This is just part of the blog that is worth posting. Very well written and sooooooo true! Well done!
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SNUG (Guns spelled backwards) may be finished and we never even got to see it come to Schenectady. But we get to see "The Lion King" and SLOC's $2 million property. All these groups supported by the Metroplex and the county and the city and on and on ad nauseam. I am old enough to have seen 3 downtown heralded re-births, each one more expensive than the one before. And, while these 2 or 3 blocks of prime real estate are digging up the roads again, the rest of the city is sinking fast.
Van Vranken Ave, Avenue A, Avenue B, Foster Ave, Carrie St, Lower Eastern Ave and all its small side streets. Furman and all the rest of Central State, both sides of the road, McClellan, Brandywine, Elmer Ave, Bedford Rd, every last inch of Mt. Pleasant, huge swathes of Bellevue and definitely all and more of the Vale region. I grew up here and as I grew up, the city grew down. Major churches closed, the only movies in town are downtown. Even the Mohawk Mall Cinema is gone.
There once were 4 theaters downtown -- Proctors, Plaza, State and Erie. Now there's Bow Tie Cinema, mostly empty most of the time. And Proctors, the darling of the middle class set. Union College has become a gated community, youth walking through the campus can and often do get arrested for trespassing. When I was a teen, bunches of us girls walked through and flirted with all the guys whose heads stuck out the dorm windows to comment on the parade of pulchritude.
Let us not fool ourselves, things are different, different but not necessarily better. We sweep the poor and befuddled off our downtown streets so we won't have to look at them and we go to church on Sunday or Saturday or whenever and tell ourselves how noble we are. Some $120 for a ticket to a show but no time or money to take a kid fishing or roller skating. "The Lion King" is sold out for one month; all that money but no summer jobs for youth.
A glorious rose garden in Central Park but no swimming in the summer. We don't even plow the lake for the sake of ice skating! Ask yourself, "What do I do for the community? Every time I get my nails done, or go out for a cocktail, do I make proper compensation for others in the larger world?"
The way this city is crumbling around our ears, pretty soon all we will have will be downtown and ghetto. And, oh yes, Union College, which brings prospective students in through Nisky and Union Street so they can avoid seeing the slums. But even Union Street is crumbling and the small side streets are falling into disrepair.
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
"..pretty soon all we will have will be downtown and ghetto.."
We're already there.
Yes we are already there. And downtown isn't even that great. There are still pan handlers and drug dealer and pi$$ing on the sidewalks of downtown. The street is now too narrow. It is a drivers nightmare especially when it snows. And yes, Proctors is the hub, cause without it, the gin mills and eateries would close. These business owners have stated that as a fact.
Attention must go beyond the two blocks of downtown. But before that can happen, spending must be cut and taxes need to be lowered. Cause no matter what is done to make 'beyond' those two blocks look good, taxes are so high that people are just walking away from their homes.
And the many many slum lords need to be held accountable for their negligence. The need for cops goes beyond the hill now. They are needed downtown, mt. pleasant, eastern ave area and the old st. clares area. And they need to be 'on foot'.
The entire city of schenectady is a financial and quality of life mess and will take decades to resolve.
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
The street is now too narrow. It is a drivers nightmare especially when it snows. And yes, Proctors is the hub, cause without it, the gin mills and eateries would close. The entire city of Schenectady is a financial and quality of life mess and will take decades to resolve.
State St is down to 2 lanes! Some hub. A money losing nonprofit, still reliant on taxpayers who expanded into the old Carl Company and Key Bank but still militantly refuses to repay anything. When you think of the sales tax and property taxes Carl Company and Key Bank used to generate. The core is rotten. The surrounding neighborhoods are falling like dominoes.
The City is a fiscal wreck. There will be more idiotic plans to consolidate i.e. {pass the costs to the towns}. Is it resolvable? Unless the City peeps for once elect all new leadership that slashes spending, record taxes and nonprofit handouts nothing can improve. 35 years of the DEM City "leadership" have left nothing to build upon.
No response from DV aka SB. Rather speechless because more facts are coming out. Oh wait, DV was posting at 3 in the morning. It's 11 a.m. now, he's getting his beauty sleep, but he can sleep for a week and it won't help.
But back to the subject. I wonder when the dems are going to come out and state what there accomplishments are in the neighborhoods. I'd love to hear them say that "because of downtown, the neighborhoods in the city and the people that live in them_______________________________" Let them fill in the blank
Optimists close their eyes and pretend problems are non existent. Better to have open eyes, see the truths, acknowledge the negatives, and speak up for the people rather than the politicos and their rich cronies.
35 years of the DEM City "leadership" have left nothing to build upon.
That is a $100 million dollar statement and sadly, very true. The money is gone, there is no tax money coming in from Downtown for decades and the State is slashing funding as well.
The old leadership is out of ideas - well, fiscally responsible ideas at least. A new Mayor and Council need to look how much is being wasted (free cell phones, free vehicles, OT is the millions, NEVER laying off ANY City workers, the hundreds of non-profits). Hopefully the winds of change can get the stink out of the City.
What's ironic about this whole discussion is that Judy's hardly a REP. She's worked for years with Hamilton Hill youth. Even she realizes what a total failure Metrograft has been. A huge income transfer from suburban shoppers to connected developers and businesses.
No new jobs, no property value improvement, no nothing. Death Ray is a magician. He took $100 million and made it disappear. The fossil DEM leadership never had any ideas. That's why they came up with the working together rhetoric. We're not doing anything but look over there at Metrograft. Shinny happy facades! Everything was off the taxpayers back. It's not enough for there to be a Mayor Hull-we need 4 new business people on City Council. The winds of change better be a tornado.
Judy hit it on the mark. Her honesty is refreshing even though the substance of what she wrote is such a tragedy.
Our city is in worse condition then most other city's of it's size in the North East. Poor leadership, too many backroom deals.
If you wonder why the council members don't say anything publicly, they have been intimidated to NOT rock the boat in public.
Erickson and Blanchard seem to be the only ones that will question things at a committees meeting on a regular basis.
Most of the time Erickson is shot down big time for his questions or offering of ideas but he carries lots of knowledge and experience on how to deal with bullies. Let's hope the machine doesn't wear him down.
Judy hit in on the mark. Her honesty is refreshing even though the substance of what she wrote is such a tragedy.
Our city is in worse condition then most other city's of it's size in the North East. Poor leadership, too many backroom deals.
If you wonder why the council members don't say anything publicly, they have been intimidated to NOT rock the boat in public.
Erickson and Blanchard seem to be the only ones that will question things at a committees meeting on a regular basis. There are some peeps every once in a while from the others but not as many times as there should be.
Most of the time Erickson is shot down for his questions or offering of ideas big time but he carries lots of knowledge and experience on how to deal with bullies. Let's hope the machine doesn't wear him down.
Logged
Why don't they print that in Sunday's Gazetto?-lol. 
