SCHENECTADY : City worker eyed for assessor
Bureau of Receipts supervisor tapped
BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter
A longtime city employee may become the next assessor, taking the position vacated by Tina Dimitriadis.
Bureau of Receipts Supervisor Edward Waterfield has been tapped to be the next assessor, paperwork provided to the City Council for its Monday meeting indicated.
Mayor Gary McCarthy asked the council to postpone discussion for two weeks, and the council tabled the matter Monday. But in publicly available agenda materials, Finance Commissioner Deborah DeGenova explained that Waterfield would be hired for a salary of $81,828.
Dimitriadis was paid $73,000. Currently, Waterfield is paid $72,828.
McCarthy said he would not comment Monday on why he wants Waterfield. He will explain when he presents it to the council, he said.
“We’re still moving ahead with it,” he add- ed.
And he said no one else need apply.
“We said all comers, but it’s time to make some changes that are in the best interest of the city,” he said.
Councilwoman Leesa Perazzo said she would have some questions for the mayor. Among them might be Waterfield’s address, since Dimitriadis’ Colonie address became a point of contention between her and the mayor.
“I think he lives in the city,” Perazzo said, adding that she isn’t opposed to Waterfi eld.
“He’s a longtime city employee,” she said. “But obviously [the mayor ] wasn’t ready to bring anything forward to the council so I don’t know what he’s thinking. Until it is presented to us and we can ask questions, I don’t really have a comment.”
As supervisor of the Bureau of Receipts, Waterfi eld oversees tax collection. His replacement, an unnamed “long term Receipts employee,” would be paid $65,000.
That clerk would be replaced by someone paid $41,253, down from the current salary of $48,979.
If those salaries remain the same next year, it would save the city $6,726. But for this year, given that the salaries would not be changing until the last quarter, the city would save just enough to cover Waterfi eld’s raise.
DeGenova described it as a “netzero budget reallocation.”
McCarthy warned months ago that he was planning not to renew Dimitriadis’ contract, which expires Oct. 1. He said he would not rehire her because she would not move to the city. The city has a residency law requiring all employees to live here.
Dimitriadis lived in Troy when she was hired by the previous mayor, who regularly ignored the residency law when hiring department heads. Eventually, Dimitriadis moved — but not to Schenectady. She moved in with her ailing father in Colonie so that she could care for him.
She lobbied for an exemption from the residency law, but Mc-Carthy refused to let her take her request to the residency board. Employees can only ask for a waiver from the board if the mayor allows it. WEB OVERHAUL
In other business, the City Council got the fi rst look at a new section of the city website.
The city will publish regular “performance metrics,” showing how each department is accomplishing its tasks.
“It’s important to show transparency in government,” said Signal Control Supervisor John Coluccio, who presented the new section, “to show how we compare, from year to year and dollar to dollar.”
The section has data on crimes reported in the city for the past three years, through March of this year.
It also shows the number of calls, arrests, and tickets issued.
The Fire Department data include the number of fires, hazardous conditions and false calls from January to March, while the Finance Department has released data showing how much of the city’s budget has been spent thus far.
Councilwoman Marion Porterfi eld wanted more detail in fi nance, but McCarthy suggested waiting three to six months to see which items the public clicks on most. That way, he said, city officials could focus on gathering more details for the information that the public fi nds most interesting.
One of the most telling displays is a series of graphs for building permits, which show a substantial increase this year. The permit purchases are broken down by type and by month.
Councilman Carl Erikson liked that level of detail.
“What’s interesting there is we can see if building permits are growing, code enforcement is doing a good job,” he said.
The section also has decisions and reviews from the planning and historic district commissions and the zoning board.
In public works, the section tracks garbage and recycling in tons, by month.
The section will go live in the next 10 days, McCarthy said. There will be a link on the city’s homepage,
http://www.cityofschenectady.com.
Coluccio stressed that the section will grow.
“If we don’t put anything out there, we can’t expand it,” he said. “This is just the beginning, and certainly a lot can be added to it.”
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Carl's wife is ill and could not handle the stairs anymore. He has lived in Glenville for several years. They need to enforce this or better yet dump it. Lisa Perazo knew or should have known that Waterfield does not live in the City. Her comments idiotic-as always. The City sheeple better wake up before she is elected Mayor. With Denise Brucker fleeing 
