Schenectady the worst county in New York to live inSeptember 19, 2015 Mathius Spooner 2 Comments
Schenectady County the worst county to live in Upstate New York
The highest rates in the state for AIDS and Chlamydia, blanket police corruption, high teen pregnancy rates and children born out of wedlock, sky high property taxes, and the lowest ranking in the state for snow removal made Schenectady the worst county in New York to live in.
In the last ten years, Schenectady had been marred with a police chief and his wife convicted of using strippers from long island to traffic cocaine, over a dozen police officers and brass arrested for crimes ranging from tipping off criminal suspects, domestic abuse, and stealing weapons and narcotics from evidence lockers, and at one point the county even had the Governor discussing the option of sending in the national guard to regain and maintain law and order.
The county snow removal policy has been considered dismal; the county ranked last in prompt snow removal during a study by the Albany Journal.
In fact, the Journal found that some streets don’t even get plowed at all and remain snowed in the whole winter.
“Its certainly a problem when your city can’t even plow the roads properly.” Said Local activist Sha Nay Nay Walker.
She continued “we need more funding from the state to fix the roads, to educate the police, to plow the streets. Its not working right now.”
The city property taxes have been steadily going up every year as well to pay for some of the rising pensions for city officials. And while some of the county’s top officials proclaim reformation, a look at some of their salaries might say otherwise.
According to a Daily Gazette investigation, the highest Paid official in the county is Commissioner of Planning Ray Gillen, who makes a whopping $170,000 a year. This is in a county where the average per capita income is only a miniscule $24,000 a year. At an income tax of 8%, this means it takes about 90 working class Schenectady residents working full time to pay for Mr. Gillen’s salary.
But that’s not all. District attorney Robert Carney makes $158,000 (83 working class residents), corrections officer James Dickinson makes $155,000 (80), and Social Services Commissioner Dennis Packard, who oversees an agency which keeps it’s most vulnerable county residents from starving to death every day, makes an incredible $133,000 a year.
On top of this, Schenectady still suffers from the Roach houses that once plagued the city in the nineties. While other cities have quelled roach infestations in inner cities, Schenectady still has a record number of houses which are so infested they would be eligible for demolition as a public safety precaution.
As for crime, while the rate of violent crimes being solved has gotten better, its still among the lowest rate of crime cases being closed in the state. And when Schenectady isn’t dealing with serial killers (Lemuel Smith), mass gun violence and eighties style gang warfare (cleaners, crips, guyanese rival feuds) and the exodus of industries like GE out of the area, it deals with violent crimes that would shock any other communities.
Three weeks ago, police entered a house and found a deteriorated man buried in debris in the basement and a decomposing woman. Aside them was 44 year old Harold Ortiz. Ortiz had just been released from prison in July after doing over 20 years for knocking a retired Brooklyn firefighter unconscious and lighting his house on fire.
Schenectady once was the home to General Electric. It was a beacon of industrial flare on the Mohawk. But because of these reasons the study found, the little county of only 155,000 is ranked the worst county in New York State.
http://prntly.com/blog/2015/09/19/schenectady-the-worst-county-in-new-york-to-live-in/ 
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