You know, I saw something today that said that Hull was a co-founder of Metroplex. Seems to me there's only one good thing about this election... the fact that I don't have to vote in it, since I don't live in the city. Do you want the corruption that is currently there, or one of those that added so much to the ever shrinking tax base in the city / county?
Mc Carthy Budget Disaster MONDAY, 17 OCTOBER 2011 16:35
Mr. McCarthy’s plan: Let’s not worry about what will happen next year; let’s just get past Election Day. We can deal with the future then.
That Gary McCarthy has no other plan than trying to hide as much as possible until after the election is clear; that he has not developed a real financial plan during his years on the city council is a disgrace. Two years ago, the City had $21 million in general fund reserves; now those reserves, according to his finance director, are roughly $1 million—before taking into account the millions of dollars owed to the county and school district and before taking into account the post-retirement health care obligations the city has to former employees (we are the only city that has not reported those obligations, as required by law). Homeowners sitting around the kitchen table couldn’t decide whether to make their mortgage payment or pay their taxes, but the Acting Mayor apparently has no problem sitting in City Hall and simply deciding not to pay the City’s bills to the county and school district.
The Acting Mayor, among the various hats he wears, also is the chief investigator for the county (where last year he was the ninth highest paid public employee in the county and made more in overtime than the average family in Schenectady earns each year). Perhaps he should use his investigative skills to uncover the documentation for the supposed loan repayment of $2.688 million from the water fund to the general fund. It is surprising that members of the council from 2004 cannot recall that loan, and it is surprising that the City, supposedly in bad financial condition at the time, had the ability to make the loan.
Next year, taxes in the City—already the highest taxed city in the Capital District--will go up 4.6% for a family living in a $100,000 house. Mr. McCarthy claims his budget will go up 1.89%. However, fees will go up by another 2.7%. A fee by any other name is a tax, Mr. McCarthy.
And why have those taxes and fees gone up? In part because of poor decision-making, such as constructing a grand and more luxurious Department of Public Works building than we needed or could afford. Assuming the cost of the building is “only” $20 million (some newspaper accounts report $27 million and others state a much higher number), the interest annually would be more than $600 thousand and cost taxpayers more than $12 million over the life of the bond issue.
It is time, it is long past time, to recognize that the mismanagement of the City’s finances by Mr. McCarthy and his council colleagues has brought this great city to its financial knees. Reserves have been depleted; opportunities have been squandered. And in their place, we have a series of gimmicks --$830 thousand in projected revenues based on wishful thinking that represent 1% of the City’s budget and another $300 thousand in a projected increase in aid from our cash-strapped state—that do not address the key point that the City, which Mr. McCarthy claims to have overseen for 16 years, is out of both ideas and money.
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
You know, I saw something today that said that Hull was a co-founder of Metroplex. Seems to me there's only one good thing about this election... the fact that I don't have to vote in it, since I don't live in the city. Do you want the corruption that is currently there, or one of those that added so much to the ever shrinking tax base in the city / county?
Although I was never in favor of the creation of the metroplex, I was open minded enough to do some research and thought that it just may be ok. From what I remember...and that was over 10 years ago....it was understood that businesses could get 'help' from the plex in the form of monetary and business expertise from seasoned business folks. They would loan money, with no tax breaks and and oversee the investment with frequent visits to these businesses to see how they were doing and offering advise in areas that perhaps they were weak in. A support system so to say. And let's remember that this was also suppose to help 'lower' the property tax base for the residents. That has clearly failed!!
I figured, what the hell....sounds good and schenectady needs 'something'!! It has since turned into a beast!!! The plex has 'selected' the winners and losers. Although the plex has also had their share of losers!! The plex has moved, relocated, built, supplied and pretty much gave the farm away to the select few, while the taxpayer's taxes have gone up yearly at an alarming rate.
