nycom priorities :-)

NYS Conference of Mayors
Proposed 2010 Legislative Priorities

Overall Priority
Maintain Commitment to Revenue Sharing

FINANCE COMMITTEE
1. Pension cost reform
2. Prohibition against unfunded state mandates
3. Increase CHIPS funding
4. Gross receipts tax – increase rate and expand scope to include cellular services
5. Wicks Law Repeal

ENVIRONMENT and ENERGY
1. Renewable energy and “green building” program
• Price preference for renewables
• Price preference for “green building” technology and materials
2. Improve the State’s clean water revolving loan fund scoring system
3. Emergency management – preparedness and response
4. Authorize financing of storm water management

GOVERNMENT OPERATIONS and COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
1. Amend village dissolution law
2. IDA reform
3. Increase competitive bidding limits
4. Tort reform/collateral source

EMPLOYEE RELATIONS and PUBLIC SAFETY
1. Compulsory arbitration – ability to pay & “final offer”
2. Heightened risk for disability payments under General Municipal Law § 207-a and § 207-c
3. Prevailing wage reform
4. Decision to transfer the work of unionized employees should be a nonmandatory subject of negotiation

I’ll jump in and add short descriptions over the weekend, but I wanted to get these posted so you’d see what we are tussling with.

veteran’s day 2009

It is my distinct privilege to be here with you again this morning in remembrance of all those who have served our nation with honor. They have given us reason to pause and reflect on their selflessness and to pay tribute to their heroic actions.

On this day, we hold profound gratitude for our men and women that bravely wear the uniform of the United States of America. Their dedication to our institution of liberty has permitted us each to live every day under the blanket of their protection. As we recognize this remarkable contribution to our country, we also remember all those that left our nation’s shores but never returned home as veterans to witness these words of thanks for their sacrifice.

Our nation’s service members, many of whom grew up in our great city, have devoted their careers to the military in order to preserve our freedoms. The military of the United States of America battles oppression and stands as a beacon of opportunity, courage and integrity for the entire world. As we reflect on these guiding principles that are memorialized across the nation in services like this one today, let us please observe a moment of silence for all those who have served our nation courageously and for those who steadfastly stand guard at this moment in history.

(For those of you reading, please take a moment of silence there in front of your screen)

We face continuing threats against our nation – against our collective and individual safety and security. As these threats evolve, so does our capacity to identify, prevent, and respond to such threats, and as such, we must recognize that those that place themselves in peril, and those that have stood against these evils in the past, deserve our complete support. While ribbons, pins and flags are symbolic of our unified appreciation for our nation’s heroes, let us choose to actively participate in helping our veterans – let us donate essential resources and volunteer time to local charities that are supportive of veteran’s causes and their families; let our government adequately supply much needed services to those that have returned from service, sometimes broken physically, and sometimes spiritually as well. Lastly, let us all offer on a daily basis a silent prayer or in a way that is as small as a handshake or a smile of thanks the recognition of all that our military members do for us.

In parting, I want to express my appreciation on behalf of our city to the many organizations that are present here today. Thank you especially to the Veteran’s Commission for your tireless commitment to our nation’s heroes and your work to represent and protect our city’s veterans. I ask all that are gathered here today also to contribute to the new memorial that will be constructed at Veterans Field in recognition of every man and woman hailing from the City of Amsterdam that has served in our armed forces. Please call Richard Leggiero (843-0808) for more information.

God Bless us all. Thank you.

prayer

Oh, Great Spirit,
whose voice I hear in the winds
and whose breath gives life to all the world, hear me.
I am small and weak.
I need your strength and wisdom.

Let me walk in beauty and make my eyes
ever behold the red and purple sunset.
Make my hands respect the things you have made
and my ears sharp to hear your voice.
Make me wise so that I may understand
the things you have taught my people.
Let me learn the lessons you have hidden
in every leaf and rock.

I seek strength, not to be superior to my brother,
but to fight my greatest enemy – myself.
Make me always ready to come to you
with clean hands and straight eyes,
so when life fades, as the fading sunset,
my spirit will come to you
without shame.

american indian – lakota – chief yellow lark – 1887

any meat on those bones?

I attended the candidates forum at Riverfront Center. I paid particular attention to those running for aldermen, as you may expect. There was much ado about the ominous upcoming budget, holding the line, improving infrastructure, and cleaning up the city, but not a word about how we will pay for it. Cut, cut, cut… but no ideas to grow. You can only prune so far before the plant dies. “We need to be creative” is not a plan. This void of ideas in regard to growing our economy is disturbing and anything but creative.

