLittleFalls reported on July 1, 2025 that Campione was retiring and had sold his store to Garrett Wright and Brennen Thompson. “Retiring is the easy part, it’s leaving my customers that is the hard part,” he said. He recalled an elderly customer who once shared her life story with him at her kitchen table.
Erie Canal Lock 17 in Little Falls, the city where Campione ran his appliance store for 38 years. (Photo: DCwom, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
“It is those memories that I will cherish forever,” Campione said of that visit. He also thanked his longtime shoppers. “Thank you to all my customers for your patronage over the years; it has truly been a pleasure,” he said. Mayor Deborah Kaufman praised the sale as taking shop local “to a whole new level.”
On Nov. 4, 2025, Campione won District 14 without a named opponent, taking 335 votes, or 98.24 percent, on the Republican and Conservative lines, according to the county’s official results. Six write-in votes made up the rest. Only 434 of 2,244 registered voters in the district’s three precincts cast ballots.
The same results show Wedemeyer won District 4 with 288 votes to 41 for Hollum, who ran on an independent line. That ended Hollum’s time in the legislature at the close of 2025. The other 16 members seated in January 2026 had all served alongside Campione that fall.
On Nov. 12, with Campione presiding, the legislature adopted Local Law C of 2025, which raised the salaries of some elected county officers and officers appointed to fixed terms. The roll call was 15 to 0, with two members absent, according to the November minutes. The minutes say no one asked to speak at its public hearing.
Ways and Means Chairman Kurt Ackerman gave an update on the 2026 budget that same night. On Dec. 10, 2025, the legislature adopted the 2026 county budget by a vote of 16 to 1, according to the December minutes. Campione voted yes. Robert Schrader of District 3 cast the only no vote, and Hollum voted yes.
THE 2026 TERM
On Jan. 5, 2026, the legislature elected Campione chairman for 2026 by a roll call of 17 to 0 at its organizational session, according to the January minutes. State Supreme Court Justice Mark Rose gave him the oath, with Krista Campione holding the Bible. Weakley was reelected vice chairman, also 17 to 0.
The minutes say Campione thanked members for electing him and outlined his goals for the legislature and the county for the coming year, but they do not record what those goals were. Republican legislators named Ray Donley of District 13 majority leader, and John Brezinski of District 8 was named minority leader by the Democratic side.
At the May 20, 2026 session, Campione thanked County Administrator Jim Wallace for 47 years of service, the May minutes show. Deputy County Administrator Alvin Montana was set to succeed Wallace in mid-July, according to WKTV, giving Campione a new top administrator.
The Herkimer County Courthouse in the village of Herkimer, the county seat. (Photo: Doug Kerr, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
THE COUNTY AND THE PARTY MATH
Herkimer County had 19,271 active enrolled Republicans and 8,571 Democrats out of 39,875 active voters on Feb. 20, 2026, according to state enrollment figures. That is a Republican share of 48.3 percent. Another 9,186 voters had no party, and 810 were Conservatives.
Among the eight Mohawk Valley and North Country counties PagPol compared, Herkimer ranked fourth in Republican share, behind Hamilton, Lewis, and Fulton. The legislature has 17 members elected from single districts, listed on the county’s legislature roster. Its party balance is lopsided, as the 2025 results show.
Republican share of active enrolled voters, Feb. 20, 2026
Herkimer CountyNearby Mohawk Valley and North Country counties
Source: PagPol Data Spine, from New York State Board of Elections enrollment figures.
In the 2025 county results, 16 of the 17 winners ran on the Republican line. The exception was Brezinski, who won District 8 on the Conservative and an independent line, 319 votes to 115, and was named minority leader in January by what the minutes call “the Democratic Legislator.”
Neighboring Oneida County, which has more than three times as many voters, is led by an elected executive. For other upstate county leaders, see PagPol’s profiles of Anthony Picente and Mike Hill, who lead the Oneida County government and the Niagara County Legislature.
LEADERSHIP ROLES
As chairman, Campione presides over the 17-member legislature, runs its quarterly sessions, and calls on committee chairmen for reports. In 2026 his leadership team includes Vice Chairman Weakley, Majority Leader Donley, and Minority Leader Brezinski. Ackerman, of District 12, chairs the Ways and Means Committee and served as temporary chairman at the January meeting.