Today I don't look at the plex as a benefit but rather a hinderance. It has obviously veered off it's grass roots ideology in too many ways to begin to mention. If the metroplex must stay in existence, it needs to do so with new names and faces and MUST return to it's original mission. imho
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
Although I was never in favor of the creation of the metroplex, I was open minded enough to do some research and thought that it just may be ok. From what I remember...and that was over 10 years ago....it was understood that businesses could get 'help' from the plex in the form of monetary and business expertise from seasoned business folks. They would loan money, with no tax breaks and and oversee the investment with frequent visits to these businesses to see how they were doing and offering advise in areas that perhaps they were weak in. A support system so to say. And let's remember that this was also suppose to help 'lower' the property tax base for the residents. That has clearly failed!!
I figured, what the hell....sounds good and schenectady needs 'something'!! It has since turned into a beast!!! The plex has 'selected' the winners and losers. Although the plex has also had their share of losers!! The plex has moved, relocated, built, supplied and pretty much gave the farm away to the select few, while the taxpayer's taxes have gone up yearly at an alarming rate.
Today I don't look at the plex as a benefit but rather a hinderance. It has obviously veered off it's grass roots ideology in too many ways to begin to mention. If the metroplex must stay in existence, it needs to do so with new names and faces and MUST return to it's original mission. imho
Better yet, let's abolish the Plex, and return the Plex monies back to the Towns from whence it came. This would close budget gaps, unfunded mandates, and add stability to municipal tax rates. All would benefit rather than the hand chosen few!
Better yet, let's abolish the Plex, and return the Plex monies back to the Towns from whence it came. This would close budget gaps, unfunded mandates, and add stability to municipal tax rates. All would benefit rather than the hand chosen few!
I agree 100%......but that would only happen in a perfect world! Remember that there are many folks in the city who are on a government program and pay no taxes. They just know that GOV ALMIGHTY is sending them a check and reinventing downtown. Ax 'em where GOV ALMIGHTY is getting the money and they don't have a clue! They also have not one clue about property or school taxes and the burden it is on the home owner.....nor do they care!
Most pay little if no money for housing. Get food stamps. Free health care. Pay little or nothing for child care. Pay no taxes but YET receive a tax return. And if that's not enough....they will take on a very lucrative job like selling drugs! They don't understand nor do they care or even know what the metroplex does or gives away at the taxpayer's expense.
It will be interesting to see what Hull does with the metroplex when elected.
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
Roger Hull co-founded Schenectady 2000 NOT Metroplex. Schenectady 2000 was an all volunteer group. Gary McCarthy sat on Metroplex board for years. He created 4 jobs for himself.
Roger Hull co-founded Schenectady 2000 NOT Metroplex. Schenectady 2000 was an all volunteer group. Gary McCarthy sat on Metroplex board for years. He created 4 jobs for himself.
The Schenectady 2000 must be the one I'm remembering. Cause a friend of our started a small business and went through them and I remember them telling us that they were volunteers. They would visit them monthly to give advise if and where needed. thanks!
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
Went to debate tonight. It was a TKO victory for Hull.
"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."
Our biggest fear is that the plex has become a money pit of sorts. By this we feel that for the $$$$ thats been allocated/invested, it has not returned a substancial/effective return on said investment. With the increase of taxes to home owners who are carrying the load now, and when the bills come due at the day of rekoning, are but 2 of these negative results. Despite the fact that the plex $$$$ is derived from a cut of the sales tax, it none the less has failed to lower the tax burden, which was one of it's stated goals. Am sure if most/all banks engaged in such a plan they would not of survived for very long. Which brings us to the main fear-a continued funneling of $$$$ to the plex based on they are in so deep now, more $$$$ are needed (approval sure to come after this election) to save/salvage the $$$$ that has come before. Of course it will be worded in such as way as to say we will be keeping the current string of" successes" going, and build on what has already come before. This reason will be the basis of their justification in the request for more funds. Until the REAL job creation takes place and REAL tax reductions take place, along with non-inflated numbers, it will be hard for the unconnected among us to have confidence and buy into this concept. Because as in any endeavor in our society, especially in business, it all begins with confidence.
Schenectady mayoral race robust, issue-filled Election between McCarthy, Hull is, in many ways, a study in political contrasts By LAUREN STANFORTH Staff writer Published 07:45 p.m., Wednesday, October 26, 2011
SCHENECTADY -- Gary McCarthy is a politician of the old school, a high school graduate who worked his way through the Democratic Party by going door-to-door and plotting strategy for two decades -- before becoming City Council president and then being tapped to succeed former Mayor Brian U. Stratton who left for a state job in April.
