It was another marathon City Council meeting, opening with a public comment period on Public Safety Commissioner “toothy” Christian Mathiesen proposal to close the cities bars at 3am. The comments ran about 3 to 1 against, but “toothy’ was undeterred as I will write about later.
Next Charter Change public hearing as the screaming minions of Pat Kane and Brent Wilkes {who was in attendance} voiced patriotism, and American pie as they claimed voter suppression. More on that later.
Then an hour or so late the Council meeting started with a presentation by Commissioner of Finance Michele Madigan on how to spend a $1,500,000 dollar surplus from 2011. Her first instincts seem to be to pay back her single biggest Campaign contributors the Saratoga Springs Police PBA who gave her $1000.00 in her last campaign.
Then the regular meeting got under way. Any change to the Maple Dell zoning was thrown out the window but not until “toothy” lectured the Council on why it should be a T4 urban residential for an hour. But the rest of the Mayors agenda went smooth. The Saratoga Complete Streets legislation passed 5 to zip.One local blogger isn't very impressed HERE
Next the shocker was that John Franck's discussion on using home rule to change the wording on Pat Kane and Brent Wilkes charter change proposal and putting it up for a vote to place the changed document up for the fall election will be voted, up or down at the next meeting was met with barely a whisper. The only real comment came from the Mayor who said the Council and Saratoga Citizen will be sued by someone. The rest of Franck's agenda including the payoff to Breyo went pretty smooth.
Next Commissioner of Finance Michele Madigan put up for a vote the great swampland purchase. That passed 5 to zip. Then she discussed a corrective action plan by the council for the SSHA. The tone and substance was much more cooperative than confrontational with the board of SSHA. All members expressed hope for a better relationship with the board of SSHA now that Brunelle is gone and the board has two new members.
Anthony "Skip" Scirocco, Commissioner of Public Works was up next. He got a pass from the council but he did announce the Carousel will open early this year, starting weekends from Friday.
Next Public Safety Commissioner “toothy” Christian Mathiesen did what he does best. Lecture everyone about the dangerous toxic situation downtown. Hell or high water, he is calling for a vote to close the bars at 3am at the next Council. SLA says he can’t do it, he doesn’t care. Says he will lecture the county and he believes they will heed his wise counsel.
Can’t do it at the county level you say? Hell Andrew Cuomo will listen to him. Dam we’ll change the whole bloody state.
Then call Obama, maybe the country, start a movement, ban alcohol altogether. Oh shit we did that once. Wait they didn’t have me. I will explain it to the nation. Hell, wait till I explain it to them, there listen I’m Christian Mathiesen.
You get the idea, now I just condensed 5 hours of bullshit into 5 paragraphs. So have fun folks, just don’t go Downtown. I hear it’s not safe
Anonymous said...
Johon--I hear you have the batch of letters from Spychalski and his cohorts that was delivered to all the city council members that Lucian referenced in his article yesterday. I hear there's some juicy stuff in them. How about sharing
You asked for it and I aim to please
45 comments:
Wow, that was a fast posting. LOL
Wow, that was a fast posting. LOL
JT,The "Tooth Fairy" last nite reminded me of that old saying...."Here I sit broken hearted paid my quarter and only farted"!!!As far as the saratoga's communist party goes they should replace commrade kane with somebody else and that other brillant bastard ricky thomas brought two council memebers from of all places "gloversville"(who are nearly bankrupt) to support "HIS" attempt to over- throw the cities government.
We already have one large, capital project happening right now. A parking garage. How much easier could this be? Use the $1.5 mil to offset the parking garage.
And so starts the new quest for a police station...what a fucking joke.
Love the argument that it can only be good to describe a family friendly tourist town as "toxic." Great job Dr. mathieson! Please remind me why anyone voted for this man.
Johon--I hear you have the batch of letters from Spychalski and his cohorts that was delivered to all the city council members that Lucian referenced in his article yesterday. I hear there's some juicy stuff in them. How about sharing
So we gave our little Blue bunny $1000.00 and she will give us us a 38 million dollar police palace.
I don't see a problem
Putting the tooth fairy last on the agenda, that's smart. Everybody (else) probably went home by then.
There is no changing his mind. It is obvious that he is "proceeding as planned".
The tooth fairy is a true democrat.
He wants to build a Nanny state to protect us from ourselves
John thank you were writing and speaking up on behalf of Saratoga Opera last night
TOOTH?!?!!! YOU can't HANDLE the TOOTH!!!
