Quoted Text

Leaders see Schenectady as a city on the rise again
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
By Michael Lamendola (Contact)
Gazette Reporter

SCHENECTADY — The history of Schenectady includes both eras of prosperity and adversity. What lies ahead?
Local seers peering into their crystal balls see a bright future, sparked by General Electric’s move into the renewable energy market and a revitalization of the city’s downtown.
Gary McCarthy, the city’s current mayor, said the next 50 years will be a positive chapter for the city. That’s in part due to GE’s decision to locate its Wind Energy and Renewable Energy Headquarters at the Schenectady-Rotterdam campus, a decision that has already paid dividends, both to shareholders and to the community, he said.
The headquarters is coordinating efforts to capture a piece of the multi-billion-dollar renewable energy market, which consists of wind, solar, battery and geothermal components. It is home to an operations center that monitors 13,500 GE wind turbines scattered across the world, with the capacity to monitor thousands more. It employs 650 people — engineers, technicians and support personnel.
A 350th celebration
To read all the stories on the city's 350th anniversary, click here.
Also at the main plant in Schenectady, GE is building a $100 million factory to produce sodium metal halide batteries. The battery plant will open in 2012 and is projected to produce approximately 10 million cells annually when at full capacity. The power cells will have the capability of generating 900 megawatt hours of energy per year — the equivalent of the battery power required for 45,000 plug-in hybrid electric vehicles with an 80-mile range, or enough energy to support 1,000 GE hybrid locomotives, the company states.
About 4,000 people work on the main GE campus now, about one-tenth the number that worked there in the plant’s heyday during World War II. But today’s number is a resurgence nonetheless, McCarthy said. “Schenectady has had a long, proud history, which has gone through different cycles. From the early 1970s, we saw a decline in manufacturing tied to a shift in GE, but now we are seeing a reverse trend, and GE is bringing manufacturing back and is positioning the community for future growth,” he said.
Ray Gillen, commissioner of economic development and planning for Schenectady County, said GE will continue to play a pivotal role in providing green energy solutions around the planet, out of their renewable energy headquarters located here.
Gillen said as green energy becomes more prominent and plays a greater role in meeting energy needs, the next big natural issue will be water. “It is a crisis today in some parts of the country, and we are sitting on a bountiful supply in Schenectady,” he said, referring to the Great Flats Aquifer. “This positions us extremely well in the future in attracting industry and jobs. We already are being looked at for projects related to water supply,” he said.
Rocco A. Ferraro, executive director of the Capital District Regional Planning Commission, said “demographics are favorable for continued growth in our urban areas.”
The 2010 Census showed that all eight cities in the Capital Region — led by Schenectady — increased in population for the first time since 1950. “The question is will that trend continue?” he asked.
A better life

Ferraro said cities like Schenectady continue to face real and perceived problems dealing with crime and education, which he calls quality of life issues. While young people are attracted to cities because of their amenities — easy access to mass transit, cultural activities and night life, families looking for an environment to raise a child and empty nesters concerned about crime are continuing to look elsewhere, he said.
“These structural issues at work represent challenges. Is the quality of life in the city going to make me stay in the city or attract me to living in the city?” he asked.
McCarthy recognizes the issue. “You have to get people to want to live in neighborhoods, and you have to create value. You do this by improving the school district, cracking down on code violations,” he said..............................>>>>.......................>>>>.......................http://www.dailygazette.com/news/2011/jul/27/0727_schdy1/

Pass the koolaide and the pom poms so I can see the great revival.

NOT ONCE.........NOT ONCE was there a mention of lowering property taxes.........NOT ONCE!!!!!! They NEVER even entertainedthe tax issue that is directing the city into decline. They FAILED to mention 'the other side of the story'!!!

Quoted from bumblethru

NOT ONCE.........NOT ONCE was there a mention of lowering property taxes.........NOT ONCE!!!!!! They NEVER even entertained the tax issue that is directing the city into decline. They FAILED to mention 'the other side of the story'!!!

GE just announced its moving it's X-ray tech to China-destroying thousands of American jobs. Too bad they didn't talk to the workers at the main plant-new hires have taken a $10 an hour pay cut.

      Unless and until totally new City leadership emerges that slashes handouts to nonprofit and lowers taxes this is all circling around the drain. Every neighborhood is in free fall, vacancy rate over 11% for residential, no resale market, schools the worst with Albany, FBI repeatedly warns about explosion of crime. Schenectady has a great history and many great people but the City is dangerous, poorly governed and a poster boy for featherbedding and political corruption. This "story" is a response to the outcry from Hamilton Hill on the report that muggings went up 40% in one year. The truth is out despite those in denial, those overdosing on kool-aid and those still looking the other way.

