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Since I've been continuously plugging my murder mystery, The Evil Has Landed, seems like this is an appropriate time for this excerpt from Chapter 7 (no charge):
Jack had settled back with his third Harp when along came the teenage nephews, Eddie and Neil, Jr.
“Uncle Jack, I hear you’re working on a murder case!” exclaimed Neil, Jr.
“Well, not so much any more, but at the beginning I was right there for it all.”
And once again in his mind’s eye, Jack was dashing out on the roof, looking exceptionally buff, and flying through the window to save his friends and doubtless hundreds of innocent civilians from the massive explosion that could have been caused by that leaky gas stove!
“Did you see a lot of blood and guts, Uncle Jack?” inquired Eddie the irrepressible.
“Ah, yes, lad. Well, not so much guts as blood. Blood everywhere. Blood . . .and mayonnaise!”
“That’s gross!” said Eddie excitedly.
“When’s the trial? You gonna be a witness?” asked Neil Jr.
“Probably October. And, yes, I expect I may be called as a witness.”
Big Neil, taking a break from the hamburger flipping, sat down next to his brother.
“You know what Tuesday is, Jack?”
Jack thought about it. Hmm. July 20. “Not my anniversary, I hope?”
Neil replied, “Not your anniversary, but a very great anniversary. It’ll be thirty years since men from the planet earth first walked on the surface of the moon.”
“You remember that, Dad?” said Anna, now momentarily halting her flitting and sitting down with the rest.
“Yes, Anna. I remember.”
And suddenly it was July 20, 1969 and young Neil Hughes, recent high school graduate, is about to miss it all. His job as the sole Sunday afternoon and evening announcer at Sanford Mills’ only radio station means that he will not be present to witness the greatest live television event in history.
At the last minute, though, his step-grandfather’s brother comes up with a long-abandoned black and white portable, and Neil sets it up in the newsroom. He remembers that he had seen a long flat antenna wire in the attic of the station, left over from those days in the late forties when the manager used to set up a microphone next to a television speaker and pirate broadcast the Friday night fights. The roof-top antenna still works.
Not much life in this cathode-ray tube. Barely any light on the screen with sunshine coming through the windows. But that will improve when darkness falls.
He checks the log and sees that nothing about the moon landing is scheduled. No, they were going to broadcast the Yankees/Washington Senators game.
Neil calls the station program director.
“You know, I really think we ought to carry the moon landing.”
“The advertisers have already paid for the Yankee game, and we have a package deal with the Yankee network. We just can’t mess that up,” says the program director. “I’ll tell you what, you monitor the news network, and when it gets down to where they’ll be landing soon, switch over for a couple of minutes, then make sure you go right back to the game.”
All afternoon the old AP teletype machine in the back room keeps setting off its loud news-flash bell, and Neil is glued to the ABC radio monitor, interrupting only long enough to throw on an occasional Genesee Beer commercial for the local breaks.
“Eagle, you are go for power descent.”
“Fourteen thousand feet and coming down beautifully.”
“Five hundred and forty feet.” And now Neil says to hell with the Yankee game and throws the switch.
“Four hundred feet . . . face forward and hatch down . . .” crackles the steady voice across the ether.
“Two hundred and fifty feet . . .two hundred and twenty feet . . .coming down nicely.
“One hundred feet . . .” and now the whole world stops breathing.
“Seventy-five feet. . .
“Lights on. Forward. Forward. Good. Forty feet . . .picking up some dust . . .Faint shadow . . Drifting
to the right a little.
“Contact light. Okay, engine stop. . .Engine arm off.
“Houston . . .Tranquillity Base here. The Eagle has landed.”
And Neil Hughes, 18-year-old high school graduate tough guy, sitting all alone in a tiny radio station in upstate New York, sits and blubbers like a baby.
And when, a few minutes later he fulfills his obligation to the beer distributorship and returns to the Yankee game, it turns out they hadn’t missed much, because, of course, as the moment came, like everywhere else in the world, things just stopped and all eyes were glued on the electric scoreboard in Yankee Stadium and when he throws the switch back all Neil can hear is thunderous cheers that just won’t stop and suddenly at the stadium a recording of America the Beautiful starts playing and people are crying and laughing and dancing and screaming their hearts out and Neil Hughes knows that if he lives to be a thousand he will never experience another moment like this and he savors it. He savors it.