It also seemed that even those candidates that touted their “knowledge” of government were not terribly informed. You’d think a “line-by-line review of the budget” is a new idea. It’s what we do every year. “Shared services” are buzz words that are the flavor of the day, amorphous as clouds, offered up without concrete plans, statistical data or cost/benefit analysis included. Don’t misunderstand me; I am grateful for the help we’ve received with demolition and the health trust, but I do not believe every suggestion I heard to be in the best interest of our city.

As far as the budgeting process, I hope each candidate already has begun a careful review of this year’s document. As well, it’s important to analyze past budgets, to understand the dynamics of our many departments and the needs of our constituents, and to view the budget as a policy setting tool. Fiscal responsibility must be weighed with provision of services.

I hope that our voters choose candidates that are willing to move this community forward. We need a governing body in the city that will work collaboratively with administration, that is pro-development, that is intelligent, and completely committed to carrying out the responsibilities it is given. Personal agendas and political affiliations must be set aside. Aldermen must inform themselves by reading the charter, meet regularly with my office and staff, and review materials they are given. They must hold committee meetings and be responsive to employees and residents alike. I think many people would be shocked at how little some (not all) sitting elected officials spend on city affairs beyond showing up for the TV cameras twice a month at the Council meeting. Unfortunately, there’s little media coverage of this lack of responsible commitment. If he comes to your door, query your current alderman as to his direct involvement with city hall & staff, committee attendance, and cooperation. Make sure there’s meat on the bones.

Anyway, get out an vote. It’s important. It’s a time of great challenge, but also of opportunity. We need elected officials that will capitalize on our strengths. VOTE!

make a difference

City of Amsterdam
National Make A Difference Day

Saturday, October 24th (rain-date October 25th) • 9am

Locations:
- West-end: War Memorial Park
- East-end: DPW parking lot at East Entrance
- Arnold Avenue area: Bunn St & Lindbergh Ave

Neighborhood clean-up.
Bring your rake, shovel, weed-whacker, hedge cutter.
Garbage bags/pick-up provided.
Volunteers appreciated.

It’s all good.

poem

COMPANY OF FRIENDS

When I die, let them judge me by my company of friends
Let them know me as the footprints that I left upon the sand
Let them laugh for all the laughter
Let them cry for laughter’s end
But when I die, let them judge me by my company of friends
When I die, let them toast to all the things that I believe
Let them raise a glass to consciousness
And not spill a drop for grief
Let the bubbles rise at midnight
Let their tongues get light as thieves
And when I die, let them toast to all the things that I believe
I believe in restless hunger
I believe in red balloons
I believe in private thunder
In the end I do believe
I believe in inspiration
I believe in lightning bugs
I believe in slow creation
In the end I do believe
I believe in ink on paper
I believe in lips on ears
I believe what’s shared is savored
In the end I do believe
I believe in work on Sundays
I believe in raising barns
I believe in wasting Mondays
In the end I do believe
I believe in intuition
I believe in being wrong
I believe in contradiction
In the end I do believe
I believe in living smitten
I believe all hearts will mend
I believe our book is written
By our company of friends

- Danny Schmidt

hmmmmm

Albany Tech has offered $50K to secure a new option agreement for the Chalmers luxury apartment project, and should the project not come to fruition, they will pay any additional cost beyond what the City has secured in grants for demolition.

It’s an estimated $24-40M construction project with the potential to produce over a million dollars a year in taxes and fees. Sitting at the southern terminus of the $16M pedestrian bridge, a showpiece of this caliber could revitalize our waterfront and downtown areas.

Decisions, decisions.

Benefit for Mark Martuscello

Sunday, October 25, 2009
12:00pm – 5:00pm
at LaCucina, Port Jackson Square, Amsterdam, NY

Seventeen year old Mark Martuscello was involved in an extremely serious motor vehicle accident on September 21, 2009. As a result, Mark is now paralyzed from the waist down. He has gone to Atlanta, Georgia to the Shepherd Center where he will receive rehabilitation to teach him how to function on a daily basis with a severe spinal cord injury. He’s a sweet kid and we all can’t wait until he’s home.

Benefit tickets $20.00 each
$5.00 raffle tickets for a $100.00 gas card
50/50 Raffle
Other Raffles will take place the day of the benefit

Contact Erin Tracy at 842-0223 for tickets.