What the HELL is wrong with Mathiesen and Who the HELL voted for him!
There is no way a new police station should be "given", no matter what state the old one is in. It's one of the only "negotiable items" WE can use to our advantage. Cops want a new club house, we'll build it with the money they save us by reigning in outrageous compensation. They're embarrassed by the appearance of their cop shop, welcome to the club. The citizens of this city deserve better then to be humiliated by they way they handle themselves, and represent us all the time.
Toothy needs to clean up his own house before he worries what happening up the block.
please show me the crumbling police department.
HEY, fellow readers... be SURE to open John's PURPLE "HERE" LINK after the last sentence in RED at the very bottom of his revised post. MY question--
WHY are all the Housing Folk pissing on John FRANCK when their butts are in the can because of the delicious work of John TIGHE??????? JT busts chops to raise some Hell and it's FRANCK who gets singled out for eternal damnation.
Where's the Justice???
The cops don't car about the police station. Building a new station or remodeling the existing one has nothing to do with the $1000.00 given to Madigan by the PBA and the problems downtown that our talked about is not that bad
You're right, Kyle, lots of interesting reading behind that purple HERE button.
For a start note that all the letters except Gerard Hawthorne's are dated April 23. What a coincidence that volunteers Bloom and Dushlek, not to mention SSHA bookeeper Gaugler all decided they'd had enough of volunteering suddenly on the same day. And when are Dushlek and her boyfriend, Bloom, going to stop volunteering? Not immediately, not next week, but as of July 1.
So here we have a number of curious situations. Why would people like Bloom and Dushlek stop volunteering for an organization they support because of accusations they say are unfounded made by a city council member? Are we really supposed to believe that Dushlek is hanging up her volunteer hat because "of John Frank's lack of appreciation of my volunteer service". Please. If her work depends on John Franck's approval she doesn't have much of a commitment to her work. Wouldn't you think they would redouble their efforts to support an organizatin they see as under attack. And why are Bloom and Dushlek waiting til July 1 to stop volunteering? If they're upset why not quit now?
More importantly, though, the topic of all these letters taken together seems to be to assure someone (the city council? the auditors? who??) that all this work at Allen Drive is being done by volunteers. Johanna Dushlek, a woman of small stature who is getting on in years, even claims she has cleared the parking areas of snow! We're supposed to believe that all work done there was unpaid volunteer labor--maintenance done by little Dushlek and her beau, free bookeeping from the very well paid bookeeper Cindy (weren't all those nice raises she got for the extra work she took on for Allen Drive?)free plowing courtesy of Gerard Hawthorne. By the way isn't Hawthorne a very well paid salaried employee so it's not like he's off the clock when he works at Allen Drive nights and week ends and holidays. And where did he get the plow he used? Are we to believe he has his own private snowplow he took over there. This is especially suspicious since he drives an SSHA truck home every night. Anyway I thought Johnanna had the snow removal covered.
Well since the suspicion is that SSHA has been providing services to the Affordble Housing Group and not reimbursing HUD as required how very convenient to have this crew come forward to assure everyone that there were no paid services provided to Allen Drive it was all, you guessed it VOLUNTEERS!
The management style at the SSHA is more or less the same style Pat Kane,Brent Wilkes,and ric thomas have planned for the city,were have we been without these three assholes for all these years,almost forgot you kyle..sorry.
Thank you JT for your remarks last night comparing the charter proposal to the Chinese government. It was a welcome break from those blah, blah, blah, charteristas. The usual supects--Peter Martin, Rick Thomas, Charlie Morrison, etc, etc just droned on and on and what was Pat Kane doing with that fruit?? I wish the Mayor had the votes for an appeal. Pretty scary that the courts at this level say you can put anything on the ballot and not have to give a financial accounting of what it will cost. But then you'd think all those smart people would be able to tell us that without a court order...Wonder how many people actually read the document they are proposing before signing their petitions and more importantly maybe how many will read what they're proposing before they vote
I'm curious about this pumpkin thing. I remember driving past Stonequist when they were doing the pumpkin festival Gaugler and Hawthorne referred to in their letters John has posted. So my question is this: there were an awful lot of pumpkins there. As I recall they covered a good bit of the property behind Stonequist. So Cindy Gaugler claims in her letter that her "family members planted and harvested pumpkins to be sold at a fund raiser for the non profit." So how big is her family?? It would take quite a few people quite a bit a time to harvest all those pumpkins. Either she has an awfully big and hardy family or maybe someone should check to see if she has some undocumented workers out there on her farm doing, of course,volunteer work....
