You would never know that the nation is headed for a double dip recession and, perhaps, depression.  Unemployment remains at 10%.  The debt is soaring.  Unemployment benefits have been extended to 72 weeks.  And the stimulus package is not showing results.  New York State has a $4B deficit for the remainder of 2009.

Yet, those in county government, who used stimulus money to hold down tax increases, continue to spend like we're in good times.

Funny, but it is a backwards way of governing....'the more ya spend, the better chances of getting re-elected'. The sheople buy into it every time.

Backwards and fiscally irresponsible.....but it gets these clowns re-elected over and over!

When the money is finally gone and the depression, high interest rates and taxes, inflation, and excessive unemployment due to uncontrolled debt and wasteful spending there are going to be an awful lot of whining about what went wrong. Best advice is pay down your debt, save money, and become as self sufficient as possible. A day of reckoning is coming if we don't change our present course.

What's wrong with these people? The County has a record deficit-The State is billions in the red and headed for bankruptcy. The current facility is big enough-if you want to enlarge it- first close all underused City Branches.

    $615.000 for bathrooms and an elevator? This is not a community center. How much more for private office space? Instead of cuts like they insist on wasting more. More computers? A reading room for kids that never read? Too many fossils running things on the stunad library bored. Coming next/SHEEPLE ALERT: Separate library taxing district for more nit wit schemes.

     Here's want they should do replace the boiler and NOTHING ELSE. By the way what happened to the asbestos problem Savage said must be addressed last year?

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EDITORIALS What about addition in library plan?

    As with many things involving decision-making, where one stands on the issue of building an addition to the Schenectady County Public Library’s main branch depends on where you sit. Does the library need an addition? Yes, say library representatives. Maybe, say representatives from the county, which would have to pay for one.
    Although all sides appear to be getting along better than they were a year and a half ago, after a previously approved expansion plan was scrapped at the last minute (when everyone was surprised to learn it would require closing the library for a year or more), that little matter of the addition still has not been settled.
    When the cost of the long-awaited library renovation grew from $5 million to $7.7 million four years ago, we asked: Why not just go upstairs to the second floor, which has plenty of underused space? We said that would be cheaper and look better than the tacked-on, one-story addition proposed. But the library trustees at the time dismissed any public use of that space, especially for children’s programs. Mothers with carriages would never use an elevator, they said. .................>>>>....................>>>>.....................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r00901&AppName=1

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SCHENECTADY COUNTY
Smaller library project OK’d 6,000 square feet to be added for more than $1.5M
BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter

The Schenectady County Legislature announced Friday that it has agreed to a much smaller expansion of the county library downtown than legislators had originally planned. The smaller project is very similar to the original plan developed by the Friends of the Library, and rejected by the Legislature, two years ago. The plan calls for a 6,000-square-foot expansion on the far side of the library, replacing a parking area near the police station. Patrons will see a much larger children’s area, more space for computer terminals and upgraded bathrooms.
    “I am delighted. Enthusiastic. Euphoric,” said library board of trustees President Esther Swanker. “It’s taken us awhile but we finally got there.”
    The county will begin looking for architects soon, she said. Work could begin this year.
    Swanker acknowledged that the final plan has “some similarities” to the original one developed by the Friends of the Library. But library users will not get the performance center and gallery space that were originally proposed. Nor will the McChesney Room be demolished to make space for a new entrance, as the Legislature called for in its 9,000-square-foot plan.
    Legislator Karen Johnson, D-Schenectady, said the new plan has just what users need.
    “By working together, we have identified the areas that are most important to the immediate and future needs of our residents,” she said.
    Legislator Gary Hughes, R-Schenectady and chairman of the education and libraries committee, said the county had to develop some plan to improve the 40-year-old building.
    “These renovations are necessary to ensure that this building will continue to meet the needs of our children and the residents of our community,” he said.
    The plan will cost more than $1.5 million, but the total amount is not known, Swanker said. ..............>>>>.............................>>>>.............http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r00100&AppName=1

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Library plans call for new children's room

First published in print: Sunday, April 25, 2010

SCHENECTADY -- The children's room at the main branch of the Schenectady County public library would double in size to about 6,000 square feet and be relocated to the area closest to police headquarters under plans for major upgrades and a much-anticipated expansion, according to Library Director Andy Kulmatiski.

But, he said, before that change takes place, work to retool the electrical and fire alarm systems and asbestos removal will take place over the next two months at the Clinton Street library.
Once that happens, visitors, and especially those using their laptops, will notice a few dozen more electrical outlets on the building's main level. Additionally, all the electrical panels and the nearly half-century-old fire alarm system will be replaced, Kulmatiski said. The asbestos remediation will entail ripping out the old floor tiles, removing the material, and installing new tiles. Asbestos also will be removed from pipes in the basement and top floor.

And since contractors will work at night, the public area won't feel much disruption at all, he added.

Some of the other improvements to the library include adding another elevator, and making all the rest rooms handicapped-accessible, as the law requires.

The projects, some of which carry six-figure price tags, will be paid for through a combination of state construction funds and money raised through fund-raisers and matching funds from the county, Kulmatiski said.

