. It is, as I write this, on Friday afternoon, very nice outside. Apropos of that, as well as the fact that I couldn't really think of any other breezy, topical way to start this thing, having assembled all its other parts, I just took the Garnet Douglass Baltimore Trail , which has an entrance on Hill St. between Adams and Jefferson streets, into Prospect Park.The trailhead was marked with a sign, unveiled this past August , that is now in the shop, getting repaired, I'm told, after someone tore it out of the ground and brought it into the woods (why, idk). Notwithstanding its temporary hiddenness, the trail, which leads to the park's defunct swimming pool, is in good shape and worth a walk, especially today!

The board of the Troy Community Land Bank, a city-affiliated nonprofit and public authority, held its first regular meeting since August on Wednesday.As director Tony Tozzi previously told the city council , the land bank, in a break from its typical demolish-or-stabilize approach to the distressed properties it acquires, is seeking to renovate these two buildings in a bid to attract buyers unmoved by its less immediately habitable offerings.Local nonprofit design firm TAP has completed an RFP for the renovation projects, which Tozzi hopes to release next week. The board would then select a contractor for the job at its regular meeting next month.On Tuesday, Tozzi emailed deputy mayor Monica Kurzejeski and assessor Sharon Martin to ask about the possibility of changing the city's foreclosure sales process to allow the land bank to identify and purchase properties before they are advertised to the public.As of Wednesday morning, Tozzi was not aware of having received a response from the two officials and further acknowledged that the city council seems not to be in favor of the prospective change. I asked city councilmember Anasha Cummings about this. He replied:

We have discussed it a bit, and are definitely interested in discussing the disposition process with them broadly. I am not sure official first look provisions will be necessary since they are increasing their sale rate and will probably start to rank higher in our current process naturally as selling them property has broader longterm benefits.

Jury Watching

Stewart's Shops moved this house one lot south to accommodate the construction of a larger store on Hoosick. The company is donating the property to the land bank, which expects to take title within the next week or so. A celebration is planned for Oct. 26 at 10 A.M. The property was occupied before it was purchased and moved, but it now may need "mechanicals" and other stuff. Tozzi said he's inclined to find a buyer who would live in the building.This property is, or was, part of a bundle of properties set to be demolished within the next week or so by a city contractor. (The land bank reimburses the city for these demos—likely a mutually beneficial arrangement because the parties, in merging their demo lists, can get a kind of bulk rate.) But then Pawel Paliwoda, a mason/roofer linked to Brooklyn-based Minnow Associates , made an offer to purchase and rehab the building.Tozzi said 3235 Seventh's exterior looks fine but that the interior of the three-story brick building "literally looks like a bomb went off." He is waiting to receive a report from a structural engineer regarding the building's stability.The board eventually voted to take the property off of the demo list on the condition that the engineer's report finds that the building is not in danger of collapsing. This was intended to avoid a hypothetical-but-not-implausible scenario where, in the time after the land bank takes the building off the demo list but before Paliwoda takes title, an emergency demolition is ordered, which the land bank would have to pay for.(As part of the package deal, the demo of the property would cost $57,000. An emergency demo would likely cost around $90,000, TCLB director of operations Chris Brown said Wednesday.)

Maybe you heard that Ronald Epstein, the member of the Troy Police Department whose looming criminal trial I wrote about for TL5, pleaded guilty to one count of official misconduct. (His former colleague, John Comitale, who was slated for trial later this year in connection with the same matter, also took a plea deal.)



I spent the better part of Monday in court, watching jury selection for Epstein's trial, which got off to a rocky start. Before the judge, on loan from Albany County, even arrived, potential juror #171, who already had been excused from service, expressed in the courtroom what the judge later characterized as "an opinion about the case." The judge interviewed one-by-one the dozens of people who said they had heard the remark to determine if they could nonetheless remain impartial.



I don't think that process resulted in the dismissal of any potential jurors, but it ate up a lot of time. Then the judge asked if there was anyone who, because of the nature of the case (alleged police misconduct), felt they could not uphold their duty. Again, dozens of people were individually interviewed, only this time most if not all of them ended up being dismissed.



Eventually, 21 potential jurors were seated in the jury box, and the judge began to ask them, in open court, individual questions about their backgrounds. People came from all over the county. Among the occupations I heard mentioned: health care rep, retired restaurateur, environmental lawyer, nurse, and Spectrum field tech.



The day ended before we learned much more about these people, and though all but one, dismissed after she disclosed that she'd read a lot about the case in the TU, returned on Tuesday for more questioning, their presence proved unnecessary. After a protracted morning delay, the judge arrived a little before noon and told the room that he'd accepted Epstein's guilty plea in another room in the same building. He thanked everyone for their participation.

It's a little disappointing that the public may now never receive a full accounting of the June 9, 2017 incident, its immediate aftermath, and perhaps the disbanded drug unit's past activities. Hearing testimony from its members and associates would have afforded us a rare, if somewhat limited in scope, look at the police department's operations.



The two retired detectives will be sentenced on Nov. 13, the TU reports.

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