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SCHENECTADY
City receives more grant funding
BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter

    The city’s favorite federal grant got a lot bigger this year, allowing the City Council to pass out money to new groups while still funding those who have depended on Community Development Block Grants for years.
    “I’m nine percent happier this year than I was last year,” said Director of Development Richard Purga, referring to the 9 percent increase in CDBG. This year the city received $2.77 million.
    From 2004 to 2008, CDBG funding was cut by 20 percent. Last year, it went up 1 percent.
    “So this is a big deal,” he said.
    The City Council received the mayor’s proposed CDBG budget without comment Monday. But council members insisted that the public hearing should be held during a council meeting. They agreed to change the hearing date to April 26 at 7 p.m. at City Hall.
    The council can change the mayor’s proposed budget after the hearing, and it usually makes several small adjustments.
    The mayor made his priorities clear in setting the budget. He chose to focus on his signature project — environmentally-friendly homes for the poor.
    The project allows the city to eliminate blight by renovating rundown homes or demolishing them to build new ones. Solar panels, thick insulation and well-organized construction sites minimize the impact on the environment. But the first houses were considered so luxurious that they were assessed at up to three times their sale price, and some residents have told the city they can’t afford to pay the taxes.
    So the city is trying to reduce the tax burden by building smaller homes with fewer bedrooms. In the proposed CDBG budget, planners have enlisted Habitat for Humanity, which traditionally avoids large tax bills by constructing small, onestory houses. ........................>>>>.............>>>>...............http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r00901&AppName=1

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He chose to focus on his signature project — environmentally-friendly homes for the poor.

More houses that the owners can't afford to pay the ridiculous taxes??

Great choice Mayor.

Mayor Stratton's answer to everything is more surplus housing. For Alco, for downtown, for Little Italy, by the pollution plant, even on the Muni golf course. Enough already. No jobs-more housing. One slight problem-no one wants them.

     Maybe if you reduced record property taxes some of the homes on the market for years would sell? Naw, we will build more condos nobody wants.

The city of schenectady should be renamed....' the people's city'. The entire city is being held afloat with taxpayer's money. Clearly not from the over abundance of businesses. Although I commend the long standing businesses for hanging in there....it is the 'people's' money, through taxation, that is holding it barely together.

Gillen/plex, stratton and the whole crew of them can not and should not take any credit for ANYTHING! Although there is obviously nothing to take credit for (no job, high taxes, high crime rate, increased welfare), they continue to boast of things that are false.

It is 'we the taxpayers' that have given these idiots, through taxation, the money to 'play'. AND to grease the hands of the selected/choose AND to keep the sub-culture right in it's place to ensure votes.

Pathetic, ain't it?

Grant funding from WHOM/WHAT??????