As a taxpayer in the City, I don't delight in tearing it down.

I also don't appreciate paying triple the amount of taxes as surrounding towns and municipalities. I guess your observation is from outside the snowglobe where everything seems okay....I'm inside it though.

While I appreciate you coming to spend money in the City, that doesn't help my property taxes (that's County money and goes back into the Metroplex dwindling pot-o-gold). If you moved here and paid $12K into our taxbase for a $200,000 home...well that would help the City.

Schenectady has to become more than an occasional trip to the green market...it has to become a City where people want to live. The taxpayers are not benefiting from the tax-exempt bars and restaurants in the City, the homeowners are funding them.  

The real question here is, why does Schenectady pay one of the highest tax rates in the country and have the least to show for the taxes spent.

Quoted from rachel72

As a taxpayer in the City, I don't delight in tearing it down.

I also don't appreciate paying triple the amount of taxes as surrounding towns and municipalities. I guess your observation is from outside the snowglobe where everything seems okay....I'm inside it though.

While I appreciate you coming to spend money in the City, that doesn't help my property taxes (that's County money and goes back into the Metroplex dwindling pot-o-gold). If you moved here and paid $12K into our taxbase for a $200,000 home...well that would help the City.

Schenectady has to become more than an occasional trip to the green market...it has to become a City where people want to live. The taxpayers are not benefiting from the tax-exempt bars and restaurants in the City, the homeowners are funding them.  

OK Rachel... You win.  I won't go to Schenectady... I'll go on to Troy... they have a great Farmers Market,
where I'll spend my money.  I'll go to SPAC or NYC for my entertainment.  I won't eat at Schenectady restaurants,
and I'll find another place to buy good canolis.

My dollars won't help stabilize your tax base to keep your taxes lower.
My dollars won't fund local shops in your city... If those shops go out of business because of loss of tourist revenue...
your taxes will go even higher... but I no longer care.
If Proctors closes and they tear down that one of a kind beautiful building... I don't give a rats a$$.

If the rest of Schenectady is reflected in this board... It deserves to fail.  Lets talk again once those businesses in your
city fail and Proctors closes.  

A couple of blocks is called thriving....wow...heard it all....

Quoted from Box A Rox

Lets talk again once those businesses in your city fail and Proctors closes.  

Sorry Box, the City has failed.

If the neighborhoods became safe, people moved back into the homes guess what - the City would not be failing.

Your $65 Proctors ticket - none of that comes back to the taxpayers...it's exempt.

All these businesses you 'frequent' - they are not contributing to the City taxbase. Want to help out, support a local business which pays taxes - Perreca's Bakery, maybe the local bars like BL's or Slicks in the Stockade, Katbird Shop....Bombers pays nothing, VanDyke received $175K Plex loan to bail out the Plex (not repayable for years), Clinton's Ditch had a loan of $31K 'forgiven' by the Plex.

You might not be able to see it Box, but these businesses are killing the homeowners. Your $15 margarita won't change that.  

Quoted from DemocraticVoiceOfReason

Schenectady is MUCH better today after 8 years of Democrats working together to improve it.

MUCH better??????    Are you willing to clarify that comment by finishing the sentence, specifically, "Schenectady is MUCH better today for the political cronies and downtown millionaires after ..... improve it; but I, DV, admit it is substantially worse for the homeowners and residents."

That would be an accurate statement, right DV????????    It's better for the connected few.    

But tell us how it is better for the homeowners and residents.   Can you do that?   Or are you going to avoid responding with how it's better for the homeowners and residents because trying to respond to that would mean you would have to correctly and accurately state that the homeowners and residents are FAR FAR FAR worse off "after 8 years of Dems working together to ruin it."

Quoted from rachel72

Sorry Box, the City has failed.

If the neighborhoods became safe, people moved back into the homes guess what - the City would not be failing.

Your $65 Proctors ticket - none of that comes back to the taxpayers...it's exempt.

All these businesses you 'frequent' - they are not contributing to the City taxbase. Want to help out, support a local business which pays taxes - Perreca's Bakery, maybe the local bars like BL's or Slicks in the Stockade, Katbird Shop....Bombers pays nothing, VanDyke received $175K Plex loan to bail out the Plex (not repayable for years), Clinton's Ditch had a loan of $31K 'forgiven' by the Plex.

You might not be able to see it Box, but these businesses are killing the homeowners. Your $15 margarita won't change that.  

