Ironic, isn’t it? The city of Schenectady is trying hard to improve Erie Boulevard, the gateway to its downtown [April 22 Gazette]. Its goal is to plant trees, make the roadway more attractive, environmentally sound and pedestrian-, traffic- and, hence, business-friendly. In doing this, some citizens and small businesses are fighting them every step of the way, objecting to any change to the status quo. In the city the government is listening to many points of view and revising plans to accommodate as many as possible while keeping the primary goal in focus. Meanwhile, Niskayuna has destroyed an elegant, historic gem that welcomed visitors to its environs, tearing down mature trees and planning more tacky modernity [April 19 Gazette]. After all, Niskayuna has done so well with St. James Square it certainly needs more schlock. To add insult to injury, it did all this over the objections of the town historian and its own citizens. I hope the ghost of Ingersoll is watching these developments and those who perpetrated them.
I was going to Mohawk Commons and saw the Ingersoll house. I GASPED!!! It was perhaps one of, if not the most historically charming buildings left in Schenectady. Its beautiful architecture, plush green lawn and mature trees now appears that it was ground zero after a war bombing. Only to succumb to the mindless government leaders.
And it just goes to prove, once again, that the elected officials in government think THEY know what is best for the taxpayers. 'THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE' ..... it doesn't exist in Schenectady County anymore.
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
This lady is hopelessly confused. "Business friendly" by destroying the few businesses there and taking without just compensation? There is absolutely no public support for this. A Son of Sam circle to nowhere only to destroy taxpaying businesses. By the way, the "objectionable" gun store is gone taking its sales tax revenues to Troy and Amsterdam. Now they are sueing Son of Sam and the morons that are flushing the City down the toilet.
Nisky is another example of the decline of 2 parties in this County. For over a 100 years a REPS stronghold where the REPS voted to pull up a pink flag and unplug the phone. What happened at the Stanford Home is a disgrace. Typical of phony "environmentalist" Krats who only care about pleasing developers. Everyone else go to hell.
It actually just goes to show how fickle we are and that there is nothing new under the sun.....generation after generation after generation etc etc etc.....
although it looks like a bomb went off and that is not such a pretty picture.....neither is it a pretty picture of all of us sitting here typing typing typing, starring at a screen with words and actually thinking folks are 'getting my point' and that we are not all sitting on our front steps having BEER together to rid ourselves of 'WORK'.......
and we move forward(I think that is the direction)......anyone know for sure????
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
NISKAYUNA Stimulus money to pay for road repairs BY MICHAEL LAMENDOLA Gazette Reporter Reach Gazette reporter Michael Lamendola at 395-3114 or lamend@dailygazette.com.
Schenectady County is getting more than $1.75 million in federal stimulus money to repair three major roads this summer. The county will use $1.4 million to repave three-quarters of a mile of Providence Avenue and 3.6 miles of River Road, and $373,000 to repave 1.8 miles of Rosendale Road. The federal money does not require a county match. This is the first award for roadwork the county has received through the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act. The county earlier received stimulus money for summer youth employment and job training programs. County Public Works Director Joseph Ryan said the county will hire private contractors to perform the work through bids. The work should begin this summer and will take several weeks to complete. He said the work will require intermittent lane restrictions and some temporary closures. Ryan said the three roads qualify for stimulus money because they are part of the federal highway system, are in need of repair and have high traffic counts. Some 15,000 vehicles per day use River Road, for example. County-owned roads, which comprise 60 percent of all roads in Schenectady County, are ineligible for federal stimulus money. “These roads have not been treated in eight or nine years, other than routine maintenance and patching,” Ryan said. The county had planned to repave River Road in 2010 or 2011 as part of its 10-year maintenance schedule and would have used county money for the work. “This takes it off the schedule in 2010. It helps me if I don’t have to deal with these roads,” Ryan said. The county expects to receive stimulus money for additional road projects, Ryan said. “We requested over $15 million in work,” he said. .............>>>>..............>>>>.............http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....amp;EntityId=Ar01101
"While Foreign Terrorists were plotting to murder and maim using homemade bombs in Boston, Democrap officials in Washington DC, Albany and here were busy watching ME and other law abiding American Citizens who are gun owners and taxpayers, in an effort to blame the nation's lack of security on US so that they could have a political scapegoat."
