A weblog about the politics and affairs of the old and glorious City of Albany, New York, USA. Articles written and disseminated from Albany's beautiful and historic South End by Daniel Van Riper. If you wish to make a response, have anything to add or would like to make an empty threat, please contact me. Click on this link to add this site to your RSS feed. December 29, 2012 At The Dawn Of Good Government Kathy Sheehan announces her run for mayor of Albany, another challenger hovers and the Treasurer’s office is now wide open The presidential elections are barely over and already the City of Albany is gearing up for a mayoral election. If you don’t want to know about it then too bad. Unless you hide in a box for the next nine months or so, you will hear about it. So you might as well pay attention and you might as well register as a Democrat if you want your vote to count. I’m talking about the September 2013 Democratic Party Primary, which in the City of Albany and lately in the surrounding suburbs is almost always the deciding election, the November general election being merely a rubber stamp. Once upon a time back in the day the Primary voters always obediently voted for Old Boy Democrats. Occasionally a “dissident Democrat” would challenge the Old Boys and even more rarely win, but that was at most an aberration. Not any longer. These days a majority of the Democratic Primary voters are a select well-informed and independent group. As we clearly saw this past September, the best way for a candidate to win the Primary with voters like these is to demonstrate competence and a fair mastery of the pressing issues. The candidates in this last Primary who relied on vague slogans and negative attacks were rejected by this select group, and we can expect the same in 2013. Kathy Sheehan Announces Her Candidacy For Mayor Of Albany, Washington Park, Nov. 17, 2012 The big news on the mayoral front is that City of Albany Treasurer Kathy Sheehan has announced that she is running for mayor. This was not what you would call a surprise to anyone who follows this sort of thing, Ms. Sheehan’s intentions have been common knowledge in political circles for about a year. I would say that she made her official announcement at the earliest possible opportunity, that is, shortly after the presidential elections. She chose a sunny Saturday afternoon November 17 in front of the Moses statue in Washington Park to announce. I thought that was pretty risky expecting the weather to cooperate like that, but it did. Ms. Sheehan is generally anything but a risk taker, but I suppose if you plan for all the things that you can plan for then it makes the occasional calculated risk plausible. Anyway, she had an indoor venue reserved downtown just in case. From what I saw and from the photos that I took I would guess that about 250 people came out for the announcement. Some of the same old activists and political junkies were there, but most of the crowd was composed of people that I did not know. If you consider that the people who attend these sort of things are the people who care enough to show up, then this looked like a very good start for her campaign. Kathy Sheehan Waits For The Applause To Subside Right near the beginning of her remarks she declared, “Let me make one thing clear. I’m not running against anyone - I’m running for mayor. And with your support I will win.” In fact this was the first thing she said to the crowd after the cheering had subsided after she made the official “I’m Kathy Sheehan and I’m here to announce that I’m running for mayor” statement. I heard that. For much too long the City has been divided into two camps, those who support the current mayor and those who want to get rid of Him. Not since 1997 have the voters been presented with a convincing alternative to the incumbent, a challenger who can win and who at the very least is capable of running the City. This was certainly true during the last mayoral race in 2009, when two challengers emerged who bumbled and fought with each other and whose campaigns eventually collapsed in penniless ennui, first one then the other. Ms. Sheehan’s 2013 candidacy is, as they say, a game changer. In her short time as Treasurer she has transformed the office from an embarrassingly old fashioned tool of corruption into an efficient 21st century operation that all of a sudden produces new significant revenue for the City. And she did this without mass layoffs, rather she brought in new managers and shifted longterm employees to other positions without cutting salaries. One might ask, why wasn’t this done before? I would answer, we’ve never had anyone run the department who thought like this before, and we’ve never had a Treasurer who was strong willed enough to defy the Old Boy political machine. As a long suffering taxpayer, I’d like to see this kind of benign efficiency spread to all departments of City government, and I’d like to see it done as soon as possible. Kathy Sheehan And Husband Bob Sheehan But the problems of Albany City government go beyond mere inefficiently run departments. The structural problem is that the departments have no way to communicate with each other except in a limited fashion through the department heads, but mostly the departments must communicate through the executive, the mayor. In current business parlance, each department is stuck in it’s own “silo,” which makes cooperative planning across Albany City government impossible. As for why we are saddled with this leftover 19th Century model, it is not by accident but it is most certainly by design. Isolation is a form of top down control, if all communication must pass through the mayor’s office then the mayor makes all the interdepartmental decisions and retains total control of everybody and everything inside City Hall. Stifling interdepartmental communication is also a way of preventing alliances from forming that might end up challenging the power at the top. The Crowd Listens Carefully To Kathy Kathy Sheehan addressed this issue succinctly in her announcement speech in Washington Park. She cited her experience as a vice president