Sean Eldridge (left) and U.S. Rep. Chris Gibson. (Photo: Phyllis McCabe)
According to the Federal Registry, poverty for a family of four is $23,850 a year. Ten-ten generates a gross income of just over $20,000.
And finally, hats off to League of Women Voters stalwarts Dare Thompson and Cindy Bell, debate timekeepers. A pair of no-nonsense hardnoses, the pair kept candidates to stated time restraints. As a result, bloviation was minimal, numerous subjects were covered, and the meeting was adjourned almost on schedule. Huzzah.
Here and there
Republican Lisa Fisher’s long-shot hopes for a seat on the state Supreme Court dropped to virtually no-shot when a judge in Albany knocked her off the Conservative Party line this week. Fisher, a Greene County lawyer, faces Albany Democrat Justin Corcoran, an Albany County attorney, in the heavily Democratic Third Judicial District. Her Conservative Party nomination, secured at convention, did not survive challenge, but did produce this curious response from her campaign manager: “It’s time for Justin Corcoran to stop acting like a sore loser,” said manager Kathleen Campbell of a candidate who just won. “This latest round of roadblocks to electing a qualified, experienced woman to the Supreme Court continues the Albany County Democratic Party’s war on women,” she said.
And I thought it was the Republicans who were warring on women.
A few folks at the Congressional debate were complaining about its “rural setting.”
“You needed a car or some other form of transportation to get here,” complained Kingston minister Al Ahlstrom. Ulster Town Supervisor Jim Quigley, working late on his 2015 budget, walked over from nearby town hall.
Former Kingston Republican chairman Tony Sinagra (he stepped down after Republicans lost seats in 2011) says he’s back in harness. I wish him luck in attempting to restore even a modicum of balance in city politics, but what was Eldridge saying about different results with the same people?
Budget time
I had intended to devote reams of copy to the announcement of the 2015 county budget, but really, wasn’t it just more of the same-o, same-o?
Drafted in deepest secrecy over the summer and facing an earlier than usual deadline, the budget was brought forth by County Executive Mike Hein with minimal advance notice to the public. Even the county’s chief fiscal officer, Comptroller Elliott Auerbach, said he was given notice, via e-mail, only the day before.
The budget, as usual, holds the line on property taxes, even shaving a little less than 2 percent off this year’s levy, fully funds safety-net expenses and election costs and even sets aside something called a “property tax reserve fund” of $1.5 million. If anybody’s worried about Hein’s drawing down $19 million from the fund balance to make all this happen, they’re not saying.
“All I can say,” said Assemblyman Kevin Cahill, “is what happened to the Cahill Sales Tax Crisis? Maybe they didn’t need that extension after all. Smarter people than I are saying I should just bite my tongue and take a victory lap.”
Cahill raises an interesting question. Two months ago, county Budget Director Burt Gulnick, a Hein appointee, was waving red flags all around the County Office Building. Thanks to Cahill blocking extension of the temporary sales tax last winter, costing the county a $5.4 million shortfall in revenues, finances were precarious, he said.
And what about that election-cost takeover, estimated at around $700,000 a year? Last summer, no doubt with Hein twisting arms behind the scenes, the legislature, harkening to Gulnick’s grim budget preview, voted it down 17-4.
And then Hein puts it in his budget? The legislators should feel like fools. For Hein to warn that fiscal “catastrophe” could result if they tinker with his budget amounts to piling on.
In any event, Hein has met all Cahill’s “demands,” put forth three years ago. Thus the victory lap. I assume Hein has a different conclusion.
The bottom line is that this will be a politically popular budget, as designed, one that most legislators, and Hein, will be proud to run on next year. At the same time, it is becoming more evident that it’s not so much what this executive does but how he does it.
I was at the debate and I would not have noted at any point did I see “Gibson squirm” as you did. Perception is an interesting thing where partisan politics and reporting are concerned. Your tale is not accurate, highly entertaining in that…”really?” value… but not accurate.
Any perception that Congressman Gibson would make Eldridge look in experienced and unprepared in these debates is gone. Eldridge has come across as “the grown-up” and Gibson has appeared unnerved and frankly, angry.