And finally Phil Rizzuto says, “Holy cow! I don’t know about you, but I’m all choked up!”
Several hours later, and now it’s dark and the old picture tube lights up a little and Neil’s namesake on the moon opens a little hatch and a camera springs to life and there he is at 10:56 P.M. EDT, one man, alone, stepping on the surface of the moon.
Just in time, too, for young Neil Hughes has to finish the broadcast day with the 11 o’clock news and the National Anthem.
He goes out into the parking lot and looks up at the clear night sky, all the stars in the heavens and that moon that could never, ever look the same again and then, off to the side, sees a small, red steady light.
Mars.
When he arrives home his parents are glued to the television and 3-year-old Jack is bundled up in a blanket, asleep on the floor in front of the tv. Neil wakes him.
“Jack, Jack. Look at the television.”
Little Jack rubs his eyes and looks.
“I know you’re awfully little, Jack, but look at this. Two men. . . two men are walking on the moon! Look at this Jack, and try to remember this, remember this for the rest of your life. Try to remember this, Jack. . . because you’ll never see anything quite this wonderful ever again.”
And a few moments later little Jack curls up comfortably in his brother’s lap and returns to blissful sleep.
And never remembered.
“Hey, Big Bro, I’m sorry, but it was way past my bedtime,” grinned Jack. “Besides, I’ve seen it on tv a gazillion times since.”
“Not the same. Not the same.” A bitter poignancy was beginning to overcome Neil.
“So, Dad, how come they don’t go there any more?”asked Neil, Jr.
“Cheap visionless bastards!” explained Dad.
“Mr. Hughes, watch your language in front of the children,” warned his wife.
“I’m sorry, dear, you’re right. Children, I apologize for my language. Please forgive me. I meant to say ‘Cheap visionless persons of uncertain ancestry.’”
“That’s better.” They all nodded their approval.
“Fact of the matter is, kids, that as far as I’m concerned, except for the birth, death and resurrection of Our Lord and Savior, that was the greatest thing that ever happened in the history of the world, and those morons in Washington threw it all away. Worthless offspring of disputed pedigree!” he elaborated.
“But what about taking care of the poor here on earth and education and stuff like that? Shouldn’t we do that first?” Anna offered, modernly.
And it was the wrong thing to say, because now the rage began to come over him and maybe it was the beer talking, but probably not.
“The poor we will always have with us!” he roared. “But this, this was a time when all mankind joined together on a glorious adventure, led by the free and God-fearing American people. It wasn’t a matter of military conquest or subjecting a people or seeking out selfish gain. It was about challenge and discovery and excitement and small men with giant ideas facing the vast emptiness of the universe. It was about learning and seeing and being and believing in something bigger than yourself. It was about the human race after hundreds of thousands of years of evolution rising up out of this primordial swamp, reaching out and touching the face of God!”
And there was a great silence.
Until Neil, Jr said, “Get ya another Harp, Pops?”
“Of course.”
 
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A nice editorial in this morning's Recorder honoring Karol Krajewski and the late Anthony "Jim" Draus for theiir dedication to the Fourth Ward Veterans Memorial.
I never knew Mr. Draus, but I know Karol well. He served for many years, off and on, as Amsterdam's Fourth Ward Alderman. Though we crossed political swords many times, he has always treated me as a gentleman and a friend. His life has been dedicated to happy public service. His loving devotion to the war memorial should be an inspiration to all.
The beautiful memorial, located on the corner of Vrooman Avenue and Edson Street, on a piece of the former Vrooman Avenue School property, features a fountain and the flags of the various nations making up Amsterdam's ethnic mix. Karol has always made sure that the flags are fresh and the weeds plucked and the dignity of that honorable site maintained.
May their work long endure.
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Back in school year 1966-67, somebody decided that Lynch High School needed a new flag. Instead of hiring a consultant, the Student Council sponsored a contest. Winner Kathy Moore with the winning design.
