Wow, what a scam Sue Savage has foisted on the taxpayer. Apparently they had to buy the Trustco building IMMEDIATELY. But now 5 plus years later...nada. I wonder if a "preferred" developer will end up with it for a dollar?

Oh, is that the gist of it.  

Had been watching CNN, had to let the dog out and back in, flipped the channel it was 11:03.  So I guess I missed it?

WOW, what was it?  The top news story?

At least I can see it in the morning

Quoted from GrahamBonnet

Wow, what a scam Sue Savage has foisted on the taxpayer. Apparently they had to buy the Trustco building IMMEDIATELY. But now 5 plus years later...nada. I wonder if a "preferred" developer will end up with it for a dollar?

If this is the case, we are going to have to watch it with a fine tooth comb and make sure a follow up is done.

What we all need to do is flood Ch 6 with e-mails and/or calls to have them ask ALL THREE of the SOS team to tell us what Metroplex funded properties have been returned to the tax rolls, paying more taxes than before.

Another fact finder report.  Tax delinquents get rewarded with a quarter of a million dollars and then don't repay the back taxes to the taxpayers?????   City taxpayers have a birthright entitlement to an answer to that one.

MC1 it was the lead story.  I was really surprised to see it was the first story.  Now if Channel 6 can keep a time line on the status of that building it would be great.  

I think the best part of the whole story was the last statement made.  I can't recall exactly how he said it but J Shuruda says something to the fact that revealed how those in the know will buy now buy the building for a dollar. Well said JS.

I would not be surprised  if the buyers will get a tax break for 20 years on top of the $1 sale.  Heck, what good is occupying it since it isn't bringing in taxes now and when Metroplex gets into it there still won't be any taxes paid.

Throughout the clip, Sue Savage kept smiling and repeated over and over "We don't waste taxpayer money in Schenectady." I think she was smiling because she really wanted to start laughing....even she couldn't say this with a straight face!

Then she tried to explain that the County bought this building at a 'very different economic time' in Schenectady...when was that?!? When you doubled or tripled our property taxes and assessments?

Another taxpayer $2+ million dollar waste. The only way the Plex can get a business...sorry gin mill...into the City is if they give decade long tax breaks. The taxpayers just lost millions......again.....

Greg Floyd-"Why it that building sitting empty?"

     Landslide Savage-"Taxpayer dollars. We watch very carefully how we spend taxpayer dollars." WTF?

     What is she talking about? She flushed $2.5 MILLION to take a huge bank building permanently off the tax rolls {like Key Bank?} and has done NOTHING with it. When you ask her about it you get a nonsense response. Don't except any follow up-it's all there in living color. Joe Suhrada said it best. Fiscal incompetence or will be flipped to a connected developer/nonprofit for a single dollar.

They didn't get into the 1/2million dollar environmental clean up they paid for, either after they bought it. Thanks, Savage and Gardner.

Quoted Text

You Paid For It: $2.4 million Schenectady building sits empty
February 04, 2011 6:21 AM
Greg Floyd

SCHENECTADY -- Millions of taxpayer dollars spent with nothing to show for it but a whole lot of emptiness.

You ever go into a store, buy something for 20 or 30 bucks and then never use it and say to yourself, why did I buy that?

Well how about buying something for $2.4 million and then never using it?

On Erie Boulevard it sits -- the former corporate headquarters for Trustco Bank.

It was purchased by Schenectady County in 2005 and five years later -- the building just sits there -- a six-story monument to government waste.

http://www.cbs6albany.com/news/schenectady-1282555-sits-never.html

Like the last Metroplex story on WRGB, this is the last you'll hear of this story on their channel.

Quoted from 147

Like the last Metroplex story on WRGB, this is the last you'll hear of this story on their channel.

True but what a devastating expose! It looks like Floyd caught Landslide Savage totally unprepared at the Key Bank/Catering Hall. She looked like a deer in the headlights and her answers were total gibberish. She should have yelled "Working together works" and exited stage left.

My understanding is that the big hold up with moving county offices over to the old TrustCo building is the availability  (or lack thereof) of state grants that were -originally - promised to cover the cost of moving the Clerk's Offices and the rehab of the old county office building into additional space for the county and state supreme courts.

A five year hold up through 3 different administrations? Give us a break. Landslide Savage was revealed for all to see. And it wasn't pretty. She looked nuts and sounded delusional. The County Building is falling apart so they had to "preserve" the Trustco HQ? Huh?

     On top of the wasted $2,5 MILLION is the five years when no taxes were paid. Trustco management must be laughing all the way to the bank at the DEM morons that overpaid for their building worth one dollar. Key Bank was given away last year for $150,000. This shows how Death Ray has improved property values in the City-NOT!

OMG This has got to take the prize for the most absurd comment in the county's history.

"Why is the building sitting their unused?"

And the queen of socialism, the savage lady responds "taxpayer dollars.  We watch very carefully how we spend taxpayer dollars."


ROFLMAO.

Yeah, spending taxpayers dollars  to remove a taxpaying building off the tax rolls is watching carefully how they spend taxpayer dollars, huh?

Yeah, spending taxpayer dollars to give politically connected millionaires brand new properties AND THEN spending taxpayer dollars giving the millionaires 100% tax exemptions, that's that's what this queen of socialism calls "watching very carefully how we spend taxpayer dollars."

Oh, we ALL have to contact Ch 6, and all the other channels, and DEMAND they look into the theft from the taxpayers.  This is totally outrageous.  

Next you'll hear that they sold the building to a politically connected developer for $1 and the deal includes paying no taxes for 20 years.

Quoted from benny salami

A five year hold up through 3 different administrations? Give us a break. Landslide Savage was revealed for all to see. And it wasn't pretty. She looked nuts and sounded delusional. The County Building is falling apart so they had to "preserve" the Trustco HQ? Huh?

     On top of the wasted $2,5 MILLION is the five years when no taxes were paid. Trustco management must be laughing all the way to the bank at the DEM morons that overpaid for their building worth one dollar. Key Bank was given away last year for $150,000. This shows how Death Ray has improved property values in the City-NOT!

The fact is that moving the county offices to the Trustco building was originally conceived because the State had said that the County Court House building  (about 105 years old) is too small and needed to be expanded.
Grant money for that expansion was originally promised by the State through the Office of Court Administration -- and this planning actually started well over a decade ago -- the first plan was to buy all the building west of the court house to and including Saint Joseph's church .. and to expand the court building that way.  When the diocese said it was not interested in selling the church.   The county went to "plan b"  -- find a place to move the county offices to  and use the state grant to rehabilitate the old county office building and the court house building into a more modern and efficient judicial center.    
The TrustCo building was boughten --- then there was need for additional grant funds to pay to move the County Clerk's office and all of the county records.    
It is not as simple as "let's throw everything onto a moving truck and move down to Erie Blvd" --- it is a lot more complicated than that.

Of course, the Nattering Nayboob Twits don't know what they are talking about -- they just like to hear thems talk when they complain and demonize others.    Do us a favor - take a walk on the Western Gateway Bridge and jump in the river.   It would go a long way to improving the county and the country.