The Erie Blvd project is key to the revitalization of the City-County of Schenectady. I look forward to the announcement of many great and wonderful new projects -- all as a result of this wise investment in rebuilding one of the City-County's most important traffic corridors.
Again, DV, you haven't responded. This is posted a second time. Why are you soo much of a chicken to respond and explain what has improved?????
Wait, we thought the State St project was the key to the revitallization of the City-County of Schenectady.
What have those projects done?
You STILL have not answered the question---how have the projects increased the TAXABLE tax base in the city?
Why do you not answer that question?
You STILL have no answered the question - what have the projects done to the tax BILLS of the HOMEOWNERS in the city?
Why do you not answer that question?
You STILL have not answered the question --- what have the State St projects done to the residential property values in the city?
Why do you not answer that question?
You refuse to answer when you cannot produce the EVIDENCE that makes the city more desirable to buy a home and live in
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.
It smells like renaissance! Or is it teen spirit? Watch out for chuckholes on every other City street but empty Erie Boulevard will now be narrowed and have a multi-modal bike trail. BFD! Where's the high dreck corridor? No wonder the City is bankrupt. Get volunteers like Hamburger to fill in the potholes.
SCHENECTADY Loan shows tough state of city finances BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter
The city has so little cash fl ow that it must take out a bridge loan to finance the Erie Boulevard streetscape project. The city is responsible for just 5 percent of the $10 million construction bill, but it must make its fi rst payments to the construction crew while awaiting reimbursement from the federal government. The reimbursement will come within six months, Finance Commissioner Ismat Alam told the City Council Monday. But that’s not soon enough, she said as she asked for a last-minute loan that provided a glimpse of the city’s precarious fi nancial situation. The city no longer has enough money in its savings accounts to float construction costs for even a few months. So just before the City Council voted on a long-planned capital projects loan, Alam asked the council to borrow an extra $5.7 million. “It’s just a bridge loan to cashflow this project,” she said. She urged the council to add the amount to a $7 million loan it had agreed to borrow for capital projects. Those projects could be paid off over the course of 15 years, and council members said they fear the bridge loan will also be paid off slowly. They pressed her for written confi rmation that she would pay off the $5.7 million part of the loan as soon as she received reimbursement later this year. She hedged on that at fi rst, saying she is legally allowed to wait. That would allow the city to immediately solve its cash fl ow problem by saving the money sent by the federal government. But in the long run, it would force the city to pay that money back with interest as it paid off the loan. Councilman Carl Erikson insisted that she pay it back immediately instead. He noted that the legislation describing the loan did not say it would be paid off quickly. “What we’re actually agreeing to is something different from what our intentions are,” he said. Mayor Gary McCarthy promised it would get paid back, saying, “As soon as we get the money from the federal government, we are going to repay this bond.” Alam then promised to pay it back in “six or seven months.” If she doesn’t, the council will find out in a year, when the loan is converted from a bond-anticipation note into a long-term bond. The council must vote on those conversions. Most of the council was reassured by that. But Erikson asked for more time to discuss the wording of that payback with the city’s bonding attorney, who was not present. Alam insisted there was no time for that. If the council borrowed the capital expenses and the bridge loan together, it would save $15,000. Erikson reluctantly agreed to vote for it, solely because it would save money. Others said they voted yes because they did not want to jeopardize the start of the Erie Boulevard work. But it left council members shaken. Councilman Vince Riggi, the only member to vote against the borrowing, said he would no longer vote for last-minute fi nance proposals. “It’s a lot of money to spend and we don’t have any money,” he said. “It comes at us at the 11th hour all the time and I’m tired of that, and I’m not going to put up with it anymore.” ........................>>>>....................>>>>........................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r01101&AppName=1
Another loan? WTF! Thank God for Vince Riggi the only one that voted NO to this total waste of taxpayer funds. Where's the $250,000 the Mayor said they will save a quarter from socializing the pollution plant? ROTFLMAO! Keep the DEM implosion going! The highest taxes and the lowest reserves.
Another loan? WTF! Thank God for Vince Riggi the only one that voted NO to this total waste of taxpayer funds. Where's the $250,000 the Mayor said they will save a quarter from socializing the pollution plant? ROTFLMAO! Keep the DEM implosion going! The highest taxes and the lowest reserves.