Read more: http://www.timesunion.com/AspS.....Page=1#ixzz0m7CtJHCD

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SCHENECTADY
Library expansion is on track Long-sought project features contemporary design, glass sides
BY MICHAEL LAMENDOLA Gazette Reporter

    Ten years and several setbacks later, the Board of Trustees of the Schenectady County Public Library is realizing its dream of expanding the central branch on Clinton Street.
    Construction on a 6,700-square-foot addition is expected to begin before January and be completed in about a year, said trustee President Ester Swanker.
    The two-story addition has an estimated cost of $2.6 million, said library Director Andy Kulmatiski. Bids will go out in September and be opened in October, giving library officials a truer picture of the cost, he said.
    The work will involve a minimal disruption of services at the central library, basically just knocking out a wall to connect the two structures, Kulmatiski said.
    The addition will be built on countyowned land containing library staff parking, east of the central library and stretching toward the Schenectady Police Department headquarters.
    The library board, which administers the county library system, has raised approximately $2.5 million in donations and through grants for the construction. The county, which owns and operates the library system, will contribute $1.5 million toward the project.
    The county has already spent approximately $2.2 million to upgrade the central library’s original operating systems. Further work includes installing handicappedaccessible bathrooms and an elevator. The central library was built more than 40 years ago and has not been physically changed since.
    Local architectural fi rm Re4orm Architecture designed the contemporary structure. The front will feature a two-story-tall wall of clear glass, the sides of opaque glass supported by pre-cast concrete buttresses. A two-story “monolith,” using bricks taken from the original library when the structures are connected, will front the structure.
    “I am exhilarated about it,” Swanker said. “I love the wall.”
    Kulmatiski said the addition will not clash with the central library’s “iconic” design. “It’s mainly glass. It uses clear, energy-effi cient glass along the front and energy-effi cient, opaque glass along the sides that diffuses the light,” he said.
    Swanker said the addition “meets all of our needs. Our circulation has increased signifi cantly [topping 1 million in 2007] and we are getting more usage not only of the whole library but of the computer section.”
    The addition’s first floor will house the children’s section; the second floor will have meeting rooms. Library offi cials will use the former children’s room space in the central library, some 3,000 square feet, to expand collections of new and popular books.
    “We’re doubling our children’s space. We have a great need for that,” Kulmatiski said. Swanker said the current children’s room is used as a pass-through section to other parts of the library.
    “It is difficult for librarians or any staff to do programming over there and it has a lot of cubby holes for children to hide,” she said. “It is not an ideal situation. We want to make ours [children’s room] the best possible.”
    Schenectady County Legislator Gary Hughes, D-Schenectady, said library trustees led the design process. “The county sat down with the trustees’ building committee and worked out the library’s programmatic needs and what they would need to add,” he said. ......................>>>>........................>>>>....................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r00101&AppName=1

Wow! What a total eyesore. This almost makes Center City look good. Another example of a bad idea that won't go away. Good to know that the County has a extra $1.5 MILLION to waste. Completely unnecessary and a total waste of tax money.

      I can't wait for Richard Eats opinion on this horrible Martian design. But Esther and the Gazetto editors say "It's good!" After 10 years this is the best they come up with? If the idiots at Friends of the Library want to build this modern eyesore-let them do it solely with private contributions. Build! Who cares about paying for it? Build! Coming next! A separate library taxing district. "It's good?"

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Decade-old library plan worth a second look

Re Aug. 27 editorial, “Take new library design to return desk”: You probably recall that I was the Schenectady County Public Library director, retiring in 2002. Relative to the library expansion project, the planning goes back almost 10 years. One of the plans which really impressed me was the one that I believe was prepared by Architecture Plus, a firm located in Troy. It developed a schematic that very effectively and aesthetically connected the addition to the existing building. This might be an opportune moment for the community to revisit that plan.

RON LAGASSE
Schenectady

http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r00505&AppName=1

Is there ANY future view......E-Readers/internet etc......1.5M? Really? so we can all E-read together?..........how nice......waste......this is a very short
lived view......

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A better way with library design

    Last week we panned the design for the Schenectady County Public Library expansion. Today we criticize the process, which seems not unrelated to the bad result.
    This isn’t some ordinary private construction project we’re talking about, but a very important public building in a very visible location: right across the street from two classical and beautiful buildings: the post office and City Hall. Yes, it’s also adjacent to an ugly modern building, the police station, but that doesn’t justify an addition that disregards the design elements and materials of the existing library.
    Modern architects talk about wanting additions to older buildings to stand by themselves, to be “of their own time,” but why, when the usual outcome, as in this case, is a hodgepodge lacking in symmetry and unity?
    But while the library is a public building, the design process was anything but open, with the county choosing an architect (the same fi rm that did a similar out-of-place design with the new Center City) late in the game (just a few months ago). .........................>>>>...............>>>>..................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r00702&AppName=1

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Expansion breaks ground
Marv Cermak

It took about a dozen years to get going, but last week the Schenectady County Legislature was finally able to schedule a ground-breaking ceremony for the downtown library expansion.
Public sector ribbon-cutting is scheduled so the politicians can take bows and crow about something they could not have done without with your tax dollars. They are not timid or shy about this sort of thing.
Many politicians were present. Hey, wait a minute! Everywhere you looked there were only Democrats. Ah, shucks! The Dems, in control of the Legislature, somehow forgot to put the Republicans on the invitation list.
Assemblyman Jim Tedisco was the only Republican on the grounds. Come to find out he wasn't supposed to be there. By chance he came upon a library trustee who mentioned the event. The trustee said Tedisco could come but would not be allowed to speak.
GOP State Sen. Hugh Farley was also persona non grata. He was a bit put out because he landed a $367,000 state grant for the project. He also has chaired the Senate library subcommittee for 35 years.
It wasn't a snub, but instead just an oversight, I told Farley, tongue in cheek. "Oversight my foot,'' he retorted. "The Democrats don't invite the Republicans to anything that should be non-partisan. Just shows how small they really are.''

Read more: http://www.timesunion.com/defa.....72.php#ixzz1MbcdUgul

WORKING TOGETHER WORKS!

Hope this turns out better than the $600,000 Trustco Bank purchase (now empty and no taxes being collected for years) and the Gillette House Welcoming Center (over $200K spent in environmental clean-up and renovations only to be sold for less than $50K to a private investor).