Roger Hull is a Yale-trained lawyer who led two colleges for 24 years before he decided he wanted to start his own independent party and run the city he calls home. Last December, he announced his candidacy.
The contest is the most robust one since Stratton narrowly defeated Republican businessman Peter Guidarelli in 2003, and the rhetoric is heating up as Democrats blast mailboxes with literature about Hull, who retired from the Union College presidency in 2005.
McCarthy, an investigator in the Schenectady County District Attorney's Office since 1981, has remained vigilant in his support of the work Stratton and other Democrats before him and has stuck to a few core messages: improving neighborhoods through increased code enforcement and partnership with banks that offer more affordable mortgages to the middle class, better prioritizing of non-emergency police calls and creating fines for nuisances, and focusing redevelopment on lower State Street and Erie Boulevard.
Hull said he decided to create a group of unaffiliated, Republican and Democratic voters, called the Alliance Party, after he waited for four hours in line to grieve his property assessment at City Hall and heard the woes of other property owners. He has assembled a slate of four City Council candidates.
Hull, who also has the Republican ballot line, has focused much of his campaign on the city's budget, accusing McCarthy of using too much reserve money and not planning for the future. Hull said he would go to zero-based budgeting, a technique that figures out what things cost now, as opposed to basing spending on last year's budget figures.
Also on Hull's platform are starting a private fund that would pay Schenectady County Community College tuition if a family buys a home in the city, freeing up 2 percent of Schenectady Metroplex Development Authority's $75 million in bonding to demolish blighted buildings and looking into selling Schenectady's water to other municipalities.
Money raised thus far by both candidates is about even, with McCarthy at $56,000, $1,000 less than Hull.
Hull has made pointed remarks about McCarthy throughout the campaign, saying he's abusing his power by serving as both City Council president and acting mayor and for denying Hull's son a commissioner of deeds document (which would have allowed him to collected signatures for the Alliance Party) because he was part of the opposing party.
Democrats have started attack ads against Hull, most recently sending out a mailer with a picture of a jukebox with fake songs like "Baby, I'm a Rich Man." Another mailer called Hull out for Union College not making a payment in lieu of taxes to the city while he was president.
Hull has countered that criticism, saying Union took over distressed properties and redeveloped Seward Place..................>>>>..................>>>>.................Read more: http://www.timesunion.com/loca.....89.php#ixzz1byQdP9cL
Colleges Embracing Towns Once Held at Arm's Length
By Online Edition - The Washington Post
SCHENECTADY, N.Y. -- General Electric has pulled the plug on the Electric City, shifting its corporate campus to the Connecticut suburbs, scattering its factories around the world. But Union College cannot just pack up and move to a better place. It's stuck in Schenectady.
So in the tradition of the old GE slogan, Union president Roger Hull is trying to bring good things to life. He co-founded Schenectady 2000, a major effort to rejuvenate the city's dismal downtown. He launched the Union-Schenectady Initiative, pouring Union money into the blighted College Park neighborhood at the western edge of his campus. And he revived town-gown relations in a city where Union was once known as "the Island," the ivory tower oasis in this urban desert. Mayor Al Jurczynski now calls the College Park project "the best thing to happen to this city in 50 years."
"Union was always like the Vatican in Rome, a city isolated within the city," said Jurczynski, who now refers to College Park as Dr. Roger's Neighborhood. "Now Roger's providing the vision for all of Schenectady. The rest of us are just scrambling to keep up."
Union's newfound commitment to its rather un-Rome-like host city reflects a national sea change in higher education, as universities from San Francisco to Milwaukee to New Haven try to help the troubled communities they once tried to keep at a distance. Some are offering incentives for faculty and staff to buy houses nearby. Others are buying more from local suppliers, training local entrepreneurs or investing in local projects. Many are pushing students to do more community service. Several, including Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., and Clark University in Worcester, Mass., are taking lead roles in major revitalization efforts.