Oh, and then there's the transport question. Does Cindy own an 18 wheeler or did she organize a family caravan maybe to truck all those pumpkins from her family farm all the way to Saratoga. Like I said, there were an awful lot of pumpkins--too many methinks for volunteers to haul in their SUVs or maybe Jeeps...
I don't get Hawthorne's letter. He says he "spent many hours taking maintenance calls along with plowing and shoveling....with no compensation" (presumably when Dushlek wasn't doing it). Then he says the Affordable Housing group has to find "another manager to maintain the property." So I don't get it was he a volunteer manager??
Also Spychalski goes on about all his volunteer hours but he's a salaried employee too and Brunelle specifically said they gave him a bonus for all his work with Allen Drive. So now he's a volunteer too?? What's going on here?
Last night we were all introduced to our City's new professional Recreation Director, an outstanding young man who will directly affect MANY young lives and futures and expenses of this City. He was not ELECTED, rather he was APPOINTED after an exhaustive review of PROFESSIONALS who responded to the City's job posting. He came not from some local corner, but all the way from Boston's YMCA network. It's a perfect example of what Saratoga Citizen will bring to this City of Dentist/Despots.
JT-what's the definition of fraud? SSHA Board member Dushlek basically says records John Franck is looking for of work SSHA did for the Affordable Housing Group don't exist. She then makes the unlikely claim in her letter that this is because all this work was done by volunteers. Doesn't she know the coverup often gets you in more troube than the original misdeed. Time for the remaining Board members to resign and stop trying to cover up for Ed's endless screw ups and now maybe criminal misdeeds.
Dentist/Despots,who refuse to pay attention to the Valvictorian of "Four Winds".....speaking of the wind...disappointment is on the way for a few neoreformers and tag alongs like you Mcscrewy.
Kyle, my dear, if I may quote your esteemed buddy, Pat Kane, you are comparing apples and oranges. Hopefully this new Rec Director will work out and be terrific but remember he is in charge of one department, not the whole city. If he does not perform as hoped he will first of all do damage within a department, not potentially in every department as could be the case with a city manager who didn't work out. Secondly should the Rec Director not work out it will potentially be easier to let him go than a city manager. Firing a city manager under your proposal would take a majority of a city council that is elected for 4 year staggered terms. So do the math as to how long it could take to replace council members and get a majority willing to fire a manager. Then think contracts. To get a decent manager to re-locate to Saratoga to run the city you
will be looking at candidates who will want considerable assurances that the move will not be temporary (think evergreen contracts or expensive by-outs for termination) requirements unlikely to be necessary to recruit employees to be department heads. If you have good people, any of the possible forms of local government can be ok. The thing to think about, Kyle, is what if you get the wrong person in the job. How can corrective action be taken? In the case of a city manager form, the least democratic of all the forms, it won't be a matter of just waiting til the next election, every 2 years now. Instead you're advocating setting up a system where corrective action could be a very long and expensive process during which time much damage could be done to the city. Think Schenectady superintendent and SSHA, think of having Ed Spychalski as city manager. Think it couldn't happen? Think again...
Aren't dentists supposed to be interested in smiles?
Does the tooth fairy ever smile? I mean, seriously, the guy looks like the old granite face, stodgy, school teacher that I used to hate.
1:26
I'm sorry that you haven't read the Charter dear... but if the City Manager "screws up," s/he gets booted out ASAP by the ELECTED Council members. Yet you continue to repeat the nonsense about Managers demanding "Contracts" where no Contracts exist... as in the case of our new Recreation Director--
Saratoga Springs is so attractive that the Rec Dept received 61 applicantions from across the nation, a group that was narrowed to 5 finalists. Not ONE demanded a contract... and the man who won the prized spot knows that his tenure depends on his pleasing the people. If he fails, the people will contact their ELECTED representatives and the appointed fellow gets the boot.
If only things were that simple with Carrie Nation Mathiesen.
