THOUGHTS & THINGS

It is my understanding that all City vehicles have to be marked with either City emblem with Saratoga Springs somewhere on the side of the vehicle, or like the Police & Fire cars & trucks the City name spelled out with the exception of Police undercover vehicles.  You may ask yourself, why does the Commissioner of Public Works and his Deputy ride around with the City of Saratoga Springs vehicles with no designation that they are Saratoga city vehicles?  Many people I know see the Deputy at the Mall, Targets, Walmart and they say at clubs during working hours.  If a vehicle is owned by the City then they should be marked as such, unless Skip & Tim are using their own vehicles.

It is now known that both Andrew Jarosh and Ken Ivins will be vying for the County Treasurer’s job which pays around $99,000.00 per year in salary alone.  Saratoga County's cities and towns will be endorsing one of these 2 sometime in the near future.  I predict that Jarosh will get the City of Saratoga’s nod and Ivins will pick up the bulk of the other committees endorsements with John Herrick’s backing. Herrick is not fond of Saratoga Springs candidates as we found out during last year’s election when the County Republican Committee gave hardly any money to boost the chances of Republican candidates.

Ivins has the experience of being the City’s Finance Commissioner and did a good job while in office and should be the front runner.

Jarosh, although young has the benefit of his wife being the Deputy Commissioner of Ivins and now a high level employee of Sonny Bonacio, so money will not be a problem for him.

It will be interesting to see if a primary will be held in September between these 2 or if Ivins is the endorsed candidate will Jarosh accept the position of Chairman of Saratoga Springs Republican Committee?

Is there any truth in the story I heard regarding a pass to not pay for water hookups that a local developer received from the DPW Commissioner to the tune of close to $1 million dollars?  If this is true that means the taxpayers of Saratoga Springs will have to pick up the tab.

We will be checking this out to see if it is indeed true and if it is we will try to FTM.

RIP VAN WINKLE (SCIROCCO) WOKE UP

I attended the Council meeting on Tues. April 1^st and as I sat there and watched the SAVE group who were happy in one sense but nervous in another.  The were thanking the Council for changing their minds from a year ago when they voted yes to expanded gaming by a 5-0 margin to changing their minds in March not to allow the expansion of table games.  However, they were a little nervous as was Commissioner Scirocco because the vote they took in March was non binding as they wanted to see what the RFA required and also see what negotiations could be achieved with Saratoga Casino & Raceway.

The issue looks moot for Saratoga getting a casino anyway because of the Albany proposal.  That proposal blows Saratoga out of the water and will truly become a destination venue which looks like it will even cut into the track season with the plans that the Albany casino has.

SAVE, now wants to go after the Saratoga Casino & Raceway to not be able to expand at all.  Get this through your heads SAVE, the City cannot make the Thoroughbred track, Harness track or Racino do anything or make them jump through any hoops to build or not build.  The City does not own the property, the State governs what can or cannot be built there.  The convention center and hotel will get under way very soon and has the go ahead to do so.

Now here is the comical part of the meeting.  If you remember at the State of the City address, Mayor Yepsen appointed a local Racing Committee made up of racing people from the Thoroughbred, Harness and businesses dealing with both industries to monitor the effect on developments that will keep our City officials up to date on any positive or negative trends that start to happen.  She introduced the Committee members who are outstanding in their own fields and they stood to a round of applause.  Last night when Mayor Yepsen announced that this Committee would look at a proposal for a casino to be placed somewhere close by and what it may mean for our economy, our sleepy Commissioner asked who appointed this committee?  Why is this Racing Committee just for Saratoga Springs, we already have a NYS Racing Committee?  When was this Committee appointed?  Obviously Scirocco fell asleep during the Christmas Holiday’s and woke up on April Fool’s Day. 

Speaking about Rip Van Scirocco, is everyone happy with how clean downtown has looked the past few years?  I have received some comments from friends that the streets never looked as dirty as they have been in the last few years.  I think either Rip or his outside Deputy needs to stay on top of this and they may even have to check with the inside Deputy, Donna Buckley to make things work.

In closing, I would like to ask Commissioner Scirocco to apply for the license to apply the copper sulfate to the ponds in Congress Park this year before you drift off again.  You forgot last year and the ponds looked like swamps which were quite embarrassing when showing a beautiful park to out of town visitors.  Get with it