and general counsel (she has a degree from Albany Law) at Intermagnetics, a medical device manufacturer: When I came to City Hall three years ago, it reminded me of the company I started working for back in 1996. Intermagnetics was a pretty good business, located just up the road in Latham. The problem was we were stuck. We weren’t growing and we were losing out to our competitors. We had a culture that resisted change and wasn’t accountable. When something went wrong, everyone blamed somebody else -- some other department. So I became part of a new leadership team and together, we completely transformed the business by breaking down barriers between departments, empowering our employees and creating a Boundaryless Culture -- no more excuses, no more walls, just hard work and a strong drive to deliver excellence every day. I’ve used that experience to professionalize the Treasurer’s office, make property tax collections more efficient and implement collection systems that are accountable and fair to everyone. I’m interested in that clunky word “Boundaryless.” Ms. Sheehan is referring to a relatively new approach to organizational structure, where the artificial walls between departments within an organization are perforated or removed, thus fostering active regular communication between individuals in the organization wherever needed. In addition the barrier between the inside of the organization and the outside is also perforated, that way personnel inside can communicate more freely with both customers and with organizations on the outside. A Mind-boggling Boundaryless Informational Flow Chart For A Manufacture, Which Attempts To Show That Everything Is Connected To Everything Else (From TOGAF) First described in a 1989 paper, this once abstract notion has rapidly become mainstream applied business thought in the 21st Century. In recent years the adaptation of Boundaryless has become a critical adaptation with the rise of universal personal communication and social media. Basically, us regular folks with smartphones in our pockets expect instant communication and full transparency, we no longer have patience for uninformed employees or have time to wait for quarterly reports. If this sounds too far out and radical then consider that some of the most successful corporations instituted Boundaryless some time ago, including Apple, GE, Hewlitt-Packard and IKEA to name a few. Of course there are degrees of implementation here, certain boundaries within these organizations have been removed and others maintained as the top managers have thought are needed. For the most part Boundaryless has been applied by these big corporations as a method of solving the problem of slow response times. One could also say that Boundaryless is just a fancy word for common sense, in order to survive and prosper a business has to be responsive both to its customers and to itself. Why not apply that to municipal government? Shouldn’t government function smoothly and be easily accessible to the public that it is supposed to serve? Kathy Sheehan Listens To A Supporter Ms. Sheehan was part of a team that turned around Intermagnetics by applying Boundaryless methods of organization, but after she did that the then valuable company was sold to a big international holding corporation for some fabulous amount of money. Of course as a mere vice president, that was not her decision to make. Apparently being an innovative and successful employee left her without a job, but that’s how corporate socialism works. Any company that makes something useful and provides jobs is all too often consumed and destroyed by some bigger foreign entity. Fortunately for her that “merger” (i.e. consumption) of her employer left her amply compensated for her excellent work and fortunately for us gave her the opportunity to run for office and use her innovative business skills for her community. I haven’t heard how much Kathy Sheehan intends to implement Boundaryless ideas in Albany City government when she becomes our next mayor. I do know the word indicates a range of ideas that have become very respectable in the world of business. But as far as I know there are no municipal governments in America that have instituted these Boundaryless principles, if she does implement these ideas in Albany even partially then from what I understand it will be a first. But there is no question that our current senile City government of antiquated methods and isolated silos answerable to the mayor is barely able to function and is a constant drain on the taxpayer. Because of her experience Kathy Sheehan knows how to fix this seemingly insurmountable structural problem that the incumbent mayor clearly cannot handle. As Treasurer she has already proven that she is ready and able to apply her experience to make our City government work. Corey Ellis In My Neighborhood In 2009, Interviewed By Ken Screvin Kathy Sheehan is not the only mayoral challenger to have emerged this season. We have one other active candidate who has not yet formally announced but is campaigning as if he has. Like Ms. Sheehan, he is building support within the Democratic Party and like her is already lobbying the Working Families Party for that second line on the ballot. You all will recall that back in 2009 Corey Ellis made what turned out to be a painfully quixotic run for mayor. You will also recall that I supported Mr. Ellis strongly and tried to convince the readers of this blog that he would make a great mayor. Well, I managed to convince myself that he would, and as recently as a year ago I was still deluding myself into thinking that he was capable of running the City. But I sure wasn’t able to convince too many other people. It looks like Mr. Ellis is planning to try again. Never mind that like last time he has no chance of winning whatsoever and can only act as a spoiler in the race. And never mind that this time around he has no solid base of supporters whatsoever and continues to have no significant source of cash that he can tap. He has been making it clear that he is going to go for it anyway. Corey Ellis Fails To Engage Jerry Jennings