Watch the lone cheerleader for high taxes use both his names, post here that this is the great renaissance.

This story is again a desparate attempt to put on a show for the voters.   I mean look at it.  Touting "all those jobs" at GE.  Sure, the young people---who do NOT own houses and thus do NOT pay taxes, yeah, they MAY fall for it.   4,000 existing jobs at GE and then it added, what, 650 the story said.  Do the young non-taxpayers, even the younger homeowners have a clue that GE had 40,000 jobs AND they were jobs with good pay and people could afford a house and the taxes were low

But let's look at this clip:

While young people are attracted to cities because of their amenities — easy access to mass transit, cultural activities and night life, families looking for an environment to raise a child and empty nesters concerned about crime are continuing to look elsewhere, he said.

" easy access to mass transit...."     Uh, what young person does NOT have a car today?   Hey, I've taken the bus a few times, both that old route 5 bus and each of the new ones  (depends on what activities are on tap for the day for the kids after school), so I've been the one to volunteer to take ths bus -- it's always the rush hour buses when people go to work.  If those buses hold 50 people, then I would half are welfare people going to visit friends and all but one or two are low income people going to their fast food jobs and maid jobs, they are not taxpayers.    The young people who are college grads stay as far away from "mass transit" as you can get.

"...cultural activities..."   How many young college grads visit the museum here?  How many young college grads with no children visit the museum in Albany?   How many young college grads without children visit the Schdy Historical building, or the Mabee Farm?   Cultural activities can also be the ethnic festivals, how many young college grads attend let's say an African day in Central Park?   Unless they are black, they probably don't, not because of any racism, but because they have other and/or better things to do.   Good example on the cultural/ethnic activities.  I highly doubt that a large population of non-Polish, non slavic background 20 somethings go to the Polish center for it's festival.  The only ethnic festival I think that draws lots of people of all ages is the festa at St. Anthony's, it's a staple in the city.  St John the Evangelist used to have one too, one that was substantially larger than St, John's, substantially more parking an very easy walking access from bus lines and all the lowest income neighborhoods, but, attendance for that fell off and they ended that festival.  THe Festival of Nations is long ended.

Then the last item, bolded above, the older people and the people with families are indeed fleeing the city, and fleeing the city in droves.  The numbers of vacant houses is ONLY going to inccrease.   THe young people referenced as being attracted to the city.   THese leaders have this wild imagination that young people will flock to the city.  Think, there are the existing kids living in dorms and the college party areas around Union.  Then they geoing to steal from the taxpayaers and build this dorm for community college kids.  Kids will be protected inside their dorms and these leaders think that when they graduate they are going to move into the city?   ROFLMAO.   After a sheltered life in taxpayer subsidized housing (remember, even the dorm costs at Union ARE taxpayer subsidized----first because students get government tuition assistance which includes dorm costs and secondly because so much of the taxpaying properties have been been bought by the college and the taxes are now paid by the homeonwers in the city.  While sheltered from the realities of the city, these kids have been living it up downtown, eating out and getting drunk.  Once they have that diploma and go out into the working world, just wait when they have to pay rent at $800 a month so they can listen to gunfire all night.   Wait til they try to get further away from downtown to rent something nicer and then not have the money to go downtown getting drunk all the time and no oney to be eating downtown.   Wait til they consider buying a house only to find that the tax portion of the mortgage will exceed the principal and interest.  

The headline alone looks to the product of a massive, massive drug overdose and judging by the grandiosity of it, the headline write at Izvestia ( I mean the Gazette) did not survive more than a few moments past typing it. Either that, or Josef Goebbels stood behind them with a gun pointed at their head forcing them to write such bullsh!t. No sober, sane or un-threatened person could possible write that.

The politicians continue to blame the school district for problems they created. Is there a school district in the country that could cope successfully with a massive influx of NYC's castoffs? Charter schools and private schools don't - they simply expel or refuse to accept in the first place those who are discipline problems or hard to educate. Yes, our schools have had problems at the administrative level, but that is not the reason people do not want to buy
houses here.
Crime and taxes. Both the purview of city government.
Has anyone noticed that places with high taxes AND well-tended neighborhoods seem to do all right? If our sky-high taxes had bought us an effective police department, clean parks, etc. we could've weathered the economic problems better, IMO.

How about incompetent, dishonest leaders with a death grip on the taxpayers and an embarrassing newspaper that prints propaganda to cover for them?Think that might deter anyone with any class from wanting to raise kids here?

The owner of the Gazette bought the failed Cornell's Restaurant.  He certainly has a personal interest in
promoting the city through the newpaper coverage, whether by accurate and honest reporting or by propoganda IMHO

On the rise-Yes in taxes/fees.