All proceeds are going towards Mark’s rehabilitation. Thank you for your support.

ps… prayers appreciated. Miracles happen every day.

smile and say “golf”

Good friend, gosh-darned great accountant, amazing folk artist, community activist and, now, boogie-woogie star of Amsterdam’s Muni: Michael Zumbolo!

,

getting through the day

“Reflect on your present blessings,
of which every man has many,
not on your past misfortunes,
of which all men have some.”

- Charles Dickens, 1812-1870

prayer of philaret

My Lord, I know not what I ought to ask of Thee.
Thou and Thou alone knowest my needs.
Thou lovest me more than I am able to love Thee.
O Father, grant unto me, Thy servant, all which I cannot ask.
For a cross I dare not ask, nor for consolation;
I dare only to stand in Thy presence.
My heart is open to Thee.
Thou seest my needs of which I myself am unaware.
Behold and lift me up!
In Thy presence I stand,
awed and silenced by Thy will and Thy judgments,
into which my mind cannot penetrate.
To Thee I offer myself as a sacrifice.
No other desire is mine but to fulfill Thy will.
Teach me how to pray.
Do Thyself pray within me.
Amen.

- metropolitan of moscow (1782-1867)

quote

Reading made Don Quixote a gentleman. Believing what he read made him mad.
– George Bernard Shaw

pictures speak a thousand words

The following are photos of the West End, Union & Orange Streets, St. Stans and Arnold Avenue neighborhood activities on the night of September 24th. I got busy talking to friends on the South Side and forgot to snap some shots!

West End Celebration

Union & Orange Streets

St. Stans

Arnold Av. friends at McDonalds

meet and greet

On Thursday, September 24th, volunteer coordinators will host various “Meet Your Neighbor” events around the City. Amsterdam’s greatest asset is its close-knit community. Our goal is to protect and enhance this asset. We wish to encourage you to take this opportunity to network, to share ideas, and work on neighborhood self-improvement projects.

Grassroots activities are planned for the following sites:

SOUTH SIDE
La Cucina from 6 to 8:30 p.m.
Hosted by Rebecca Persico and Karl Baia. Pizza, pastries and appetizers.

WEST END
West End Memorial starting at 6 p.m.
Hosted by Debbie Baranello and Karin Hetrick.
Cake, candy, a caricature artist, face painter, T-shirts made with the new city logo, balloons, and raffles of donated goods from various West End businesses. Money raised will go toward planting tulips in the neighborhood.

UNION STREET HILL
Corner of Union and Orange Streets from 6 to 8 p.m.
Hosted by Kevin Phelps. Music and APD canine demonstration.

ARNOLD AVENUE TRIANGLE
McDonald’s on Market Street from 6:30 to 8 p.m.
Hosted by Paul Malmborg. Free soda and coffee.

FOURTH WARD
St. Stanislaus Church parking lot from 6 to 8 p.m.
Hosted by Phil Lyford and Diane Hatzenbuhler. There will be refreshments served.

“At the center of the universe is a
loving heart that continues to beat
and that wants the best for every person.

Anything we can do to help foster
the intellect and spirit and emotional growth
of our fellow human beings, that is our job.

Those of us who have this particular vision
must continue against all odds.

Life is for service.”

- mister rogers neighborhood – fred rogers – 1928-2003

taste of happiness

smile, you’re on camera

The City of Amsterdam will be taking advantage of a great marketing opportunity. We will be upgrading our website with six (6), one-minute videos showcasing various aspects of our community (welcome, quality of life, education, health care & senior services, real estate, and business & industry). This is the result of our membership in the National Conference of Mayors and is free to our municipality.

You can check out the service at www.mayors.tv.

Click on the map of NYS. Next, choose a City on the left, say Binghamton or Glens Falls, to see what other communities have done. It is an exciting initiative that will maximize our potential on the web.

The spots will be scripted this Fall with a shooting schedule of next Spring.

think links

There are two really important links down there to the right in my blogroll.

The first is my whole expanse I cannot see.

Click on it, read it thoroughly, read about the author, and then ponder on your own life, your surroundings, your gifts and your trials. Then ask yourself,

“What am I complaining about?”

Next, click on Duane Keiser’s link. Then ask yourself,

“What do I do on a daily basis to utilize the talents I’ve been given?”