Pretty positive, eh?
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Be sure to listen to Michael radio tomorrow at 11 am on WCSS (WCSS1490.com). There is a very good chance that the identity of shadycat, the mysterious blog commenter who opines that the people of the south side think with one puny brain and that they think fine dining means eating at Parillo's, will finally be revealed.
And it will be a shocker.
****************
The First Clue.
The Second Clue. Twelve entries down.
The Third Clue. Same photograph as second clue.
The research was provided to me by a third party. I investigated it myself and am satisfied that it is entirely accurate.
[UPDATE 7/16/2009] Oh, this is precious. From the Queen of Cover-up over at flippinamsterdam:
wildthane Says:
This witch hunt is base foolishness. There are important issues in need of solutions everywhere we look: physically and spiritually in our own lives, in the City, State, Nation and globally. That this topic has garnered this much attention is disappointing at best. Can you imagine how much could be accomplished if this much energy were put into solving the real problems we are faced with? As for as casting aspersions, Jesus said it best (King James Bible): “He that is WITHOUT SIN among you, let him first cast a stone at her.” Drop the rock. These are, of course, the people who conspired together to trash the good name of Michael Chiara so that they could control the assessments. Another developing story. Behind the scenes, of course, where they thought no one would find out about it, while they smiled and giggled in public. Michael and I may say stupid things from time to time, but we use our own names.
Change the subject, everyone! No story here!
******* {Further Update: Bethany Comments] Some local craziness going on, where suffice to say, the entire city I live in, well perhaps I exaggerate, at least those those who read certain local political blogs have been directed to my facebook page, and an old blog of mine, and my silly local paper is going to run a cover story on anonymous bloggers and attempts to out them, in which many disparaging comments will be made about me. Only in my town is that actually news. Most interestingly, the faux outrage stems from a glib comment allegedly made by me which stated, essentially, that neighborhood opponents of a certain project shared one little brain, and that one local restaurant was not fine dining. Oh, the horrors! Those comments have apparently lead to a weeks (or perhaps months) long hunt for the anonymous blogger, with multiple blogs previewing that the blogger's identity would be announced live on local radio today.
I actually learned about most of this (that the blogs that had my pictures and links to my personal info) when I got a call from the newspaper this afternoon. Fun times. I thought I got out of the fishbowl when I didn't run for re-election!
Just a working mom, enjoying my marriage and baby. Nothing to see here.
Talk about spinmeisters. She just heard about this this afternoon? Hogwash. She was all over my blog last night. And her office made NUMEROUS phone calls before the radio show this morning to a person whom they thought (incorrectly) was our source. Because of the vengeance Bethany previously exacted on that person, which included getting her fired for having made a blog comment unflattering to Mayor Thane, I felt it necessary to post the chain of evidence so we could all be spared the lying denials. She's been erasing her own blog comments on area blogs.
This did not involve hacking, cooperation of site owners or IP agents. It was straight public information that began by googling "shadycat" and following the leads. Here's what sparked the "faux outrage." I suggest Bethany Schumann, a "less scary (and very democratic) Karl Rove", Chair of the Montgomery County Democratic Committee, protege of Paul Tonko and mentor of Ann Thane, needs to spend a little more time on the south side to evaluate how much of the outrage is "faux":
Why aren't you southsiders more angry at the complete eyesores that call themselves businesses on the south side???
Plus, the biggest and most progressive businesspeople on the southside are in favor of the project, Alteri, Santos, Phemister. These are homeowners and landowners and businesses with hundreds of thousands of dollars invested and they support the project. Meanwhile, all you other chuckleheads who think Parillos is fine dining, know all your neighbor's business, never leave the stinkin' south side, and have looked at the stinkin' Chalmers building for DECADES without EVER demanding it be demolished, now are insisting it be demolished, and that the first out of town person in years who actually wanted to invest in our city should be denied, need to have your heads examined. Do you all share one tiny, southside brain??????????????