At The Library Debate, 2009 During that miserable campaign in 2009 the man proved that he has no charisma and can’t even make a decent speech. His natural supporters, that is, those who desperately want to see fundamental reform of the political structure of this City, were divided down the middle after he fought a rancorous head to head competition with another mayoral candidate who finally dropped out of the race at the end of the summer. After that spectacle any chance the Ellis campaign had of winning was nil to none. By Primary Day Mr. Ellis’ campaign resembled a battered scow that had just barely managed to wash up on the beach. But despite all that and the fact that he proved that he was incapable of raising enough cash for lawn signs, he still managed to get 44 percent of the vote to Jennings’ 56 percent. The plain fact is that while most people were not happy with the idea of Mr. Ellis as mayor, almost every one of those 44 percent that I’ve talked to voted against the incumbent. In other words, 44 percent of the Primary electorate in 2009 preferred a warm body over Jerry Jennings. This depth of this opposition was not lost on Jennings. You could see it on His face, there was no strutting about town crowing about His “victory” the way He did after defeating Jack McEneny in 1997. For a month or so He couldn’t even crack a smile in public. I think that right now this must be weighing very heavily in His mind. Anton Konev and Corey Ellis Celebrating President Obama's Election At Jillian's In 2008 Shortly after the Primary Corey Ellis left Albany and moved to Clifton Park. I’m told that he currently resides uptown in the 11th Ward where he got himself elected to the Democratic Committee, and with the assistance of Common Council member Anton Konev was chosen by the committee as ward leader. Basically, he is reestablishing himself as a resident of the City of Albany so that he can make a credible run for elected office. I have very little patience with people who present themselves as leaders of my community but skedaddle to the suburbs at the first opportunity. But that was hardly the jaw dropping news for us former supporters of Mr. Ellis. In the Primary this past September Mr. Ellis did not publicly endorse two term Albany County District Attorney David Soares in his bid for reelection. Yes, you read that right. Corey Ellis, who used to follow around David Soares so closely that people called him Soares’ Shadow, in effect supported challenger Lee Kindlon. (Although, to be fair, he did send $100 to Mr. Soares' campaign committee, but that's about it.) In addition he campaigned against State Senator Neil Breslin, claiming that the incumbent Senator’s sketchy opponent Shawn Morse, the newly installed chairman of the Albany County Legislature, was the more progressive of the two. Corey Ellis And District Attorney David Soares Flanking Union Activist Guillermo Perez, 2008 As a result, every last one of Corey Ellis’ progressive supporters from his 2009 mayoral campaign have dropped him like a lump of radioactive waste. The general consensus is that he has decided to get ahead in life by sucking up to the status quo. If that means running errands for the Old Boy power brokers, that wouldn’t be the first time we’ve seen that sort of sellout by progressive public figures in this City. Yeah, I was one of those hopeful fools who supported Corey Ellis back in 2009. I really hate to admit that I was wrong. The other day I said to a friend, “Perhaps my support for Corey Ellis in the last mayoral election was self-delusion born of wishful thinking.” This person rolled her eyes and said, “You think?” Kathy Sheehan Sworn In As Treasurer By Judge Anthony Cardona With Husband Bob Assisting, Dec. 31, 2009 (From ACT) As for the job of Treasurer, it is now open for anyone. Three years ago when Kathy Sheehan took charge, the Treasurer’s office was a horror show of inefficiency, dubious procedures and mysteriously lost revenue. No one in their right mind wanted the job except either a loyal minion of the mayor or a strong-willed experienced numbers wrangler like Ms. Sheehan. Now, whoever takes over the Treasurer’s job will benefit from Ms. Sheehan’s reforms which have completely transformed the department into a modern accounting office. Thus we might expect that several people will emerge who would not be afraid to run for the post and take over the department. Sure enough I’ve heard of three persons who are giving it serious consideration. Gary Domalewicz The Hearst Times Union has been mentioning longtime Albany County Legislator Gary Domalewicz who lives near Buckingham Pond. He has quite a bit of experience crunching numbers for the County and for several civic organizations. He has indicated to the media that he has already been gathering support for a run for Treasurer. The important thing to know about Mr. Domalewicz is his longtime close association with Jerry Jennings. For instance, Jennings tapped Mr. Domalewicz to try to unseat Jack McEneny from his Assembly seat back in 1998 (he lost decisively) and Jennings also used Mr. Domalewicz to faithfully channel His wishes into the mostly failed attempt to reform the City of Albany Charter back in the late 1990s. In other words, as Treasurer he will function as Jerry’s minion. Right now there are two other candidates who are seriously considering a run for Treasurer, but neither has yet made a clear commitment. Darius Shahinfar There have been rumors flying that lawyer Darius Shahinfar has been considering a run for Treasurer. For many years Mr. Shahinfar was a deputy attorney for Albany County and for a while worked as an aide to US Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. He quit that job first to run for Congress in 2008, and later ran for the new job of Auditor in the City of Albany. Lately he is in private practice, around my neighborhood he is best known as the spouse of County Legislator Noelle Kinsch. To find out the truth of this rumor I used a tried and true journalistic technique, I asked him if he planned to run. After a day-long ponderous silence Mr. Shahinfar emailed back to me a single sentence, “Some people have approached me and I am considering it.” After I thanked him he replied, “This might qualify as a scoop!” There you have it folks, an Albanyweblog exclusive, you heard it first at the slowblog. Dominick Calsolaro Last but not least, I’ve known for quite some time that Dominick Calsolaro has been seriously considering running