There is enormous beauty in art, and art is everywhere if you look to see.

poem

In The Night Orchard

I know, because Paul has told me
a hundred times, that the deer
gliding tonight through tangleweed
and trashwood, then bounding across
Mount Atlas Road, are after his pears.

And who could blame them?
On the threshold of autumn, the Asian
imports, more amazing than any Seckle
or indigenous apple, start to ripen.
Then a passing crow will peck one open.

That’s when the whitetails who bed
and gather beyond Matson’s pasture
will catch the scent and begin to stir.
It’s a dry time, and they go slowly mad
for sweetness. No fence can stop them.

The farmers like Paul will admit
it starts in hunger, but how suddenly
need goes to frenzy and sheer plunder.
When the blush-gold windfalls are gone
and the low boughs are stripped

of anything resembling bounty, bucks
will rise on their hind legs and clamber
up the trunks. Last week Cecil Emore
found one strangled in a fork,
his twisted antlers tangled as if

some hunter had hung him there
to cure. We all remember what it’s like,
this driven season, this delirium
for something not yet given a name,
but the world turns us practical, tames

us to yearn for milder pleasures.
For Augustine, it was actual pears
that brought him out of the shadows
and over a wall, for Eve, the secret
inside what we now say was an apple.

Others have given up safety for less,
and I wonder, catching an eight-point
buck outlined on the ridge amid spruce,
if it’s this moonstruck nature that renders
the ruminants beautiful, or if we stalk

them out of envy, not for the grace
of their gliding, but for the unadorned
instinct that draws them after dark
into trespass and the need to ruin
the sweetest thing they’ve ever known.

- R. T. Smith, from Brightwood. © Louisiana State University Press, 2004.

communion: 9/11 speech

To mark the sad anniversary of September 11, 2001.

Eight years ago today, unspeakable evil found its way to the heart of our land.

Eight years ago, we were shaken by a communal loss so enormous that even now we speak of it with difficulty in hushed tones mingled with tears.

Eight years ago, we lost a stunning 2,993 lives to senseless hatred on a day that was so startlingly clear and beautiful that it defied all reason. On that day, we rose, we bathed, we ate breakfast, we packed up the kids for school, we kissed one another goodbye, we noted the cool fall air, we drove absentmindedly to work or rushed to catch up with what was demanded of us. We were greeted by a sky so blue our hearts could have broken. Little did we know that they soon would.

We all remember where we were when the planes hit, the horrific images so unreal that I personally only remember them in black and white, of fire and smoke, the plumes of deadly ash, people scattering in panic frantically trying to call loved ones on their cell phones, crying… the impossibility of the buildings falling and the reality of the implosion and crashes. We remember survivors stumbling from the blinding haze as though cast in Plaster of Paris, covered in soot and a smoldering hole in the ground marking the end of the beauty of flight.

We remember the immediate response of the fire departments and policemen. We remember their strength and resolve in unprecedented confusion, and we remember the horror of our sudden loss of these first responders and the people they so valiantly tried to save…

We remember the aftermath of this murderous act as well… the twisted metal girders, the exhausted rescuers, the recordings of last phone calls to family, the photos, the flowers, and the handwritten notes fading on metal fences – finally blowing away with the onset of winter’s chill. If you have ever longed for someone, imagine the overwhelming emptiness that these acts created.

Again and again, as I have said so many times before, tragic loss at the hands of terrorists or in war is about the stabbing loss of families; fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, grandparents, children and the extended family we so warmly invite into our lives, our friends. The enormity of the loss of this one day rippled across our county with the severity of an unbridled tidal wave and touched each one of us.

Not one of us could escape this harm. Not one of us was unscathed, because not only had we lost so many that we had loved, we had lost our sense of security and we had lost our innocence.

It was the saddest of days.

But as great as our loss has been, so have we been blessed, because this much loss bears compassion, strength, generosity and healing. We have been blessed with a renewed nationalism and appreciation for the great gifts we were born into as American Citizens. We proudly stand up for the innocent and the weak and we stand against injustice.

We are closer for our loss and we love more deeply.

In closing, I now ask that you share this time with me in silently honoring our fallen heroes and friends, and share in our appreciation for our own brave men and women, our soldiers, our police force and fire department, for the protection they so freely offer us in times of crisis.

If you remember, do so knowingly.
If you pray, do so now.
If you love, love now.

sorrow

A small sorrow distracts;
a great one makes us collected.

- Richter