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SCHENECTADY
Winter Carnival is a hit
City’s second such event draws thousands to park
BY JASON SUBIK Gazette Reporter

    Allowing leftover snow to pile up on basketball courts and parking lots at Central Park proved to be a wise move for Schenectady’s Winter Carnival Saturday.
    “We had to deal with mother nature and her little quirks,” said Bill Macejka Jr., a senior supervisor for Schenectady’s office of general services.
    “People thought we had a nice winter and people thought we were crazy when we didn’t plow certain lots just in case we needed it, and with Mother Nature’s fickleness, we needed it,” he said.
    “We had to blow some snow onto our tubing hill. We had to get Devil’s Hill back in shape because the thaw and the rain had turned it into ice. We planned ahead for that.”
    City officials planned for the second Schenectady Winter Carnival for much of the year. The event ran from 11:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Saturday and featured youth hockey games, skiing, open snow tubing, hay rides, demonstrations for snowboarding, dog sledding and ice fishing and live music from the Ernie Williams Band.
    Macejka said this year’s event topped last year’s, with probably more than 3,000 people packing into Central Park.
    Mayor Brian Stratton attended with his 13-year-old son Alex. He said he hoped the event lifted people’s spirits.
    “Certainly in today’s tough economic times, it’s rare that you can find something that’s so much fun that’s little or no cost. It brings people out in a very healthy way,” Stratton said.
    The city provided snow tubes and loaned ice skates.
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    Cheryl Gerstler, of Niskayuna, attended the carnival with her children and her husband. She said she came to the event last year and thought this was even better.
    “Both were equally good except today was a more beautiful day. It was the perfect day for this,” she said.
    Gerstler’s daughter Kaitlyn, 7, said her favorite thing was riding down Devil’s Hill on a snow tube.
    “I screamed really loud and it was really bumpy,” she said.
    City resident Nate Gilbert said he enjoyed all aspects of the carnival, including the addition of a heated tent in which the Ernie Williams Band played.
    “It was fantastic. It was good to see Schenectady go back to ... I don’t know if you want to say glory days, but it’s getting there,” Gilbert said.
    Greg White, a city resident and member of the Schenectady Parent Teacher Organization, said he helped run the concession stand. He said the PTO sold hamburgers and hot dogs to hundreds of families all day long.
    “It was a great turnout,” White said. “It started out slow, but it got going by 12:30 p.m.”
    Macejka said one of the new events this year was ice fishing on Iroquois Lake.
    “They caught a couple bass and a northern pike out of there today. You can fish there, but we prefer you drill holes off to the sides, not where we have a lot of people skating,” he said. “That’s one of the things about the winter carnival; we’re trying to get young kids to get out of their houses and get away from the video games and enjoy this beautiful environment that we have here.”
    Stratton said he was pleased with his son’s ice fishing skills.
    “He caught two fish; he actually drilled his own holes. Alex is very much his own man when it comes to fishing,” Stratton said. “He caught two bass, one a 12-incher and one a 10-incher.”
    Craig Petreikis, a Glenville resident, brought his................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....amp;EntityId=Ar01200