for Treasurer. Again using that old journalistic technique to see if he is still considering, the other day he emailed back to me, ”Yes, I’m still considering running for Treasurer.” So I guess that qualifies as another exclusive. Booyah! Regular readers of this blog need no introduction to Dominick. For twelve years as a Common Council representative of my own First Ward, he has repeatedly demanded financial accountability by the City of Albany. When he started back in 2001 his open and ethical approach to finances was considered outrageous by our corrupt civic leaders, and early on he often found himself the only member of the Common Council on the side of common sense and accountability. But the voters of his Ward have always recognized his extraordinary honesty and commitment and returned him to office twice. Now Dominick is not alone in demanding fiscal accountability and the implementation of modern administrative methods across City government. From talking to him I know that he is deeply concerned about the Treasurer’s office remaining in good hands. He does not want to see the gains made by Kathy Sheehan dismantled by an irresponsible successor, so he is ready to step in and do the job if he feels that he has to. Current Mayor Jerry Jennings On Dec. 17 There seems to be a general assumption that Jerry Jennings is going to run for a fifth term, but so far no one knows for sure. For several years now I’ve listened to various political insiders confidently declare first that He is getting ready to quit any day now, and then the next time I talk to any of them they declare that He is going to stay in office until He dies. Like Erastus Corning did. I suspect that Jennings is sending out mixed signals about His intentions and enjoys sitting back and watching the contradictory rumors circulate. I’ve been hearing that lately He has been disengaged from much of the daily workings of the City, that instead of micromanaging he’s been giving more autonomy to His commissioners and letting them run amok. Having lost control of the police department and of the Treasurer’s office there is a lot less government that He can micromanage. I mean, what’s more important to an absolute ruler than the cash and the cops. If He wants to exercise absolute power all He’s got left is Buildings And Codes. In the past He has been content to let code enforcement languish as an afterthought administered by the Albany Fire Department (AFD,) basically using codes mostly to harass political opponents who own property. Having participated in the efforts to reform the pathetic and underfunded codes system in this City, I can knowledgeably say that He has never shown any interest in serious code enforcement and has parried all citizen initiated efforts in that direction. In September 2011 He announced that He was reorganizing Buildings And Codes under a new and powerful unofficial commissioner, a lawyer named Jeffery Jamison. Under Jamison the whole system is still a chaotic joke used mainly for harassment, as The Wife and I found out last year (2011) when the Jennings administration attempted to use Buildings And Codes to run us out of business and bankrupt us. (I’m still too angry about that to tell the story coherently. Let’s leave it there for now.) Jerry Jennings Conversing With Albany County Executive Dan McCoy On Dec. 5 The mayor is still the most important and most powerful public personage in the City, even if His power is no longer absolute. No real reform is possible in this City unless the mayor is willing to carry out fundamental reforms. But Jennings has demonstrated again and again that He is not willing to do that, so the only solution is to replace him with a new and better mayor. But I’ll say one thing about me and Jerry Jennings. A lot of people assume that we hate the very sight of each other, that He and I can barely stand to be in the presence of the other. Well, you may be surprised to learn that nothing is further from the truth. As a matter of fact not only are we civil when we meet, sometimes He and I chat amiably. For real. For all the crap that He has dropped on my head (and The Wife’s) over the years, all the neglect and degradation that He has pointedly directed at my immediate neighborhood, and despite all the godawful nasty horrible things I’ve said about Him on this blog these past seven years, the two of us get along fine on a personal level. Not famously, mind you, you won’t catch us buying each other drinks and slapping backs at His favorite tavern. But we’re okay with each other when we meet. I’m not too sure why that is. After all, His capacity for carrying a grudge and exacting revenge at any price is all too well known in local political circles. And usually when certain persons use me as a target like He has, well, I have a tendency to chase down such persons and pound them with a truckload of atom bombs dipped in cat pee. We’ve certainly hurt each other’s feelings plenty. But no matter what I say or do He grimaces and brushes it off, and no matter how much He dumps crap on me and on mine the more willing I am to fight back. The only words I can think of to describe our relationship is grudging respect. Our Next Mayor Kathy Sheehan That doesn’t mean I’m not more than ready to see Him exit City Hall, preferably never to return. I may not have been born in the City of Albany like He has, but this is where I live and I have no intention of leaving. I am disgusted and tired with the institutional corruption and casual incompetence that has systematically wrecked my community until it is nearly uninhabitable. I want a permanent end to decline. With the candidacy of Kathy Sheehan we have a chance of electing a chief executive who will bring a level of competence and integrity that this City has not experienced within living memory. No one can question her administrative experience or her willingness to deal with longstanding structural problems. In her short tenure as Treasurer she has demonstrated her ability to enact positive change rapidly without ruinous layoffs of City personnel and without disruption of essential services. It’s a long road from now to the September Democratic Primary. Anything can and probably will happen by the end of summer, so I will refrain from making any foolish predictions that I’ll regret. I’ll just say that with Kathy’s candidacy we have a great opportunity so let’s get behind her and save our City and save ourselves. Prior Post * * * Next Post Comments:

If you are having difficulties posting a comment, please email Daniel Van Riper. We are experimenting with our spam filters, and we do not want to exclude any legitimate commenters, just spammers! Posted by:Roger Green

Posted on:01/02/2013

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I voted for Corey in 2009, and hope to whatever deity exists that he NOT run in 2013 Posted by:Barbara

Posted on:01/02/2013

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There is something I do not understand at all about Albany. There will be some really controversial or sensational issue such as a police shooting or that kegs and eggs thing, and I will point out to an Albany resident that Jerry Jennings is nowhere to be heard from, and the Albany resident will respond with "What can the Mayor do about (an issue that is firmly within the purview of the mayor's office in any other city anywhere)?

Albanians, many of them, really don't see a connection between that guy they vote for and send in their tax money to pay for, and the conditions they live under. As if their taxes are just some kind of fact of life and aren't supposed to actually go for something that will make their lives better as citizens.

This is the mindset or mindless set that any challenger faces. Not that you can't fight city hall, but that there isn't any reason to. Posted by:GAH

Posted on:01/02/2013

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I think the organizational structure you refer to above is called "matrix management" and I think it's something that Governor Cuomo is trying to implement at the state level.

I'm curious to see where all this is going. Posted by:Dan Van Riper

Posted on:01/03/2013

Comments:

GAH- Absolutely not. From Wikipedia: "Matrix management is a type of organizational management in which people with similar skills are pooled for work assignments ...Each [employee] may have to work under several managers to get their job done. One disadvantage of matrix management is that it doubles the number of managers when compared to line management, and as the time to reach a decision increases with the number of managers."



As I understand, with "boundaryless" each employee reports to one manager, but is allowed to talk to or work with any other employee from any other department without having to first go through their manager. This gives a certain amount of trust and responsibility to each employee. This relieves management bottlenecks without increasing the number of managers, If instead, the more managers you have to report to, the more bottlenecks you have to contend with.



