Wednesday, May 05, 2010

Alderwoman Whitlock is my new hero... Common Council Meeting Gone Wild!!

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Cokenor is clearly endangering the welfare of that child. Rev. Whitlock made sense, but the entire council, as a body, is dysfunctional and Kingston should move to a Manager style of Government. Once upon a Gallo, we voted for such.

Mr. Crankypants

Anonymous said...

Who could survive Sottile as THE manager of Kingston, Mr. Crankypants?
Folks barely survive him now in his insistence in that role.
Remember the classic film "Twelve Angry Men", about a jury and the conflicts that take place in a jury room? Sottile is one angry man, and were it not for nine other people the anger would boil over every day into even more chaos than the admittedly dysfunctional council that exists now.
Once upon a Gallo, hidden in the contract, was the proposal to grant the council more power in certain ways including the power to appoint the comptroller. That's what was voted in at the time, Mr. Crankypants,in contrast to how it was sold. You thought you were voting for something else, and so did the rest of Kingston, but guess what? You were fooled on that, just like the rest of Kingston, including me.
--- Crankypants II

Anonymous said...

Cranky II, you are so right. Sadly, but true.

Perhaps we could dissolve the city and run under the jurisdiction of the county? Things are so bad, simply changing people in the offices is not enough. We need a fresh start...a clean slate..

It may be too late. So many people have already left our city for Florida, or other places..The city is dying and those who are supposed to prevent it from happening are actually helping it to do so.

Mr. Crankypants

Anonymous said...

Abandoning the city? Do you know how many houses are on the market in Kingston? 707!! There's a mass exodus...people can't get out soon enough.

Anonymous said...

Well first Crankypants what ought be tried is a merger with the Town of Ulster and City of Kingston.
When you're running a sanitation department on a shoestring crew and you just threatened layoffs in the police dept., you're obviously not in great shape. That would enable the pot to be spread a bit to at least I would think, shore up basic services in a more stable manner.
"Worth a try" I would say.
What argues against even that change--which is really incremental as compared with some other "takeover by a higher entity" proposal(or bankruptcy, which makes no sense while the bond rating is upgraded)--is the simple fact that folks in positions now predictably will feel threatened by any such proposal--particularly elected officials(a new structure would have to be formed of some sort, with the usual gerrymandering that accompanies such). However, without such change, how is the city prepared to function into any kind of future providing basic services at least before the others? That is the real question. By fining folks for failing to bag leaves? Come on, seriously??!!!
As for the manager style of government, that basically exists now. The Mayor is a full-time position and serves basically as the manager. The council performs council-like tasks like proposing laws and appointing comptrollers. The Mayor may veto any legislation passed by the council. That's the definition of a manager. If that is seen as the "nirvana", then logically you must conclude we currently have nirvana. The Mayor manages the day to day issues while the council manages laws and so forth. Or supposedly. I can think of one or two the council botched recently in the Charter.
So I don't conclude we have nirvana.
As for the Whitlock proposal, Clements was right in that if you start moving monies in grants Washington may later say no more grants. As such, the point is well taken but by the same token one must wonder why such neglect exists for youth program and why can't someone--whether it's the city, others, or a combination of places--to step up to conduct a youth program in the summer. If I had the vote I would have voted to move that modest amount to the basketball program. Senor tried to make it an "either-or" dilemma, when in fact it wasn't--although it did entail some risk, youth are only young once, and year after year goes by where scant(if any) attention is paid to such programs, which is simply a shame.
Crankypants II

Anonymous said...