It's a great deal for impoverished cities, which are increasingly reliant on the vast financial and intellectual resources of academia at a time when other industries are more mobile than ever. At the same time, more college presidents are beginning to realize that it's smart competition to address the world outside their gates, that students tend to prefer colleges in safe and vibrant neighborhoods. A Union survey found that 60 percent of the prospective students who turn down its admission offers do so because of Schenectady.
"Some of these schools have enormous investments in crummy communities," said Liz Hollander, director of Campus Compact, a national town-gown organization that has expanded from 240 to 620 campuses since 1990. "Look, it's scary to come to Schenectady. So there's some idealism involved here, and there's also enlightened self-interest."
The landscape has certainly changed from the "urban renewal" era of the 1960s and 1970s, when city schools such as Columbia and the University of Chicago tried to create buffers between their campuses and their neighborhoods. Now the emphasis is on development and on the duties of universities as citizens. Harvard's newest vice president, Paul Grogan, came from the Local Initiative Support Corp., a national bank for community revival projects; Yale vice president Bruce Alexander was a developer at Rouse Corp. In Connecticut alone, Yale has awarded cash grants to more than 400 faculty and staff members for buying homes in New Haven; Trinity has spearheaded a $175 million reinvestment in a decrepit section of Hartford, and the president of Connecticut College is now chairing the New London Economic Development Authority.
The Clinton administration has become involved as well, awarding more than $40 million in grants through the Department of Housing and Urban Development's five-year-old Office for University Partnerships. The money is funding projects from an Arizona State University tutoring program in a Phoenix elementary school to a DePaul University welfare-to-work program in Chicago to a Stillman College entrepreneur training center in Tuscaloosa.
"It's the opposite of the old siege mentality, when you tried to get rid of the offending neighborhoods," said National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities president David Warren, a former deputy mayor of New Haven and town-gown representative at Yale. "Now there's an effort to resuscitate neighborhoods. There's an embrace of the city."
Schenectady could use a hug. Half a century ago, it was an engine of Upstate New York, with 40,000 jobs at GE and 12,000 at American Locomotive Co. Now GE has transferred all but 4,500 employees, AmLoc is long gone and the city's population has dropped 40 percent. Today, three-fifths of Schenectady's public school students get subsidized lunches, and its once-proud downtown is a desolate mix of dollar stores, pizza joints and vacant storefronts.
Just a few blocks and a world away from downtown stands America's first planned college campus, a 200-year-old gated enclave of expansive lawns and gray-stucco neoclassical buildings. Schenectady may be suffering, but Union isn't. Since Hull took over in 1990, its endowment has tripled, to $260 million. Hull has raised $50 million to renovate nine buildings, including the historic Nott Memorial, a 16-sided, multicolored Victorian Gothic extravaganza that had deteriorated into a pigeon cemetery but is now the focal point of the campus. Its giant dome is ringed by Hebrew words that seem to sum up Hull's decade at Union: "The work is great, the day is short, the master presses the workmen."
Hull, who once sued the city over zoning, says he knows there will always be tensions between a downtrodden city with a $17,000 per capita income and an exclusive liberal arts college with a $30,000 tuition. (Some Union students refer to locals as "Doids," short for "Schenectoids.") But in his last job, as president of Beloit College in Wisconsin, Hull led a $6 million riverfront redevelopment. Even during his lawsuit against the city, he decided that once he had Union's house in order, he would try to help fix Schenectady's.
"The problem with this place was the attitude," said Hull, 56, a child of refugees from Nazi Germany who once served as counsel to former Virginia governor A. Linwood Holton Jr. (R). "Everyone was stuck in the past, all that GE nostalgia. We had to get people thinking about the future."
The first thing Hull did was send his students into the community. He reserved one day of Union's orientation for "mandatory volunteerism," cleaning parks, planting flowers, painting bridges. Now 60 percent of the students perform community service on their own time.
Then Hull and a Union trustee launched Schenectady 2000 and successfully lobbied Gov. George E. Pataki (R) to create a local authority to float bonds for downtown projects. So far, the progress has been slow--an unused hockey rink has been converted into an indoor soccer arena, an abandoned building has been reborn as an arts center and a state agency has moved into a shuttered Woolworth's--but plans are in the works for a new train station, a new state office building, loft apartments and a multiscreen theater.