Complete waste of taxpayer money. Nothing wrong with either Providence Ave nor River Rd. Especially compared to the back roads of horrible tax ravaged Schenectady. Bonnet has it right. Pure pork partisan politics.
Ms. Savage is in deep do-do and everyone knows it. A brillant business leader from Nisky may join that race. Even the DEMS have had enough of her "leadership".
In 2007, when I ran for Niskayuna supervisor, my platform and that of my Democratic Town Board running mates was clear: We opposed the proposed development at the Ingersoll site on Balltown Road. After winning our elections, I and my fellow Democrats acknowledged our platform as we voted to withdraw the town’s appeal of the Supreme Court decision, which was arguing in favor of the proposed development. I also have urged the county and county IDA to reject the persistent requests of the Ingersoll developers for tax-free bonds, and the county has consistently rejected those requests, despite vigorous lobbying by Ingersoll representatives. The developer’s approval for this project was granted by the former town supervisor, one town board member who quit the Democratic Party, and another town board member who has declined to seek re-election. The legacy of these three town officials will largely be defined by this single vote, as beautiful pine trees are ripped from the earth and a historic site is greatly diminished. It is unfortunate that the Appellate Division of the state Supreme Court ruled that this project could proceed. I will continue to work with the new town board to ensure that historic preservation and environmental concerns are a top priority and not an afterthought, and that in the future, these values will prevail in our public policy determinations.
Niskayuna supervisor’s defense of Ingersoll stance rang hollow
Niskayuna Supervisor Joe Landry [May 31 letter, “Current Nisky Dems have opposed Ingersoll”] noted his opposition to the Ingersoll development and placed responsibility with the prior administration. He also touts two accomplishments related to the Ingersoll: withdrawing the town from the appeal of a trial court decision requiring a full environmental impact study and discouraging the use of county Industrial Development Agency bonding to support development. It is true former Supervisor Luke Smith, along with board members Diane O’Donnell and Maria Freund, pushed the proposal through. But 18 months into his term, Mr. Landry has taken no meaningful action to reverse the course. His actions have been largely symbolic and did nothing to stop the desecration of the property. Joe Landry missed opportunities to move environmental and historical preservation forward. Two brief examples: He should have enforced the required archeological work to be completed before the Ingersoll property was denuded and appointed a town historian — a position left vacant since Luke Smith fired the last historian two-and-one-half years ago. Most importantly, the Landry administration should have enacted a limited building moratorium to stop the Ingersoll development and give the town the opportunity to consider zoning and other changes to preserve environmentally and historically sensitive locations. Landry and his town board colleagues, Liz Orzel Kasper and Julie McDonnell, were on record when elected as supporting a limited moratorium. Limited moratoriums have been widely used in New York for decades and are well supported by case law. Yet nothing has been done. As a registered Democrat who voted for Landry, Kasper and McDonnell, I am disappointed by their inaction. They have failed the community. Action is needed now. Enact a limited building moratorium. Review current zoning and ensure that land and buildings are protected for the future. Hire a town historian. Then they might genuinely claim “that historic preservation and environmental concerns are a top priority and not an afterthought,” as he noted in his letter.