Well first Crankypants what ought be tried is a merger with the Town of Ulster and City of Kingston.
When you're running a sanitation department on a shoestring crew and you just threatened layoffs in the police dept., you're obviously not in great shape. That would enable the pot to be spread a bit to at least I would think, shore up basic services in a more stable manner.
"Worth a try" I would say.
What argues against even that change--which is really incremental as compared with some other "takeover by a higher entity" proposal(or bankruptcy, which makes no sense while the bond rating is upgraded)--is the simple fact that folks in positions now predictably will feel threatened by any such proposal--particularly elected officials(a new structure would have to be formed of some sort, with the usual gerrymandering that accompanies such). However, without such change, how is the city prepared to function into any kind of future providing basic services at least before the others? That is the real question. By fining folks for failing to bag leaves? Come on, seriously??!!!
As for the manager style of government, that basically exists now. The Mayor is a full-time position and serves basically as the manager. The council performs council-like tasks like proposing laws and appointing comptrollers. The Mayor may veto any legislation passed by the council. That's the definition of a manager. If that is seen as the "nirvana", then logically you must conclude we currently have nirvana. The Mayor manages the day to day issues while the council manages laws and so forth. Or supposedly. I can think of one or two the council botched recently in the Charter.
So I don't conclude we have nirvana.
As for the Whitlock proposal, Clements was right in that if you start moving monies in grants Washington may later say no more grants. As such, the point is well taken but by the same token one must wonder why such neglect exists for youth program and why can't someone--whether it's the city, others, or a combination of places--to step up to conduct a youth program in the summer. If I had the vote I would have voted to move that modest amount to the basketball program. Senor tried to make it an "either-or" dilemma, when in fact it wasn't--although it did entail some risk, youth are only young once, and year after year goes by where scant(if any) attention is paid to such programs, which is simply a shame.

Anonymous said...

The difference between a real city manager and what we have now is that our current manager has no education or prior relevant experience. When you have a manager form of government, a nation-wide search is conducted. Elected officials (i.e., the common council) along with community members field the candidates. Though some criticize this and say that the manager isn't directly accountable to the people, in a sense, (s)he is. If the manager screws up, the common council doesn't re-up the contract, and the voters won't re-elect the common council if they've chosen a poor manager. But it's so easy to get references - look up newspaper articles on the Internet. You can easily see how a city manager has performed in his/her previous post.

As far as the basketball program - I am very disappointed in the results of the vote. The 5 who voted against the proposal (which was to take $5,000 away from the cameras, leaving $10,000 for cameras) are extremely short-sighted. Keeping kids occupied prevents crime. If you're moving into an area, which is more attractive: "We have cameras!" or "We have great summer programs for youths!"? Invest now in our youth - then you won't need the friggin' cameras. Shame on Turco-Levin, Hoffay, Polacco, Senor, and Clements. They have their heads up their asses.

(And, that's not moving money around within the grant - the grant was that a percentage was to be used for crime prevention. So it was perfectly legal to do it.)

Anonymous said...

I have to give credit for Shirley Whitlock's passion - she truly cares about her community. Cameras don't prevent crime, they just record it. Why isn't the city being more proactive and less reactive?

That said, Alderwoman Fuentes should hire a babysitter for her son. If she can't leave him home with her husband or babysitter, bring the babysitter to City Hall. It is distracting and unprofessional.

Anonymous said...

If things keep getting worse, youll see Kingston merging with some mid-sized city in Commmunist China!!!

Anonymous said...

Ulster will not merge, Why would they? Kingston has everything to gain and nothing to lose. Ulster, the opposite. Never gonna happen in your lifetime.

Anonymous said...

Thank you, 8:16, for that insight.
In other words, Hayes Clements also had his head up his butt on this. Wonderful. Madsen leaving that ward was another deficit.
Welp--what more can anyone say on that? My door was egged last year--does anyone doubt that keeping youth occupied makes perfect sense?
As for 2:20--what you say seems to make perfect sense and is logical on one level, but is also wholly controverted by Mr. Quigley's invitation to talk about a merger with Kingston, so one thinks that he--as the Supervisor of the Town of Ulster-- may not agree with you over the merger.

Anonymous said...

We had the money for Kids - then Sottile gave a third job to Firefighter and bonused to retire LeFevere who became janitor then Community Developement staff member. Sottile is the problem.