It's money the City does not have. The City couldn't even pay the $2 million owed to the school district, there is $3 million McCarthy promised to the Munic Golf Course and now a project for a street which has an empty Grossmans, an empty Gallo Florist, empty Kem, empty Trustco (offices owned by the County Leg), empty Olender...etc...to spend $19 million on a street which doesn't even have $19 million worth of business.....that's just plain stupid!!!
Vince Riggi isn't playing politics, he's looking out for the welfare of every single taxpayer and homeowner of our City. We can't keep funding what we can't afford. It's just that simple.
In all fairness, I'm happy to see the florist building reopening as a laundromat and ... something else. Signs were going up Tuesday. Looks a little better in that empty spot now.
This money would be better spent on an area with viability.
Nott (with schools, a hospital, homes)...$19 million to improve property values and access to education and medical services....THAT'S MONEY WELL SPENT!!!!
$19 million to give GE employees a better ride to work. That's beyond corruption.
The whole City looks like a war zone. Hamilton Hill exploding into Vale and up Eastern Avenue. Mt Pleasant is gone. Dozens of empty buildings on lower State and Erie. Empty Trustco HQ {purchased by the DEM morons for top dollar for a County Building they can't afford}, Olender's empty with no buyer, empty lot where Robinson"s stood for decades, State Theater rotting on the other corner, empty car wash, Pentagon vacant and never re-opening.
How is this a gateway? For Proctor's exit on Broadway and Union parents have been advised to exit on Rt 7 and avoid the City as much as possible. It's an outrage and the State Attorney General should investigate this. Erie does not need narrowing and GE does not support this DEM nonsense. No wonder the City is total broke and can't even get bonding anymore.
And the city has known about this project for the last 6-8(?) years and did not budget for it? For a project they were so desperate to do and was so vital to the Rebirth? Well at least the traverlers THROUGH Sch'dy to their homes in the suburbs will have a nice roadway to traverse, devoid of the potholes and rough roads that frequent other areas of the city. It seems unfair to home owners/residents who live here that so much time/effort/care goes to this one artery that benefits flow through traffic OUT of the city, when so much more needs to be done on neighborhood streets benefitting those very residents whom live IN the City.
MILLIONS of dollars on a road that ran thousands of cars on it when GE was the only game in town!! Hundreds of GE employees walked Erie to get to State on their lunch hour with NO pedestrian accidents!!!
MILLIONS of dollars this over taxed, war zone, crime ridden city doesn't have!!!
Please...will someone...anyone....lure in more welfare recipients!!!
Isn't there SOMEONE....ANYONE....left in the city with a 1/2 a brain???? OMG!!
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
just wait until we get nickeled and dimed to death by the rating agencies via the cashless system speeding down the rails at lightening speed....this conversation will be a moot point.....
I wonder how we rate?
...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
The Erie Blvd project is key to the revitalization of the City-County of Schenectady. I look forward to the announcement of many great and wonderful new projects -- all as a result of this wise investment in rebuilding one of the City-County's most important traffic corridors.
Again, DV, you haven't responded. This is posted a second time. Why are you soo much of a chicken to respond and explain what has improved?????
Wait, we thought the State St project was the key to the revitallization of the City-County of Schenectady.
What have those projects done?
You STILL have not answered the question---how have the projects increased the TAXABLE tax base in the city?
Why do you not answer that question?
You STILL have no answered the question - what have the projects done to the tax BILLS of the HOMEOWNERS in the city?
Why do you not answer that question?
You STILL have not answered the question --- what have the State St projects done to the residential property values in the city?
Why do you not answer that question?
You refuse to answer when you cannot produce the EVIDENCE that makes the city more desirable to buy a home and live in
So now, posting this AGAIN.
Still waiting for responses to the questions above. For someone who proclaims this mad spending of all the taxpayers money is improving the city, he sure isn't providing a shred of evidence that supports that claim..
Wonder why these questions are not answered. Wonder why no evidence is provided.
.
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.
Logged
It smells like renaissance! Or is it teen spirit? Watch out for chuckholes on every other City street but empty Erie Boulevard will now be narrowed and have a multi-modal bike trail. BFD! Where's the high dreck corridor? No wonder the City is bankrupt. Get volunteers like Hamburger to fill in the potholes. 
Another loan? WTF! Thank God for Vince Riggi the only one that voted NO to this total waste of taxpayer funds. Where's the $250,000 the Mayor said they will save a quarter from socializing the pollution plant? ROTFLMAO! Keep the DEM implosion going! The highest taxes and the lowest reserves. 