Can't imagine how that would offend any of those chucklehead stinkin' southsiders.( Read more... )
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A reader who has exercised her rights under the Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) advises that she has requested the vouchers that have been paid for The Saratoga Associates for the last five years. They have been the city's consultants for several years on different projects, including the Via Ponte and the Chalmers Mills.
The individual vouchers have not yet been provided, but the raw figures have. Though I won't be in a position to analyze them until I have seen the vouchers, the amounts involved are staggering. This is a preliminary report and a developing story:
Now for 07/08/09 $459,906.23 was paid to SA for total payments for Demolition of unsafe buildings; and 24,316.56 has been spent on engineering services for maintenance of roads.
The only project that I can recall that TSA has been involved in for demolition of buildings is Chalmers. If that is true, an amazingly high percentage of the grant money (for which we bonded several years ago) has already been used up on consultants who keep switching gears back and forth as to whether to rehabilitate or tear down the buildings. Have we been reimbursed by the state? Will we be? Those are questions I posted for the mayor and have yet to receive a reply.
I'll keep you informed as that information becomes available.
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and don't forget The Judge Report (THE BOOK) is now available, too!
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Guest Post from an awfully nice anonymous:
what is the difference between a to-be-demolished building, which is an eye-sore and a fire hazard , sitting on a piece of property that is also unkempt and potentially dangerous and it being buried in our own clean landfill "dump" ?
Money in our pockets- and pride in our city potential-
what is the difference between a motto and website developed by "companies" and a logo and website designed by our own citizens ie. high school students?
Money in our pockets and pride in our city potential-
what is the difference between hiring outside people and friends to do what elected officials should know how to do and and firing city employees who know how to do their jobs?
Money in our pockets- and pride in our city's citizens-
what is the difference between spending foolishly and staying in a conservative budget?
Money in our pockets- AND LOWER TAXES which would entice businesses and population to come to our beautiful city-
We mock you because we love you
TO BE CONTINUED...
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Puffery invites mockery.
-Hindu Wisdom
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If you read my previous posts on this topic, here and here, you will recall that City of Amsterdam City Hall Head Custodian Jim Crisalli, who had been my first source on the story about Alderman Brumley demolishing and rebuilding a garage without the necessary permits, with the able assistance of Alderman Roth (both of whom have chosen not to seek re-election), received a letter in the mail from Mayor Ann Thane, on five days notice, announcing that his job would be terminated as of July 1, because the Budget Review Board had eliminated his position and created a lower-level, lesser-paying one.
Problem with that assertion was that no one who was asked about this recalled it ever happening, no one has produced any minutes of any meeting (which are required to be in open session) when this was decided, no reporter made any note of it, neither the CSEA Union nor Mr. Crisalli ever heard of it, and the budget itself showed Crisalli's position, along with his name, fully funded.
Jim has been out on disability, month to month, since having quadrupal bypass surgery.
Crisalli requested the lower position under protest, pending resolution of the grievances filed on his behalf by the union. That will work itself out.
Meanwhile, Controller Reynicke announced at the last Common Council meeting that there had been a "mistake" in a personnel line item in the budget and suggested that the budget be amended at the next meeting to correct the "mistake".
I'm pretty sure I know what that "mistake" is, and it will be interesting to see if the Budget Review Board (the Common Council and the Mayor and Controller) have anything at all to say about this when it is voted on, or will it all be a series of twelve digit account numbers being transferred here and there while the custodian's enemies exact their revenge.
Meanwhile, the mayor has been examining the personnel files of city employees and is shocked to learn how clean most of them are on the disciplinary side, and has instructed certain department heads that they need to begin bringing action against the employees to keep them on their toes, or to set the stage for the removal of disloyal officers. One department head has even been told that he must bring his employees under control because they have been known to say bad things about her.
Not so nice.
************
I should add that due to attrition in his department, Mr. Crisalli and his part time assistant have been doing the work of what at one time was a staff of twelve.
Buy my murder mystery The Evil Has Landed
and don't forget The Judge Report (THE BOOK) is now available, too!
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Buy my murder mystery The Evil Has Landed
and don't forget The Judge Report (THE BOOK) is now available, too!