This is all new to me, so if I'm getting any of this wrong then I'd very much like to hear about it from any experts out there. Posted by:Cincinnatus

Posted on:01/10/2013

Comments:

Sigh. Let me begin by saying, yes, the Mayor needs to go and his administration of things is mediocre at best. He has appeared to make some relatively recent changes that might (keyword is "might") lead to better things: Krokoff is an improvement over his predecessors; being forced into a deal on the landfill debt by the Common Council is a good thing (by the way, this was not caused by Sheehan despite her misleading mailer) and could be the start of a more sensible policy out there; and possibly, contrary to what you suggest, Jamison has a better handle on the abandoned buildings situation than his predecessors ever did.





Alas, we do need a change. But, as I wrote here once before, having a former corporate lawyer at the helm--who also, like her predecessor, will lacks term limits--will not work out as you might hope.





Here’s why: what many "progressives" in Albany seem to miss (and it is clear by their local fawning over Breslin and over the re-election of Obama) is the fact that few if any of today's Democrats are really who they claim to be; these are not really "left-leaning" or "progressive-minded" individuals, much less candidates, much less actual elected officials. Instead, they merely represent a re-shuffling of the stale, old, deck.



We can expect that the favored of Albany will change from one set of social circles to another. Instead of drinking at Graney's with Police and Firefighters, the new elite will drink right up the block at the Tap and Tea Room with lawyers and staffers from the Assembly and Senate. Instead of golfing at Capital Hills and hanging out at Martel's, the new cluster will go to Mingle or New World Bistro. They also will buy their bread at All Good Bakers, although I can't say that I blame them on that one--even blind squirrels find nuts sometimes.



In either case, you have elitism that has not liked being held accountable (Jennings et al.) and elitism that will not like being held accountable (the "progressives" who aren't really, see above.



Politically, I have little faith in Sheehan doing more than changing the local winners and losers (and probably not by too much when it comes to City business, as she will want to cement her victory with contracts to the usual players and interests). Yes, she will bring the various bureaucracies into the 21st Century, but I expect no less from a person with her experience.



Will she place the bit in the mouth of the police when and where needed and try to address the sources of crime rather than the symptoms? (A tall order on the local level I know, but someone has to try something different.) Will she find ways to respect and empower the neighborhoods to participate more directly in matters that directly effect them? Will she, in short, be "bottom-up" or "top-down?" My hope is the former, my guess given what I know about most--but not all--"progressives" is, sadly, the latter.





At the end of the day, unless Calsolaro were to run, I have little faith in anyone else at this point really trying to change things.



Posted by:Dan Van Riper

Posted on:01/12/2013

Comments:

Cincinnatus-



First, a factual correction. Police Chief Krokoff was not brought in by Jerry Jennings. As a matter of fact Jennings fought against his ascent to the the top police job, as I have written about on this blog extensively. (Look up "The Four Chiefs Beat The Old Boys.")



And BTW, since Mr. Krokoff became Chief in September 2009, violent crime in Albany has dropped by three quarters. Three quarters. That's the effect of basic common sense reform unencumbered by political meddling.



As for Ms. Sheehan bringing in a new power elite to govern this City, well, yeah. She'd be the mayor. I don't know where you get "left-leaning" from or even what that is supposed to mean. As for the word "progressive," I usually use that as shorthand for efficiency and common sense.



But if she wins the election next year, it will be the final defeat of the O'Connell Machine that in the mid-1990s revived itself around the personage of Jerry Jennings. This will be a clean and welcome break from the moribund and corrupt past. We can expect to see the same improvements in all City departments that we have seen in both the Police and the Treasurer's after they were wrested from Jennings' control.



As for Mr. Calsolaro, last weekend he told me he had absolutely no intention of running for mayor at anytime in the future. In fact, he hollered at me. Emphatically. Just to make sure I understood. Posted by:Cincinnatus

Posted on:01/12/2013

Comments:

On Krokoff: Jennings may not have wanted him initially but eventually went along with it. It was his to prevent, and he didn't. Furthermore, he has stepped out of the way (as you acknowledge whether you realize it or not) and let Krokoff do his job which, as you say, seems to be an improvement.



On everything else (here is the rant): Sheehan et al. aren't 'progressives' or 'left-leaning' in any real sense. By these terms I also mean the employment of 'common-sense' solutions--but we all don't agree about what constitutes common sense, do we? I suspect people with Sheehan's experience see it one way, Jennings sees it as another, and you and I also see it differently from them and each other. As for 'efficiency,' it is overrated; it is code for avoiding the peskiness of citizens practicing democracy. It also represents when it is used in the way politicians use it the triumph of the values of capitalism over those of democracy.



