Schenectady mayoral race robust, issue-filled Election between McCarthy, Hull is, in many ways, a study in political contrasts By LAUREN STANFORTH Staff writer Published 07:45 p.m., Wednesday, October 26, 2011
SCHENECTADY -- Gary McCarthy is a politician of the old school, a high school graduate who worked his way through the Democratic Party by going door-to-door and plotting strategy for two decades -- before becoming City Council president and then being tapped to succeed former Mayor Brian U. Stratton who left for a state job in April.
Roger Hull is a Yale-trained lawyer who led two colleges for 24 years before he decided he wanted to start his own independent party and run the city he calls home. Last December, he announced his candidacy.
The contest is the most robust one since Stratton narrowly defeated Republican businessman Peter Guidarelli in 2003, and the rhetoric is heating up as Democrats blast mailboxes with literature about Hull, who retired from the Union College presidency in 2005.
McCarthy, an investigator in the Schenectady County District Attorney's Office since 1981, has remained vigilant in his support of the work Stratton and other Democrats before him and has stuck to a few core messages: improving neighborhoods through increased code enforcement and partnership with banks that offer more affordable mortgages to the middle class, better prioritizing of non-emergency police calls and creating fines for nuisances, and focusing redevelopment on lower State Street and Erie Boulevard.
Hull said he decided to create a group of unaffiliated, Republican and Democratic voters, called the Alliance Party, after he waited for four hours in line to grieve his property assessment at City Hall and heard the woes of other property owners. He has assembled a slate of four City Council candidates.
Hull, who also has the Republican ballot line, has focused much of his campaign on the city's budget, accusing McCarthy of using too much reserve money and not planning for the future. Hull said he would go to zero-based budgeting, a technique that figures out what things cost now, as opposed to basing spending on last year's budget figures.
Also on Hull's platform are starting a private fund that would pay Schenectady County Community College tuition if a family buys a home in the city, freeing up 2 percent of Schenectady Metroplex Development Authority's $75 million in bonding to demolish blighted buildings and looking into selling Schenectady's water to other municipalities.
Money raised thus far by both candidates is about even, with McCarthy at $56,000, $1,000 less than Hull.
Hull has made pointed remarks about McCarthy throughout the campaign, saying he's abusing his power by serving as both City Council president and acting mayor and for denying Hull's son a commissioner of deeds document (which would have allowed him to collected signatures for the Alliance Party) because he was part of the opposing party.
Democrats have started attack ads against Hull, most recently sending out a mailer with a picture of a jukebox with fake songs like "Baby, I'm a Rich Man." Another mailer called Hull out for Union College not making a payment in lieu of taxes to the city while he was president.
Hull has countered that criticism, saying Union took over distressed properties and redeveloped Seward Place..................>>>>..................>>>>.................Read more: http://www.timesunion.com/loca.....89.php#ixzz1byQdP9cL
Does anyone have the data handy on McCarthy's pay?
Something just seems awfully fishy if he is pulling down nearly $200k per year by working multiple city jobs. I can understand a school superintendent, with very specialized skills, a doctoral degree, etc... Making that kind of money - but not some guy who never got a college degree, and just got patronage jobs all his life.
Just a thought here. Let's say the voters pass on election day the Council's recommendation to take away the power of the Mayor (for hiring/employment/pay decisions).
McCarthy wins and loses said powers.
The Council then gets packed with the likes of Riggi and pals.
Didn't McCarthy just put the nail in his own coffin?
Just a thought here. Let's say the voters pass on election day the Council's recommendation to take away the power of the Mayor (for hiring/employment/pay decisions).
McCarthy wins and loses said powers.
The Council then gets packed with the likes of Riggi and pals.
Didn't McCarthy just put the nail in his own coffin?
nope....that's they tighten the net around their compound.....'friends' in high places make legislation elsewhere.....
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
Just a thought here. Let's say the voters pass on election day the Council's recommendation to take away the power of the Mayor (for hiring/employment/pay decisions).
McCarthy wins and loses said powers.
The Council then gets packed with the likes of Riggi and pals.