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An unusual alignment of my past, present and future took place last evening. I had been out gathering signatures for my Alderman petitions, a hot and mouth-drying process this time of year, and as dusk was bringing my constituent-bothering to a close, I found myself on Yeoman Street, and so dropped into the Irish American Club, a rare visit these days.
I confronted the usual mix of familiar and semi-familiar faces in what is still about the only public place where I can feel comfortable being me, and ordered a Harp, much like the fictional character Neil Hughes in my murder mystery The Evil Has Landed.
And standing next to me, offering a friendly hug, was Stephen Mezzio.
***********
Back in 1966, three of us fourteen going on fifteen classmates found ourselves in the awkward position of experiencing puberty at the same time our forty-something mothers were giving birth to their final children. My brother Sean came first, on May the 9th, Stephen Mezzio three days later (which became the subject of three less-than-epic poems by R. Poeta) and Anthony Montenaro in October. And I think just after that Mrs. Mezzio became a grandmother for the first time as well.
Mary Alice Mezzio and Peter Montenaro and I were all friends, as I have written about often, and the two of them eventually married, making Stephen and Anthony sort of relatives, and as the years went by Anthony and Sean became classmates and good friends, and the altar servers at our wedding.
Stephen's dad and our dad were long time friends and shared a common affliction: lousy hearts. They alternated with their open-heart surgeries and artificial valves. Each was told that it was very unlikely they would ever suffer heart attacks or strokes. So Dad had the heart attack, and Mike Mezzio the strokes. Dad died first, at 52 when Sean was eight, and Mike a couple of years later, also in his fifties.
Less than a month later, Stephen's older brother David (two years older than us, in my brother Jay's class) and a couple of other lads took Stephen on a Spring canoe ride on the Mohawk River, before the Barge Canal dams were down for the season. They ran the rapids at the Tribes Hill-Fort Hunter bridge, the canoe flipped, and only Stephen made it to shore.
Another wake, another funeral.
Later that same year, I bumped into Mrs. Mezzio coming out of the back door at the Amsterdam Savigs Bank on Division Street. She hugged me.
"Bob, I'm leaving. I can't take it any more. We're moving to Arizona."
For several years she kept the place on Route 5s as her "Upstate New York summer cottage," and so Stephen was able to maintain his childhood friendships, including his chum from kindergarten, Robbie Phelps. Even after the "cottage" was sold, he continued to come up here, often staying at Pete and Donna's.
Years flew by, and eventually the now adult Robbie Phelps decided to make a life for himself in Arizona as well. He and Stephen remained fast friends, even sharing living quarters until eventually Stephen got married and three's a crowd.
**********
So, that's what brought Stephen back home, following his friend's body from Arizona to his final resting place in the soft earth of Green Hill Cemetery.
On Monday, before the wake, Mary and I had stopped at Karen's Produce for lunch, and brought the ice cream with us to the Schoharie boat launch. We sat at a picnic table overlooking the pleasant confluence of the Schoharie Creek and the Mohawk River, just a bit downstream from the ruins of the Erie Canal Aquaduct which carried Clinton's Ditch over the sometimes treacherous waters, maybe a quarter of a mile from the Thruway Bridge which replaced the one that collapsed twenty-some years ago, sending ten cars and passengers to their sudden end.
We finished up, walked around a bit and headed back to the car. Something caught my eye. I wandered over to a monument I had never noticed before, a memorial to David Mezzio and the others, and all who perished on the creek and river.
*********
We chatted for a long time, Stephen and I. He grew up to be a fine young man, as did Anthony. As did Sean.
As did Robbie.
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and don't forget The Judge Report (THE BOOK) is now available, too!
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This is a fantastic thing for me to say, but Bill Wills in now my hero for an additional 24 hours.
As you may recall, on or about May 13, 2008 the City of Amsterdam entered into an Option Agreement with Albany Tech LLC, a limited liability company controlled by Uri Kaufman and his partner. Bill Wills decided to do a little search with respect to Albany Tech LLC. His preliminary report: it does not appear to exist.
If it was neither organized under the laws of the State of New York nor licensed to do business in the State of New York at the time the contract was signed, then there is no contract.
