Quoted from mikechristine1

So, I guess YOU think STratton should be re-elected??????

Does that mean you support raising taxes on the poor to pad the pension of a manager who, by law, may NOT earn overtime?

DV, listen, WITHOUT Strattons SECRET and ILLEGAL actions, Farstad would have gotten a penion of a WHOPPING $68,000 per year.  That is MORE THAN TWICE what the typical Schenectady household makes.  Farstad is ONE income, "household" means the two or three incomes that comprise one household.  So, I guess think raising taxes on the financially struggliing families is just and proper to give a FAT LUCRATIVE pension to a political cronie, right.

Can you just provide an answer for once?   Do you support giving a fat pension to a guy who, without a secret deal, would have received a pension for the rest of his life of MNORE THAN TWICE the income of a complete household in the city.  

Quoted from pg13

Get your facts straight. The Chiefs pension wouldn't have been $68,000, it would have been $112,000 under Stratton's reportings to the NYS pension system!

Quoted from bumblethru

First the cat's name was SPARKY!

Second it wasn't the republicans!

Suggestion......check your facts.....k?

Quoted from mikechristine1

Yes PG, I did get the facts straight.  My sentence said WITHOUT the secret deal Farstad would have gotten $68,000.  And that means that without the secret deal Farstad's pension alone would be more than twice the household income of the taxpayers in the city.
And of course, DV won't answer whether he supports Stratton secret deal

Quoted from bumblethru

I am totally against pension padding, but it is allowed to be done every single day!! What makes this so different?

Quoted Text

Editoral: Still time to undo damage from Stratton's pension-padding scheme
Saturday, November 20, 2010

Schenectady Mayor Brian Stratton has given so many explanations for why Fire Chief Robert Farstad was able to collect $47,000 in overtime this year that one can only guess at the real reason. But at this point it doesn’t really matter how Farstad did it or why the mayor allowed it, only that it be stopped immediately and some effort made to reverse its impact — which will otherwise be unfairly borne by the state Retirement System.

There is a way to achieve this — and to satisfy Stratton’s professed desire (depending on what day it is) to correct the “error” he insists was made when Farstad came back to Schenectady after a one-year stint as chief of the Scotia Fire Department in 1997. But the City Council must act quickly, and it has to deny Farstad additional compensation for the remainder of the year. It could probably do this by laying him off through Dec. 31 or agreeing to defer his compensation for this period until 2011. A layoff would probably be quickest, and more likely to withstand Retirement System scrutiny.
Doing so would reduce his pensionable earnings for the year — which he says will be his last full one on the job and thus the one most likely to determine his pension payout — to roughly $116,000. That amount would produce a pension of roughly $74,000 — almost exactly 70 percent of his current $106,000 salary, which would have been used to calculate his pension before Stratton’s rogue pension-padding scheme................>>>>.............>>>>..............http://www.dailygazette.com/news/2010/nov/20/1120_prunbrbt/

Quoted from benny salami

Working together never works.

Quoted from GrahamBonnet

DV wants backroom "working together" to make pensions work (for political cronies.)

Quoted from GrahamBonnet

DV wants backroom "working together" to make pensions work (for political cronies.)

Quoted from DemocraticVoiceOfReason

Your comment is a complete lie ... I have made no comments on the "pension padding issue ..
so you have no idea what my position or opinion is.    

I have never met Chief Farstad and have not spoken with Mayor Stratton in almost 2 years - to imply that
I had anything to do with this issue is a malicious attempt at character assassination.

I have never worked in a "backroom" with any "cronies" ... I have always been open and transparent
in my involvements in the political process.