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SCHENECTADY
City tourism events, guide victims of budget concerns
BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter

    The city’s inventive tourism guide — who ran ghost tours at Halloween and worked on festivals all year — has been laid off.
    Maureen Gebert, who had worked for the city for more than a decade, is so dedicated that she asked permission to finish one last job after she was sent home.
    This year’s Ghost Tours are in full swing, and she didn’t want to disappoint the people who had signed up for it.
“I asked them if I could do it. I couldn’t do it on my own because I don’t have [liability] insurance,” she said.
So the city agreed to hire her part-time for the tours. She had developed a tour of the city’s historic
Stockade, along with gruesome tales of murder and mayhem from the city’s history.
    Her program will be the last tourism event that the city is involved with for a long time.
    Director of Development Richard Purga said he’s taken over Gebert’s most important duties. Everything else will be set aside.
    “I will not be picking up any of the tours and festivals,” he said.
    That means the city won’t be involved in those, unless someone volunteers to organize city efforts. Gebert planned programs to go along with the topics at the various festivals and tours in the city.
    Purga said Gebert’s layoff was quite a loss. He’s not sure how he’ll get along without her.
    “I don’t know, to tell the truth,” he said. “Of course it’s a loss. But budgetary concerns come into play.”
    Gebert said she was shocked by the layoff, but decided to retire since she is eligible to do so. She’s not at full retirement age — age 66 — and she doesn’t quite have 20 years on the job, so her state pension will be reduced.
    “I actually planned to work beyond age 66. It just caught me unawares,” she said.
    But she said she’ll be fi ne. Her husband works as an attorney in the public defenders’ office and she will also collect Social Security and a small pension.
    “I know a lot of people who are devastated,” she said of layoffs. “I’m disappointed but not devastated.”
    In fact, as she got used to the idea, she said she’s actually not upset at all.
    “I feel like I’ve been given a gift of a few extra years of retirement. I’m healthy. I can do whatever I want,” she said. “Believe me, I am so happy. But I would’ve stayed later.”
    She looked at the rain coming down in buckets on Friday and added, “At least I don’t have to go out in the rain.”
    Then she remembered the Ghost Tours. And so she started her retirement by standing in the rain.
    Her salary was $47,519. With benefits, the total cost to the city was about $71,000.

http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r01103&AppName=1

In other words, some of the excessive taxes in the city were used for that UTTER NONSENSE!!!!!!!!!

Such "tours" should NEVER have started in the first place!!   And that is regardless of what party started it or continued it

$71,000 a year, most recently, so homeowners could be taxed so high they would lose their homes!

Actually, the city doesn't need taxpayer funded tours to hear about murders in the city; it's free just by watching the nightly news!

Actually, this mayor IS still having "ghost tours."


The "ghost tours" are those taxpayer funded bus tours through the ghost town known as Schenectady, NY.


And of course, the EVIDENCE PROVES that the homebuyer tours are equally a total WASTE of taxpayers' money, because no one is buying.   September 2011 had 26 closed sales.   September 2012 has a paltry 15 sales.    While all around us sales are increasing, the city is seeing a HUGE DECREASE in home sales.

In fact, in September 2011 there were 48 new listings on the MLS.   In September 2012, there were 60 new listings.   Increasing numbers of people trying to flee the city.


YES "ghost tours"    The city IS a ghost town already.   And the EVIDENCE PROVES it!


People need to pay attention, see how the dems a robbing them blind.  Maybe after people see the truth, the will vote out these jerks, they will halt the metroplex crap and all the tax exemptions for downtown, and then maybe the city can start improving

Mikechristine1 I was going to comment but you said it all.

Obviously this was a job that SHOULDN'T HAVE EXISTED for a decade!!!!

It's a little too late mcmayor!!! Almost $700K for a position that never should have existed to begin with. Truth be known, she was ready to retire anyway and her and her hubby will still be supported by the overburdened taxpayers for the rest of their lives!!!

More evidence of the complete disregard for the City taxpayers. Someone leading tours, making $71K gets 'laid off' but retires to get her pension.

Has anyone here ever even heard of this tour or have gone on it?

The City needs to go through their workforce with a fine tooth comb because this is NUTS!!!! And this is just one of probably MANY!!