I can't wait to see how the Corporation Counsel gets around that one.
Maybe I should offer a free copy of The Evil Has Landed for the most creative proposed legal opinion.
[UPDATE] It appears to me that Mr. Wills is correct. The Department of State maintains an on-line search site that is up to date as of yesterday. No Albany Tech LLC. You can search for yourself here.
You may also search Harmony Mills as a "contains" and come up with numerous Kaufman business entities.
Here's the opening paragraph of the Option Agreement:
OPTION AGREEMENT
This Agreement executed this __ day of ________, 2008, by and between Albany Tech LLC ("AT"), a limited liability company with shareholders as listed in the attached schedule A, with an address at 135 Fulton Street, Lawrence, NY 11559 and the City of Amsterdam (the "City"), an incorporated City with an address at City Hall, 61 Church Street, Amsterdam, NY 12010.
The copy I was given, which was the final one before the signed copy, and the one that the Aldermen supposedly voted on, does not contain a completed schedule A, though there are references to various family trusts of the principals to be named in the final draft.
[Further UPDATE] Charlie Kraebel is now reporting that the final draft of the agreement, or at least the one they are now displaying, says that the entity with which the city has the option is actually Albany Tech Center, LLC, not Albany Tech, LLC.
Pardon my cynicism, but is the ink dry on that copy? Do the records of the City Clerk reflect the contract the Common Council voted on? (The procedure when I was Corporation Counsel was to attach the actual contract to the resolution before the board). I no longer accept at face value any premise put forth by the Thane regime as fact.
Aldermen, check your files. If you voted on Albany Tech Center LLC, please step forward and say so. If you didn't, then, despite what Charlie thinks, this is not a non-story. I once saw a 22 million dollar mortgage lien disappear on just such an issue.
[LATER THOUGHT] Regardless of how this plays out, I still credit Bill Wills for having the intelligence and gumption to follow up on this. I recall at least one time in the last administration where some folks tried to sell us a bill of goods about a fantastic company that didn't yet exist. It's very important to know who exactly you are dealing with and who is responsible for upholding the terms of a contract. Not at all a small issue.
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Couldn't help but notice that Mayor Thane was able to recruit democratic party stooge Phil Lyford to attack my analysis of the Mayor's claims concerning future tax revenues on the Chalmers project.
He spoke during the public portion of the Common Council meeting last night. He thought my figures were absurd, with which I heartily agree because they weren't mine, they were Mayor Thane's. He then produced a new set of figures for the aldermen, which I haven't seen. From what little I could understand of his spoken analysis, it sounds like it conformed with one or more of my alternative options in the previous post which had already been up and running here for seven or eight hours.
His principal argument? My arithmetic can't be trusted because I was "for the dump!"
Getting old, Phil.
I've gone over my figures multiple times both alone and with other people. If I'm wrong, somebody sure needs to show me how.
Meanwhile, thanks for dropping by, everyone. Yesterday was a banner day for hits and page views on this humble blog.
[UPDATE] For the benefit of those who are claiming I made up what the Mayor said on the Sam and Mike show, I was planning on linking you to the program (at WCSS1490.com), which Rebecca had recorded and posted. Unfortunately, it appears that the link is now down. In the future I will try to archive these precious moments before they disappear.
[FURTHER UPDATE] The above link works, and you can hear the Sam and Mike interview with Mayor Thane. She mentions in passing about 36 minutes in that the $1.2 million would be coming to the city ($890,000 RP tax plus water and sewer, which doesn't add up to that much, but I'm done quibbling over made-up figures) and then starting a little after the 41 minute mark she gets into a discussion with a caller wherein she clearly states that it is her belief that the $890,000 is the city's share.
What I missed the first time around is that she admits there may be a PILOT program (payments in lieu of taxes) which she would be agreeable to if it makes the project work, but that they haven't been asked yet. That would mean that all her claims, real or imagined, about future taxes would mean absolutely nothing, since a negotiated agreement could come up with any figure at all.