Truly 'left-leaning' individuals care as much about the means as they do the ends: more bottom-up, more democratic, and more transparent are all features of a truly democratic philosophy. If those are in place, a meaningfully 'efficient' system will develop.



Instead, Sheehan et al. represent a certain sort of technocratic-bureaucratic elite at the local level. In certain ways, this is a welcome improvement: there can then be no question of underlying formal competence (unlike the current occupant). But that isn't enough; after all, one could argue that many political figures possess this. Robert McNamara arguably possessed it; that doesn't mean it was used well. Instead, what I want is a genuine change in world-view.



(In other ways, the ascent of this new elite will just perpetuate the underlying logic of American politics generally and Albany politics in particular: 'we don't give a damn about what you the average citizen thinks because we have authority and you don't.' But that won't be immediately obvious to most.)



This new elite may at times try to achieve progressive ends (whatever that means these days seeing as how Obama and Cuomo are seriously referred to as 'progressives'), but believe these can only be achieved through the means of top-down 'professionals' far removed from what everyday life is for the people whom they supposedly are trying to help. Instead of providing resources for people to solve their problems in their own communities wherever and whenever possible, they would like to solve--or ignore as the case has often had it and you have persuasively argued--them from above. Overall, in terms of means, there is little to suggest that all of a sudden with her election the end of the discouragement of the average Albanian citizen to participate in public affairs will materialize.



Instead, she will continue to generally cater to business interests over the interests of citizens when the two clash, will continue to manage affairs from the top-down, and pay lip service to what the 'community' wants while finding ways to circumvent and/or manipulate the will of said community to do what they wanted in the first place.



On a different note, too bad on Calsolaro. That guy actually listens, actually cares to listen. He also speaks the truth. I hope that when Sheehan is elected, he continues doing so and does not retire. She, like her soon to be predecessor, need the mirror held up to them always. Posted by:Cincinnatus

Posted on:01/13/2013

Comments:

Oh, one more thing. As I read your response to my original post yesterday, I was struck by these consecutive lines:

'As for Ms. Sheehan bringing in a new power elite to govern this City, well, yeah. She'd be the mayor.'



Forgive me for being literal, but, well, no, actually, we as citizens are supposed to be governing this City and people like Sheehan are our servants rather than us being her (or anyone else's) subjects. That kind of thinking needs to change if things are going to change around here for the better.



Again, I hope that the critics of Jennings carry on in that capacity when he is no longer mayor of this city. If she drops the ball, she should be called out, and those doing the calling out should be supported by the 'progressives.' Posted by:Dan Van Riper

Posted on:01/14/2013

Comments:

Jerry Jennings will try to take personal credit for Chief Krokoff's accomplishments during this coming year's campaign. Of course the more informed voters will not fall for such, but there are always a large number of people who are not well informed and easy to fool.



Over the last eight years we have watched Jennings transform from a despot to a politician, unwillingly, but out of necessity. He knows full well that it is to His own political credit to associate with a winner like Chief Krokoff, He has to take what He can get.



So you watch His campaign ads, He'll start telling us how His "leadership" has brought down the violent crime rate. Posted by:Cincinnatus

Posted on:01/14/2013

Comments:

I completely agree with your characterization of Jennings and the Krokoff situation. But leave that aside and reflect on everything else that I have written. You especially have seen what top-down authority does up close and personally, as you have documented it for years here on your blog.



I only ask that you consider what I have written and hold that up to the batch of 'progressives' who have recently taken office and who would like to be in a higher office than they currently are.



Remember, if Sheehan wins, that will be the time to place limits on what that office can do. Never again can someone hold that office for as long as Jennings has (and obviously as long as Corning did).



Disregard commentaries by the likes of disingenuous Paul Bray who argue that term limits are not necessary, that the electorate should decide. He is right, at least in a certain sense: the electorate should decide to have term limits enacted, should push the Council and the soon-to-be mayor to enact term limits of some sort. I guarantee most Albanians would welcome that. Time to organize it. Posted by:Leo

Posted on:01/14/2013

Comments:

After an absence of about a week, I returned to AlbanyWeblog to find a vigorous exchange of comments between Dan and Cincinnatus. Permit me to make an observation, hopefully without getting embroiled in an ongoing exchange of posts for which I have little time or inclination at this point.



