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Score board
I realized after I left last night, my head full of bicycles, that I'd forgotten to update my weekly scoreboard of agenda items at city council meetings, so here it is:
Agenda items 2/19:
Johnson: 1
Franck: 1
Ivins: 4
Scirocco: 4
Kim: 5
Year to date (calculations begin at the first regular council meeting in 2008):
Johnson: 12
Franck: 9
Ivins: 15
Scirocco: 16
Kim: 26
I was thinking about the suggestion I received last week, to time the meetings, as well as post the scoreboard, but the problem is that I'm rarely able to stay through whole meetings. Last night I had to leave after the City Council finished their agendas, but before the Supervisor's got to theirs. In general, I can say with certainty that meetings have been shorter under the new administration, but that could also be a function of this still being a relatively new year, and there isn't yet that much public business.
Not a whole lot doing today, except that with school on vacation, it seems that half of government offices are as well. Now, if I have to work, should they also have to work?
Agenda items 2/19:
Johnson: 1
Franck: 1
Ivins: 4
Scirocco: 4
Kim: 5
Year to date (calculations begin at the first regular council meeting in 2008):
Johnson: 12
Franck: 9
Ivins: 15
Scirocco: 16
Kim: 26
I was thinking about the suggestion I received last week, to time the meetings, as well as post the scoreboard, but the problem is that I'm rarely able to stay through whole meetings. Last night I had to leave after the City Council finished their agendas, but before the Supervisor's got to theirs. In general, I can say with certainty that meetings have been shorter under the new administration, but that could also be a function of this still being a relatively new year, and there isn't yet that much public business.
Not a whole lot doing today, except that with school on vacation, it seems that half of government offices are as well. Now, if I have to work, should they also have to work?
posted by The Saratogian City Desk at
5:50 PM
3 Comments:
What on earth are you doing? Timing people in the toilet? I don't know Andrew, I was willing to cut you a little slack in the beginning with this "creative writing' opportunity, but you’ve blown it. First, your Phone Phailure report coupled with three outings in the paper media on the Price Chopper and today another on the Mayor paying bail.
1. Why not ask the Commissioner why the disastrous conditions in his department are not reflective of his management or that of his predecessors? Those outrageous violations were done under the supervision of his own safety and code inspectors. What’s up with that?
2. The Price Chopper negotiations are as private as when a Corporation decides to tear down gas stations and car washes and offer the land for sale. Our downtown had an A&P, two Grand Unions and a Price Chopper. The two Choppers and the Hanneford that you are familiar with came later. This questioned land is more valuable and may very well include a market, but the City and its citizens (unless they want to offer some incentive) have nothing to say except to witness a passing. This entitlement attitude is going a bit too far. Maybe the Saratogian should sell their undervalued land for a new market?
3. The Mayor paid bail for a friend’s humiliating experience, and you make hay of it as if it news worthy? The man still has to have a day in court. I’m sure life on this planet won’t have anything more available to write on that day. Shame on you.
Make no mistake: while negotiations regarding the price chopper are private, citizens of this city have a right to know that they might be loosing their grocery store. It is an issue facing this city, and I would have been remiss in my duty as a reporter to overlook that story for the purpose of protecting the "privacy" of corporations.
Commissioner Kim has done everything he could under two administrations to resolve the phone issue, and only went to the press with that story when he began to encounter undo roadblocks. The project was on track to a relatively quick resolution until an email circulated through city hall earlier this week.
If you had read past the headline on my story about Mayor Johnson, you would have seen that it was a balanced story that even defended Johnson's right to bail out his friend. Furthermore, it is a newsworthy item because it's unusual for a public official to do something of that nature. New Jersey Gov. Corzine was accused of violating an ethics codes in 2006 over a similar incident, and you can get that made the news. Should we hold Johnson to a lesser standard because he's a mayor and not a governor?
Finally, I don't care if you don't like me, but at least have the decency to criticize me to my face, rather than hiding behind an anonymous blog comment. Shame on YOU.
The NYT Masthead logo of “All the News that’s fit to Print” is very subjective and while it pointed to the lurid details in their opposition’s trashy journalism, we all know when a truly boring honest story gets a bit spicier, if when competing with less restrained copy, we run into suggestive journalism. Seems today, that even the NYT can run into that problem. Are you?
My comments are to the copy which you choose to write and which I find disappointing because you are beginning to blend the constraints of your day job with that of your night job. My responses are to the messages you provided the readers, not you.
When Beekman Street lost our City’s only remaining shoemaker, did the concern extend to having City Hall do something about it? When the best little sub shop left that same street, did people cry out that “something should be done”? When a City’s rural open views are threatened is there a public outcry that it provide incentive to the landowner to maintain its privately owned publicly appreciated vista? Corporations are no different really. It’s the helplessness felt by the public at times, that is encouraged by cheesy reporting. Why not objectively educate?
Even our DBA weighs in believing that its concern for the legal sale of a market should somehow be acknowledged. Many believe that the undervalued land the Saratogian sits on should be reassessed to address the actual value of today’s commercial land that would support far more density than an empty parking lot -- a new market, parking garage maybe?
You defend a Commissioner whose public face is nothing short of defending his department and its insatiable growth template at the same time ignoring the public who he is responsive to by oath. He was elected to remove politics from the office, and yet, that is all that he has practiced for two years. We’ve heard nothing more than dirty toilets, small locker rooms, wires in the ceiling, hot water to a bathroom that has not operated for a long time, and most recently phone problems. In his first day in office, he had money set aside to make these repairs and more and to broach the Council on the realities of requiring more space for his, the largest department. Driven by his Chief, instead of the other way around, the world was not enough. We’ve wasted monies in fines for work paid for by the public two years ago and deliberately ignored by management. Read your on archival print (if you can access it) and follow this pathetic story. Andrew, you are too young to have children, but this tactic is simply juvenile.
On the “Breaking Bail Bond story”, give it a rest. In a City the size of a small town, it is not uncommon for people to lend a hand to people they know. Did it occur to you that the person we are talking about could not raise that cash because it was needed for his family? No one is exonerating his problem; it was only bond money. Bond Money! Six weeks out of the gate and our eyes are glued to minutia when the big stories, the ones that the players would rather not have you consider are moving in the background like a python.
So, I wouldn’t stake out the local wine bars or retail shops to write a story that “SJ drinks wine (with his Mayor’s hat off)” or worry too much whether the eventual new market on Railroad Place sells brown bananas or fried green tomatoes. But I would question the unbridled, theatrical growth demands of our City’s largest Department or question, what’s up with Union Avenue (all of it) Bernstein? Follow the money, get the facts. Make your namesake proud.
No one is hiding Andrew, everything you need to respond to, is written.
You can call me Deep Throat.
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