Dem power brokers shouldn't be dealing away taxpayer money

"Working together works" is the rallying cry of the local Democratic machine. For those in the power structure, it does; for others, it clearly does not.

A case in point: The recent Schenectady City Council decision, orchestrated by Mayor Gary McCarthy, to give the Galesi Corp. $500,000 of taxpayer money to tear down the former Social Services building on Nott Street, fails the smell test [July 16 Gazette].

Galesi, which has done excellent work that has clearly improved the city, should never have been awarded the funds. With more competition, a grant would never have been proposed.

Besides, as only a few people in Schenectady know, Omni Development first came up with the idea of approaching the governor to help the city in the late 1990s, an idea that resulted in the creation of Metroplex and the revival of downtown. Why not include Omni and others in a bidding process to reduce costs? (By way of full disclosure, I received contributions from the heads of both corporations during my 2011 mayoral campaign.)

If things had progressed as planned in the mid-1990s, we would never have been burdened by this decision. At the time, the county had committed to sell the building to Union College for a dollar. The college, in turn, agreed to renovate the building at its expense, including its remediation (the building contained asbestos), and it suggested locating the then-proposed Schenectady High School International Baccalaureate program in the building and giving those students access to Union's facilities. The transfer never happened. Why, I do not know.

As to whether Union was ever approached before the "sale" of the facility to Galesi, I also do not know.

What I do know is there is no justification for giving a private corporation $500,000 of public money. And what I also know is that if we had a city council with more members like Vince Riggi, more individuals independent of the political machine, more individuals whose political well-being was not tied to machine politicians like the mayor and Chris Gardner (the county attorney who runs the machine), we would not be financially burdened with indefensible decisions like this one.

If ever there was a time to rise up in opposition, to "vote the bums out," this horrible, unjustifiable giveaway is it.

ROGER HULL

Schenectady

I was just wondering what happened to the plan to use that building for a baccalaureate program. It turns out nobody knows, or rather, nobody is saying. It was too good of a plan for re-use of an old building with architectural distinction, one that no one was trying to buy for a tax-paying purpose.
Roger is right, this doesn't pass the smell test, it stinks to high heaven.

If Roger really cared he would be more involved on a more consistent manner instead of popping his head above ground once every 2 months.  He has alot of good ideas and opinions but little followthrough lately.  

Waiting for one of the dems to post "nayboobs continue to whine."

You know, that cowardly cuckoo who refuses to address the ever falling tax base, ever falling home values, ever falling home sales and home sale prices, the ever increasing taxes.  

Obviously because he knows he can't find ANY evidence whatsoever to dispute what the "nayboobs" say.    

Saying "no" to corruption is a good thing, in my opinion. I will continue to be negative about such things. Roger might have been taking a breather, but then this was so outrageous, he had to spell it out for those a little slow on the uptake. This DSS debacle cannot be defended.

Hasn't everybody realized that all these bureaucrats and millionaire business owners are just sucking every last penny out of the residents until we are officially Detroit?  They are well aware of the cities fiscal situation, they know the inevitability of how it ends.  They will line their pockets, pad their pensions until bankruptcy.  Then they will leave the residents with a shell of a city and they will leave with their millions.  

like the locust

No, Cic, they see the shiny new buildings and they are impressed.

the truth is....hull will ONLY gain more support and $$$$ if he plays ball with those powerhouses that the dems are in bed with now. but make no mistake......hull will have his own powerhouses lined up.

Metroplex is the 'golden ring' that they ALL want to control!!! if hull got elected, i would predict that gillen would get the boot and golub would be the replacement. Galesi would get the boot and would be replaced with another powerhouse developer. imho