Controversial Niskayuna shopping center moving forward Saturday, June 13, 2009 By Steven Cook (Contact) Gazette Reporter
NISKAYUNA — An 80-year-old addition built specifically for the old Ingersoll Home has been demolished, the latest move in the construction of the controversial Stanford Crossings shopping center. The demolition leaves the old Stanford Mansion standing by itself on the grounds of the old Ingersoll Home. The mansion is slated for a restaurant as part of the larger complex. It comes after the site was virtually cleared of trees to make way for construction. A stand of trees behind Linda Lane residences was left intact as a buffer. Developers largely declined to comment on the progress this week. Attorney Lou Lecce would only say that the project is on schedule. Lecce said in March that they had pre-leased enough of the project to get started. He declined to say this week if a restaurant had locked in to occupy the mansion building or how close an agreement might be. In late March, he said several restaurants were interested and a final decision could come by the end of June. Town Planner Kathy Matern said the demolition had to wait until some asbestos abatement was done. The developers gave the town their report and the danger had been removed. Next up is a meeting with town officials regarding the road that is to be put through the site. The road is to go from the Mohawk Commons traffic light on Balltown Road, through the Stanford Crossings site to State Street. The road will mean that Mohawk Commons traffic going to State Street won’t have to turn left onto Balltown Road. That meeting has yet to be scheduled. “We’ll see how things went up to that point and make sure everything’s OK,” Matern said. “If they run into a difficulty, they’ll come in and talk about it. But so far, everything seems to be going well.'...............>>>>......................>>>>.................................http://www.dailygazette.com/news/2009/jun/13/0613_nisk/
Historic mansion in limbo Months after the former Stanford home site was cleared, questions linger
By LAUREN STANFORTH, Staff writer First published in print: Monday, February 1, 2010
NISKAYUNA -- The corner of State Street and Balltown Road looks as if someone dropped a bomb on it, with a large boarded-up mansion the only surviving structure.
After a developer won a state Court of Appeals decision in 2008 to build at the former family farm of Stanford University's founder, hundreds of old-growth trees were chopped down and the property's gentle slope leveled. Highbridge Development of Schenectady promised throughout the public fight against the proposal to keep the red-brick house circa 1816 intact, possibly for reuse as a restaurant..........>>>>.........>>>>..........Read more: http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=895589&category=SCHENECTADY#ixzz0eHjn1Yfy
It's moving forward! When? Where? Where's the Gazetto on this project? LOL!
A project that no one wanted and the Nisky DEMS all supported. "Looks as if a bomb were dropped on it"-Right! Neutron Bomb. Where is economic "czar" Death Ray on this debacle? Supervisor unavailable-planners unavailbale and town board DEMS holding the bag. Names change but the song remains the same.
"Due to the wonderful work of the County economic development team working together we have an empty shell where a historic building used to be".
In case you were wondering what has become of the historic Stanford Home site in Niskayuna, subject of a long, contentious public relations and legal battle between preservationists and developer John Roth, the answer is everything — and nothing. Everything in the sense that it has been so vandalized — denuded of its beautiful, mature trees, its gracefully sloping grounds — that there is nothing left but the cartoonish house itself, sitting there all alone like a building in one of those photos of Hiroshima after the atomic bomb. It’s hardly worth keeping — and won’t be if it stands neglected much longer, deteriorates, and the developer argues that it’s too expensive to save. That is where the nothing comes in. Four years after first proposing the project, two years after getting town approval for it, and a year after overcoming a challenge in the state Court of Appeals, it appears that Roth has nothing — no firm commitments for that building or the rest of the property, which he had hoped to turn into a strip mall with the usual drugstore, bank, fast-food restaurants, or whatever he could get. Attribute it to bad timing with the economy, hard-to-get loans, and all. ...........................................>>>>.................>>>>..............http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r00901&AppName=1
Logged
This lady is hopelessly confused. "Business friendly" by destroying the few businesses there and taking without just compensation? There is absolutely no public support for this. A Son of Sam circle to nowhere only to destroy taxpaying businesses. By the way, the "objectionable" gun store is gone taking its sales tax revenues to Troy and Amsterdam. Now they are sueing Son of Sam and the morons that are flushing the City down the toilet.