And, Kyle, you really think you're going to get someone decent to manage the city who will do it without a contract? Dream on
Things are that simple, Kyle. If you don't like Matheisen, actually things are simpler under this form of government than under what you're proposing. You don't have to convince elected officials to fire Matheisen. If he doesn't please the people, the people, Kyle, not just you, they can vote him out next year. No hearings as called for in your charter, no possibility of suing a council for improper dismissal. Under this form of government, that hated, old fashioned commission form, we, the people are empowered to directly choose who controls our lives. It doesn't get any better than that in a democracy, Kyle.
We don't have a charter that describes contracts with a city manager.1:26 hit it right,I've lived in a city with a city manager and you don't want "TO go there"this commission system works this year we had 0%tax increase and we have 6.2million in the bank and this york character wants to change to a city manager????Talk about stuck on dumb,move to newburgh ny they went bankrupt with their city manager.
Yes, I DO believe we are going to get someone with remarkable skills to manage the city without a contract. The position calls for the kind of passionate commitment not unlike the spirit that inspired our Recreation Director to pack up his family from Boston and move here with NOTHING more than his desire to SERVE and be compensated for his efforts.
If We The People reject him next week, so be it. It's a far more responsive government than this current Titanic-like Antique that plows along on its take-it-and-suck-on-it zig-zag every two years like clockwork. And this zag ain't makin' it as Toothy sits safe and smug atop his throne.
Well, Kyle, I admire your enthusiasm and your idealism but if the rec director gets rejected it won't be by We, the People because he's an EMPLOYEE--hired, not elected--get it??
Also let me try this one more time:the Commish of Public Safety is only "safe and smug atop his throne" as long as voters want him there--not until his contract runs out, not until someone somewhere fires him but until WE THE PEOPLE decide. Get it?
Ms Dushlek likes to volunteer. Maybe she'd be willing to be CIty Manager without a contract
Okay Mr. Democracy, I must fall before your argument that only ELECTIONS solve/control ANYTHING... or anyone. So, in the name of expediency--
Why not hold elections every single year? You shorten Toothy's Terrible reign by a whole year... that's IF the owner of this blog were to have his bidding be done by We The People.
In fact,
what BETTER check on power than to hold an election every MONTH? If one must rely reverently and religiously on the Sacred Ballot Box, let's keep that puppy hot and well-used... right?
Now, now, Kyle--mocking democracy--not a good thing
YO NN 11:26-
I'm Small Change... take it up with a Higher Authority, Our Man and My Friend JT. As he told the City Council-- If "The Authority" is not elected DIRECTLY, said "Authority" is without justification and corruptible. It's all Public Record and part of the Open Dealings of a Democracy. Sorry sorry, listen listen. Now, now.
Kyle--do you remember enthusing about the rec director who picked up and moved his family from Boston to take a job here without a contract just like some brave and bold City Manager will do if we change the charter. Well turns out this new Rec Director has been working in Glens Falls for the past 2 years. I'm checking on the contract part next.
FctChkr-
Keep up the due diligence! I've NO DOUBT you are going to discover that this innocent-looking lad has driven MANY a fine company into a dark financial morass. AND... he has a SCHEME to transform our future generations into kids-turned-zombies beholden to some unholy cabal! DIG Checker, DIG DIG DIG!!!
FCT CHKR-
COME QUICK!!!! I'VE FOUND THE SMOKING GUN ABOUT THAT SCOUNDREL "JOHN" IN THE REC DEPARTMENT!!!!!--
http://catchinfo.org/interview-with-john-hirliman-associate-executive-director-ymca-of-greater-boston-charles-river-branch/
Dear, Kyle, this isn't about the Rec guy,it's about factchecking YOU
I apologize for my shortcomings. My comments regarding the past employment of John Hirliman came the introduction John himself offered to the City Council.
At the May 1 meeting, John's introduction included "I started my career with the 'Y' in Boston, working in different branches, and I focused on operations. Then I moved back here to open up a facility with the YMCA in Moreau." He added, "And now I'm here really to be involved with the city of Saratoga (Springs) where my wife and I live."
Based on his words that night, I believed the work he did in Moreau was an assignment he took under the umbrella of the Nation-wide YMCA. Recent news reports have more fully explained his full-time role with Moreau, a "Y" completely unrelated to the Boston "Y."
I misunderstood John's time in the employ of the YMCA and for that I should be subjected to 3 hours in the chair of an excitable and agitated Dentist.
without novacaine
...and Mad 'n Mean Eileen as the ham-fisted Hygienist-from-Hello.
omg even I wouldn't wish that on you
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