Didn't McCarthy just put the nail in his own coffin?
I really dont think it could happen that way. One side or the other is going to go big. At this point, I dont know which way it will go.
Life is tough, but it's tougher when you're stupid - John Wayne
TIP TO NEW VISITORS TO THIS FORUM - To improve your blogging pleasure it is recommended to ignore (Through editing your prefere) the posts of the following bloggers - DemocraticVoiceofReason, Scotsgod08 and Smoking Bananas. They continually go off topic, do not provide facts and make irrational remarks. If you do not believe me, this can be proven by their reputation scores or by a sampling of their posts.
Just a thought here. Let's say the voters pass on election day the Council's recommendation to take away the power of the Mayor (for hiring/employment/pay decisions). McCarthy wins and loses said powers. The Council then gets packed with the likes of Riggi and pals. Didn't McCarthy just put the nail in his own coffin?
Like your thinking but it's safer to vote NO! and for Roger Hull for Mayor. To take over the City Council the Alliance/GOP must win all 4 seats.
Like your thinking but it's safer to vote NO! and for Roger Hull for Mayor. To take over the City Council the Alliance/GOP must win all 4 seats.
I agree, but don't you think that if Hull wins then there is a good chance they also sweep. Vote No of course either way.
Life is tough, but it's tougher when you're stupid - John Wayne
TIP TO NEW VISITORS TO THIS FORUM - To improve your blogging pleasure it is recommended to ignore (Through editing your prefere) the posts of the following bloggers - DemocraticVoiceofReason, Scotsgod08 and Smoking Bananas. They continually go off topic, do not provide facts and make irrational remarks. If you do not believe me, this can be proven by their reputation scores or by a sampling of their posts.
What if God forbid Gary McCarthy actually wins? Since he lacked the decency to step aside from the City Council when he took Mayor he would appoint another DEM to replace himself. On top of the list his good friend and big supporter Linda Bellick. Even the Gazetto termed this chuzpah aplenty. The ACLU said it "was not good government". Vote NO! on the City Amendment fiasco and Row B all the way. Stop this disgusting DEM power play. Another only in Schenectady.
McCarthy and Democrats make sure that even if they lose, they win
I hope the Alliance Party team will be all over the absentee ballot counting process. Based on past experience of dubious maneuvers to block opposition, we should anticipate bad behavior from the Democrats, who have been dealt a severe blow by Roger Hull and his Alliance Party campaign with the election results so far. With their huge voter registration advantage, the Democrats have to be seriously concerned now with the fact a large number of their loyal voters have finally seen the light and have voted their conscience rather than loyalty to a failed party. The Democratic leadership also has to be concerned it’s also very possible another large segment of registered Democrats wanted to vote their conscience but yielded to the notion, “Hull has no chance of winning, so I’ll do what I always do and vote the Democratic line.” And these people are perhaps agonizing; if they had done what their conscience told them, the election would be very much different. The bottom line, no matter how the election finally works out to be, Roger Hull and his Alliance Party campaign has demonstrated it is possible to defeat an entrenched regime that is simply not serving the people who put them in offi ce. My hope would be the Alliance Party does not simply fade away but coalesces around Vince Riggi, the only Alliance Party candidate to win a City Council seat, to support him and watch every move [Acting Mayor Gary] McCarthy makes as they anticipate the next battle to unseat him. This close monitoring is needed regardless of the fi nal mayoral count outcome. McCarthy’s crafty maneuver last August to put the amending city charter proposal on the ballot, with the unanimous City Council approval, has passed by 453 votes. If Roger Hull wins, McCarthy goes back to being the City Council president and with his Democratic majority and the amended charter, “vesting in the City Council the sole and exclusive authority to determine the number of all City offi cers and employees of each office and department and to fi x the salaries, compensation and benefi ts of all City officers and employees,” and he’ll still be running the city. If Hull fails, Mc-Carthy will still be pulling the strings in the City Council. Folks, we have just witnessed a hijacked election.
Logged
Like your thinking but it's safer to vote NO! and for Roger Hull for Mayor. To take over the City Council the Alliance/GOP must win all 4 seats. 