Campione held the vice chairmanship before he became chairman, and he has now led the body for about a year and a half. Under the rule adopted in May 2025, two-thirds of all members can remove him for causes such as criminal activity or breach of trust, and party caucuses can remove their own leaders the same way.
WHY HE RAN AND WHAT HE BELIEVES
PagPol could not find a public statement from Campione explaining why he first ran for the legislature or a written platform for his chairmanship. His most direct public comments on governing came after Hollum’s resignation, when he said the county’s old bylaws needed a way for the body to move forward in a crisis.
His other public remarks center on Little Falls and its Main Street. He described leaving his customers as the hardest part of retiring, and he thanked them publicly for decades of business. PagPol found no recorded positions from him on state issues, such as Medicaid costs or the property tax cap.
CAMPAIGN FINANCE
PagPol could not find a campaign committee for Campione in state Board of Elections data, and the state database could not be reached for this report. His 2025 race had no named opponent on the ballot. County legislature races do not receive state public matching funds.
PagPol also could not find the dollar total, tax levy or tax rate of the 2026 county budget he helped pass. The December resolutions adopt the tentative budget by reference and print no totals, so this profile uses the county’s reported reserves, as filed with the state comptroller, and its earlier levy history instead.
By the comptroller’s figures, the county’s assigned and unassigned general fund balance rose from about $22.6 million at the end of 2024 to about $39.0 million at the end of 2025. That cushion went from 19 percent of yearly general fund spending to 33 percent in the year Campione became chairman.
Change in county property tax levy, 2021 to 2025
Herkimer CountyNearby counties, increase
The four-year change before Campione became chairman. Source: PagPol Data Spine, from state comptroller county property tax levy data.
CONTROVERSIES AND CRITICISM
PagPol found no ethics complaints, lawsuits, or criminal cases involving Campione, and no named critic quoted against him in WKTV, WIBX, Rome Sentinel, Observer-Dispatch or MyLittleFalls coverage. The legislature’s main controversy of the period was Hollum’s arrests and jailing, which Campione inherited rather than caused.
Hollum’s letter endorsing Campione called the move “best for the residents and Legislature.” The clearest dissent on Campione’s watch came from inside the chamber. Schrader cast the only vote against the 2026 budget, and PagPol could not find his stated reason. Local Law C drew no speakers at its hearing.
Municipal Hall in the village of Herkimer, whose clerk-treasurers did not properly record $10.5 million in activity, a 2025 comptroller audit found. (Photo: Doug Kerr, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
The sharpest official criticism in his district came from the state, not from rivals, and it concerned the city rather than the county. Reviewing Little Falls’ 2026 tentative budget in November 2025, the comptroller listed estimates for state aid, water sales, sewer rents and other income and said, “These revenues may not be reasonable,” according to the budget review.
CLAIMS VERSUS THE RECORD
Campione said in May 2025 that the legislature needed bylaws to handle another crisis. Within days the body adopted a rule allowing removal of leaders by a two-thirds vote, so that pledge was carried out. He has not faced a vote under it, and PagPol found no attempt to use it.
He presented himself at his retirement as a man rooted in Little Falls customers. His record in office is mostly procedural: he presided over a budget that passed 16 to 1 and a salary law that passed 15 to 0. PagPol could not find the goals he outlined in January 2026, so it cannot yet measure progress on them.
STATE COMPTROLLER AUDITS IN THE COUNTY
The state comptroller scored Herkimer County at 6.7 points, “No Designation,” the least stressed of its four categories, for both fiscal 2024 and fiscal 2025, according to the county’s fiscal 2025 stress report. Its general fund balance equaled 33.47 percent of spending at the end of 2025.
The Little Falls review noted that a 2025 state law lets the city borrow up to $3.4 million to wipe out deficits in its general, water and golf funds. It also found the budget had no contingency line and likely overstated debt payments by $37,327. The city sits partly in Campione’s district.
In the Village of Herkimer, a March 2025 records audit found clerk treasurers did not properly record $10.5 million in financial activity. A July 2025 payroll audit found inadequate time records and poorly supported separation payments. The comptroller’s list showed no Herkimer County audits issued in 2026 as of late October.
LOOKING AHEAD
Campione is not on the ballot this November. The legislature’s next major decision is the 2027 county budget, due by year end, followed by the January 2027 vote for chairman. For more, visit PagPol’s Herkimer County page or subscribe to the Herkimer County newsletter.
