IT'S THAT TIME OF YEAR - PART "QUATRE"

Skip Scirocco – D

Skip Scirocco, The Commissioner of Public Works, where do we start?  Well, it all started when Valerie Keehn ran for her 2^nd term and we all know the shafting that Tom McTygue gave her for 2 years.  Valerie was a decent Mayor but because of the squabbles along with her removing McTygue’s brother Billy from a seat on the Planning Board which in his position as Director of Public Works was at most unethical and may have been illegal started the bad blood, but she did what no other politician ever did and that was taking down McTygue while in the process it also cost her re-election.  Now, the story.  Skip, with the Democrat Party’s backing successfully drubbed McTygue.  The smartest thing that Skip did was name his Deputy (Pat Design), a former Deputy under McTygue, as a running mate.  Design was one of the best Public Works Deputy’s we’ve had in quite a while, so by naming him early on voters knew Design’s reputation and the results he produced which helped Skip immensely.

Just off topic a bit, some may be asking why did Skip announced his Deputy early on and other Commissioner’s wait until after the election?  The answer is really simple if you think about it.  The person running for a Commissioner’s position already knows who they would like as their Deputy and most likely has already discussed the issue with him or her.  The problem is that the Deputy probably has a full time job and if the decision was announced early their employer may start looking for a replacement and let the person go before the election, thus putting that person in a bad spot if their boss doesn’t win.

Okay, back to our story.  Why does Skip deserve a D?  You must know that Skip is a very nice guy, but nice guys don’t necessarily make one qualified to be a head of a department that they have no business running.  The Commissioner had it covered when Design was the Deputy as the Department was running in tip top shape, Broadway was always clean, flowers always pretty, Congress Park always neat etc.  Skip then forced Design out of his position and replaced him with Tim Cogan, who knows about as much as Skip does in running the Department.  I know Skip lost a number of employees and that may have a small impact on the Department, I say small, good management should be able to still get the job done if you know what you are doing.

With the Casino fiasco, having an employee paid $54,000.00+ to hand out rakes and shovels as a punishment, selling water to homes and businesses outside the City (a practice started by McTygue), installing mail boxes in the middle of sidewalks, keeping Broadway looking just a tad messy etc. grants him the D rating.

We must also remember that when he was a County Supervisor he worked very hard to keep the Racino out of Saratoga and now complains that we do not get enough money from the operation.  I can’t remember if he was part of the lawsuit that the illustrious Joe Dalton filed to fight the Racino from moving into Saratoga, but I would think that since they are all part of the good old boy’s network, one would think he was.

The latest bit of information gathered is that the City has bought 2 new trucks for both the Commissioner and his Deputy and that both are unmarked but are the property of Saratoga Springs.  I could be wrong but I thought all City vehicles had to be marked with either the round City logo or marked Saratoga Springs.  Well, whatever, does anyone really care?  If they did, I’m sure they would show up once in a while and ask some questions, oh yes I remember, we are not allowed to do so.