Finally, there is Dr. Roger's Neighborhood, which is now dotted with red diamonds that announce A Partnership at Work. Before the Union-Schenectady Initiative began, the College Park neighborhood had shifted from middle class and stable to poor and transient, with 188 of the 258 properties owned by absentee landlords. So Hull is spending $10 million to buy and rehabilitate 40 shabby two-family homes into attractive off-campus apartments, a security office, a Montessori school and a community center. Union will also assume the down payments and closing costs for any faculty and staff members who buy homes in College Park and will subsidize their mortgages as well. And in an unusual touch, Hull is offering free tuition for the qualified children of any homeowners who stay in College Park for more than five years.
This, Hull says, is real urban renewal, as opposed to the urban removal of the past. Property values are climbing. The College Park Neighborhood Association has been reborn after a long hiatus. The first 13 renovated homes will be ready for students in the fall.
"It's spectacular: Union is saving this neighborhood," said association president Judy Goberman, 57, a musician who is restoring a grand but rundown Italianate Victorian she bought for $88,000. Even Marv Cermak, a grizzled Albany Times Union reporter who has been covering Schenectady for 44 years, said he thinks the initiative is changing the city for the better.
"I've looked for the rat in this, but . . . I can't find it," Cermak said. "Is he doing it for selfish reasons? Of course. He doesn't want a ghetto on his doorstep. But what isn't done for selfish reasons? People give their girlfriends flowers for selfish reasons."
Hull has hit some disappointments on the road to a renewed Electric City. Union's $10 million investment has yet to attract much private capital to College Park. He has also fought local politicians over his plans for downtown: Schenectady 2000 has support from the Republican mayor, county Democrats and the Republican state senator, but it has battled the independent city manager, county Republicans and the Democratic state assemblyman.
But the keys to Hull's plans for Schenectady may lie with his constituents at Union. Two years ago, Hull wanted to relocate the school's hockey rink in College Park; students protested because of safety. Now he is floating the idea again, and students seem to be warming to the idea. But there is widespread impatience with the pace of change in Schenectady, even for a civic-minded student like Ed Lallier, a junior who lives in a community service house and organized a lecture series on town-gown relations.
"It's good that Union's trying to help, but the kids still hate Schenectady," he said. "I mean, we don't care what downtown will look like in 2010. We want a decent restaurant now."
...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
Roger Hull co-founded Schenectady 2000 NOT Metroplex.
Then somebody better fix the fliers he's mailed out
"Approval ratings go up and down for various reasons... An example is the high post 911 support for GWB even though he could be said to be responsible for the event." --- Box A Rox '9/11 Truther'
Melania is a bimbo... she is there to look at, not to listen to. --- Box A Rox and his 'War on Women'
rampage, you, as an innocent bystander, have summed up our dilemma as voters in Schenectady. Even worse, as Bumblethru points out, there is a sizable population that cares neither about corruption nor the tax base, as they like the largesse that has been provided to them and wouldn't change a thing. Some of them are non-residents or felons and therefore cannot vote in city elections. I'm hoping the rest don't understand anything beyond "the government" subsidizes their lifestyle and therefore stay home on election day. After all, "the government" will always be there. Myself, I feel like voting for nobody for mayor, but am leaning toward Roger. Gary McCarthy has been in a position to do something about the horrible downhill slide in this city and hasn't done so. BS puts money for illegal overtime in the budget, nobody puts in for vital safety equipment for firefighters, and the council passes such a budget? I don't think Roger would've condoned a phony-baloney budget submission as a college president, and I don't think he will condone poor performance or total lack of performance by department heads and others. Gary either didn't understand or looked the other way. I'm giving Roger the benefit of the doubt, basically, it's a slim hope but we have no other hope IMO.
Logged
Roger Hull co-founded Schenectady 2000 NOT Metroplex. Schenectady 2000 was an all volunteer group. Gary McCarthy sat on Metroplex board for years. He created 4 jobs for himself. 