The two of you seem to have much more in common than separates you. You certainly agree, if I may borrow a phrase from a Cincinnatus post, that "we do need change" (1/10/13) with respect to City Hall and Albany politics. You both have an extraordinarily high level of respect and appreciation for Dominick Calsolaro (that I think he has earned). You both display a strong affinity for populism. (I know that I risk opening a major can of worms with the use of that term. I do so for the sake of convenience and brevity -- not to start an academic discussion about populism. If I may be so bold, I think Cincinnatus [without necessarily intending to do so] presented a nicely compact definition of populism: "the peskiness of citizens practicing democracy" [1/12/13].)



You both are suspicious of the motivations of politicians, and neither of you are hesitant to express cynicism about the capacity or design of existing systems (of government or whatever) to address the needs and interests of the citizenry.



You each seem to expect that Kathy Sheehan will be the next Mayor of Albany. Dan focuses more on the anticipated positive aspects of a Sheehan tenure (as, frankly, do I). Cincinnatus, while noting some of those positives, is more inclined to focus on the possible negatives -- worrying to a great extent about a different kind of "elite" assuming control in Albany at the expense of the populace. While I initially began to write that one of you will be able to say "I told you so" to the other, the likelihood is that you both will be able to find future cause to say that to the other. I think that Kathy Sheehan, as Mayor, likely will be able to continue implementing the kind of systemic (and philosophical) changes she has begun as Treasurer. At the same time, it is unlikely that there will be a rapid enough reconfiguration of Albany government and political structures to nullify the concerns of Cincinnatus.



My best advice is to cool it for now -- unless Cincinnatus has in mind a (realistically available) candidate for Mayor (other than the apparently uninterested Dominick Calsolaro) about whom Cincinnatus can be more positive.



I hope this has been helpful. It is not my intention to stir up a hornets nest. Posted by:Cincinnatus

Posted on:01/15/2013

Comments:

Leo,

I think that you are right, at least in the larger sense.



I will only say this: what has made me suspicious of Sheehan (and the so-called progressives on the Common Council like Conti, Golby, Fahey, etc.) are two things. For the Council, they voted down term limits recently, both for themselves and for Mayor. Of all the people in Albany who should want these things, it should be these 'progressives.'



As for Kathy Sheehan, she sent a mailer out across Albany sometime after the election and mentioned some of her accomplishments. The red flag went up for me when I saw her attempting to take credit for progress at the landfill. Quite frankly, that is a bald-faced lie on the matter in question: Sheehan had nothing to do with the deal worked about between the Council and Jennings about how much money was to be set aside for the closing down of the landfill.



For those of us who go to meetings and read the TU closer than we probably should, we will recall that the candidate I supported on this blog and elsewhere for Assembly, Commisso Jr., was the one who called Jennings out publicly on his radio show and got enough members of the Council on board (including Dom Calsolaro-love him) to force Jennings to the bargaining table, re: set aside. Dominick Calsolaro, I think, will vouch for that. All hailed it as a step in the right direction except...Kathy Sheehan, who pointed out, as Commisso already had, that the set aside needed to be greater, obviously in an attempt to denigrate the work done. See her comment in the TU article if you don't believe me.



My guess--she is, after all, a politician and a former corporate lawyer to boot--is that she probably tried to undermine the whole thing, seeing as how she wouldn't be able to take credit for it.



So, with those things in mind, why would she then take credit for planning for the landfill's future? That obviously soured me on Kathy Sheehan, a person I supported vigorously in 2009 to replace an inept and corrupt Treasurer. In support of what I already wrote, we now have someone with formal competence but who, it would seem from this episode, will not hesitate to play politics if it furthers her own self-interest--even if it hinders ours.



Posted by:Cincinnatus

Posted on:01/17/2013

Comments:

Leo,

Thanks for weighing in by the way. Most thoughtful. Thank you.

-C. Posted by:Rachel

Posted on:01/17/2013

Comments:

Golly Dan, get over the hero worship. Cincinattis has it mostly right. Sheehans a lying politician like the rest. Smarter than most ; smarter than Jerry for sure, but if you think the fundamentals will change if she wins, you' re crazy.



Oh, and. If anyone can name anything she's done as treasurer......?? .......??? Posted by:Dan Van Riper

Posted on:01/18/2013

Comments:

Hero worship? I suspect that a fair number of people read this blog primarily to hear me complain bitterly about politicians. Such readers are knocked off balance when I say something positive about one of them for a change.



So Rachel, you say Ms. Sheehan is a liar. Please, I would like to hear you explain exactly what lies she has been spreading. As for finding out about her accomplishments as Treasurer and the fundamental changes she has brought to the department, well, you might want to read the article above and click on some of the links.



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