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If we accept Mayor Thane's figures on future tax revenues for the Chalmer's project of $890,000 per year for the city, based on current tax rates, and extrapolate those figures to include County and School taxes, the annual real property tax burden on the owner would be approximately $3.8 million dollars.
Based on the 180 units of various sizes (which would be the maximum number under the sketchy proposals thus far submitted), that amounts to an annual tax burden in excess of TWENTY ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS PER UNIT.
The MAXIMUM rental proposed for the largest unit (and contrary to what the Market Study says the market will bear) is $1,800 per month. Multiply that by twelve months and you come to . . .
TWENTY-ONE THOUSAND SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS.
Balance this all out with the fact that the majority of the units would bring in less than the maximum and the one and only conclusion to be drawn is that THE ANNUAL TAXES EXCEED THE PROPERTY INCOME!
Never mind the expenses of operation, debt repayment, depreciation and repair and political contributions.
Do the math.
Mayor Thane clearly has absolutely no idea what she's talking about, and we are making major, multi-million dollar decisions based on her complete fantasies.
[UPDATE] I've gotten several complaints from people who, recognizing the absurdity of these figures, maintain that I am mis-stating the Mayor's figures, that the $890,000 was meant to include City-County-School combined taxes.
Sorry, but I am relying here on Mayor Thane's own words. She was specifically asked on the Sam and Mike show last week whether the $890,000 figure was just the city's share or the the combined total. She responded quite clearly that it was her understanding that it represented only the city's share.
And if she's wrong, isn't it important for we, as citizens, to know that our mayor is selling this project to us on the basis of figures that are, even if fully realized, less than 25% of what she's been telling us and by her own words believes?
My sources in City Hall tell me the Mayor is scrambling to come out with revised figures (and, no doubt, a revised mantra, to use her term). Let me save her the trouble (5th graders and advanced 4th graders follow along):
Annual taxes, twenty years from now, $890,000
Number of apartments, 180.
Average annual rental per apartment based on average of $1400/month, $16,800.
Annual tax divided by number of apartments= $4,9444.44.
But remember, I was being kind and using the estimated rentals Kaufman used to sell the project, and not the figures that his marketing study showed, which, as I recall, projected monthly average rentals of $750, making the annual income per unit of only $9,000.
The Mayor also estimates annual water and sewer fees of $102,000 ( I guess they're collecting their own garbage), for an additional per unit cost of $566.67, which added to the average real property tax per unit of $4,944.44 brings a total per unit annual tax of $5,511.10. Divide that by the total annual income per unit of $9,000 and you have an annual tax and fee payment of 61.23% of income! That's better than the greater than 100% of my initial calculations giving everyone the benefit of a perfect project, but still ridiculous.
And if, by chance, Kaufman gets his pie-in-the-sky rentals, and there are no vacancies, you are still dealing with $5511.10 divided by $16,800= 32.8%.
Again, figures so absurd that they could not be sustained. Obviously, the assessment would have to be far, far lower than the Mayor's estimate for the project to be economically viable at the point in the far distant future when they actually start to pay taxes. Obviously, if you are paying even 32.8% of your income from the property in real property taxes BEFORE figuring in mortgage amortization, upkeep, vacancy rates, depreciation, insurance, office overhead, etc., IT DOESN'T WORK.
I stand by what I have said. Anyway you look at this, it is plainly obvious that Mayor Thane has absolutely no idea what she's talking about.
[FURTHER UPDATE] Boy, am I being a piker. According to flippin amsterdam, unofficial spokesman for the Thane regime, this proposed assessment is based on 80 units, not 180. Therefore, let us get out the old calculator again.
$890,000 divided by 80 units equals ELEVEN THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED TWENTY FIVE DOLLARS TAX PER YEAR PER UNIT. Plus $566.67 in water and sewer equals EVEN THOUSAND SIX HUNDRED NINETY-ONE DOLLARS AND SIXTY-SEVEN CENTS.
Divided by estimated income of $16,800 based on Kaufman's highest estimates and you get 69.59 percent of income going to real property taxes. Based on his own market study estimate of $9,000 per year you get ONE HUNDRED THIRTY PERCENT OF INCOME GOING FOR REAL PROPERTY TAXES and fees.