Perreca's Bakery?  I have eaten there and I've purchased their bread, both at their Schenectady location and at
at retailers in other cities.

You've convinced me that I'm wasting my time on Schenectady... If the residents don't care about their city, then
neither do I.

I pay my taxes every quarter.

All I'm asking is for the Downtown businesses to pay as well.

Again, come to the City every month. But if you really believed in this Renaissance, the rebirth of Schenectady, then move here.

Quoted from mikechristine1

That would be an accurate statement, right DV????????    It's better for the connected few.    

But tell us how it is better for the homeowners and residents.   Can you do that?   Or are you going to avoid responding with how it's better for the homeowners and residents because trying to respond to that would mean you would have to correctly and accurately state that the homeowners and residents are FAR FAR FAR worse off "after 8 years of Dems working together to ruin it."

The Green Market is a big success because it is run by unpaid volunteers not an overpaid alleged "planner" who is really a failed DEM town chairman. Things are much WORSE for the average taxpayer. They can't sell their homes. There is no retail Downtown-no sales tax revenue generated. There's nothing to buy Downtown. If things are so great follow Biden's sage advice and get skin in the game. BTW, Schenectady County is not the same as Fulton nor Montgomery Counties. This County voted to raise regressive sales taxes for Metrograft. Where's your outrage for the poor residents having to support multi-millionaire developers? Your outrage is very subjective. This is about more than nice facades with no jobs behind them.

If Schenectady is so great Box, move here buy a house, pay the outrageous taxes, and put up with the crime that is an everyday occurrence then you'll have earned the right to rave about how good the city is.

Like all the rest of the DEM sock puppets here Boxy likes to cheer lead from afar. But he buys apples here once a month so he can say the taxes are groovy and the corruption is mighty fine!

People are not UNHAPPY that there are some thriving businesses! They are UNHAPPY that the taxes go up, the service goes down and the City leaders FORGOT there is more to the city than DOWNTOWN. The neighborhoods are deteriorating rapidly and wildly and there is no relief in site. Frustration has mounted to the point where people want desperately to get out- and those that do are the PRODUCERS. The PRODUCERS are the homeowners who PAY TAXES. any increase in the County Sales Tax numbers has gone into the county coffers to be spent on patronage, raises, new county programs and such. The City taxpayers see no relief. City revenues are being poured into the rathole of subsidized housing for slobs who want to move here for a free ride ON THE BACKS OF THE PRODUCERS and PENSIONS.

And what does the city do about the discontent? They send a COP HERE who calls himself VISITOR to monitor and watch  and record everything we say and write. He is a political officer- the kind that was in the Red Army (many of whom incidentally, were shot in the back in battle by other Red Army soldiers.)

So there is your answer. People are disgusted. Utterly.

public pensioners are no different than welfare recipients

Quoted from Shadow

If Schenectady is so great Box, move here buy a house, pay the outrageous taxes, and put up with the crime that is an everyday occurrence then you'll have earned the right to rave about how good the city is.

Where I live people cry moan and complain about... TAXES, JOBS, A EMPTY DOWNTOWN, LOW HOME VALUES, CRIME. You act as if Schenectady is alone ... that you are the only city suffering with these problems.

I have a home and pay way too much in property tax... but I WANT TO LIVE HERE, so I do.
You have a home and pay too much in property tax... And DON'T WANT TO LIVE THERE, SO ... DON'T.
Sell your home at below value... Just like I would have to do if I sold my home, and move to some other community...
a community with low taxes, no crime, plenty of jobs, and a thriving downtown.  OH.  There are none.

Quoted from Box A Rox

Where I live people cry moan and complain about... TAXES, JOBS, A EMPTY DOWNTOWN, LOW HOME VALUES, CRIME. You act as if Schenectady is alone ... that you are the only city suffering with these problems.

I have a home and pay way too much in property tax... but I WANT TO LIVE HERE, so I do.
You have a home and pay too much in property tax... And DON'T WANT TO LIVE THERE, SO ... DON'T.
Sell your home at below value... Just like I would have to do if I sold my home, and move to some other community...
a community with low taxes, no crime, plenty of jobs, and a thriving downtown.  OH.  There are none.

Difference is, the reason why we can complain and you can not is that we have the highest taxes in the state.  And the things that are happening are happening without transparency.  When you have things that don't make sense going on (Demolishing 440 State Street after a full renovation or the Gillette House fiasco) and no one explains what was done with our tax dollars then it just smells bad.