“If you look at what’s going on all around New York and around the country, cities are getting out of the trash business because it’s so hard to control costs,” said Horowitz. “But at the same time you can’t keep cutting services and never drop taxes. You have to give the residents something back.”
Tough sledding
The first-time candidate said he understands that it’s an uphill fight against a long-time incumbent with a two-decades-long record of service to run on, but he’s hoping that this year, Third Ward residents will be looking for a change.
“I know that I don’t have a record to run on,” said Horowitz. “But People need to look at the last 10 years and look at who’s making the choices here and if they think those have been good choices.”
Landi’s record, by contrast, stretches back from the frantic efforts to get Kingston on its feet after IBM left town to the tough budget battles following the 2008 economic meltdown. In recent years, he has hammered relentlessly on the dire state of the city’s finances, railed against bloated departmental budgets and called for a hard line in negotiations with city unions.
Most controversially, Landi has floated the idea of Kingston declaring municipal bankruptcy, a move that he said would free the city from onerous contracts with public employee unions and set the stage for an economic rebirth. As head of the Common Council’s finance committee, Landi, a retired Department of Corrections employee, has pushed for stricter controls on city spending, including less reliance on municipal bonds. Landi did not return calls for comment as of deadline.