So lets split the difference and call it $12,900 income per year per unit. Comes to then only 90.6 per cent of annual income. Before accounting for vacancies.
If that's the best they can do, and that seems to be their best, wow.
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Continuing the previous post. ( Read more... )
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What follows are collected comments from my various Chalmers posts. The file was too big to post with THE CASE AGAINST CHALMERS. ( Read more... )
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Tonight the Common Council of the City of Amsterdam will be voting on a resolution to declare terminated an Option Agreement with developer Uri Kaufman for the purchase of the old Chalmers Mill on Amsterdam's South Side. As a public service I am re-issuing a series of articles I have written over the last couple of months outlining my support for the termination and for the demolition of the mill. While there may be some editing of the original, time constraints do not allow me to redraft it into the cohesive whole that I would prefer. Still, I think most of the essential points are made, though with some repetition.
( Read more... )
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NYCOM
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Jul. 6th, 2009 @ 03:29 pm
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Mayor Thane writes on her blog a few days ago:
For the first few days of this week, I attended the NYCOM (New York State Conference of Mayors) Annual Meeting in Saratoga. Three-hundred-fifty experienced and brilliant mayors from north, south, east and west attended. We were treated to various workshops and forums about finance, operations, legislative action, ethics, and economic development. It was enlightening and inspiring. I came away with this: 1. integrity and faith above all else;
2. do the right thing (not the political thing);
3. don’t let people get you down; and
4. our reputation in this State is in dire need of protecting.
*************
I attended several of these events myself in recent years. I came away with this: 1. How to properly conduct a meeting of your municipal legislature; 2. Requirements of the Open Meetings Law and Freedom of Information Law; 3. Powers and duties of Zoning Board of Appeals and Planning Commissions and recent developments in Land Use law; 4. Requirements for adoption of Local Laws; 5. Helpful hints on employee relations and disciplinary proceedings; 6. How to protect your city against sexual harassment and discrimination proceedings; 7. Method and process of dissolving a municipal unit; 8. Proper and improper uses of fund balance and how to set up accounts for the use of same.
And a few other things. I guess they must have dumbed down the curriculum since then.
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No, not the one in today's Recorder. That one is spot on.
I'm speaking of the one in the Saturday Gazette, titled "Chalmers Mill demo would be dumb move in Amsterdam."
The editorial is based entirely on false or unsupported premises.
The aldermen, three Republicans and a Democrat, say that Kaufman hasn’t met various requirements from an option agreement signed in May 2008. That may be true, technically speaking, but legally may be another matter. For instance, the city’s corporation counsel says that Kaufman didn’t have to meet one of the requirements cited by the aldermen in their resolution to end the contract - to pay the city $50,000 to extend the one-year contract for another year - because the state’s environmental cleanup of the site had not been completed.
In any case, $50,000 is not a lot of money in the big scheme of things — the project would bring in more than a million a year in taxes and fees once completed, says Mayor Ann Thane. And the other requirements, like engineering studies and architectural plans, would likely have been met if Kaufman hadn’t run into financing problems because of the credit crunch.
First, there is no difference between the "technical" and "legal" requirements. That the city's attorney has chosen to take the side of the developer against the city doesn't replace the facts. Both outside counsel hired by the Common Council and the city's previous corporation counsel (me) are in agreement that Mr. DeCusatis's legal opinions in this matter are without merit. Kaufman has failed to perform even the easiest of the tasks he promised by specific deadlines, including failing to make application before the Zoning Board, Planning Commission and Waterfront Commission. In fact, he has no specific plans for the building. His own marketing study says the site can not support the rents he proposes to charge. And even that presumes he should only begin by developing the red brick building, leaving the crumbling concrete structure to . . . continue to crumble.
The editorial quotes Mayor Thane's estimate of annual tax flow at their incredible peril. First, there will be no taxation at all until title passes. As the City Attorney has done nothing to clear title to the parcel, though I left behind on his desk a plan to do so that would have taken three months (eighteen months ago), it would likely be a couple of years if everything fell into place immediately before the first tax bill might go out. That bill, and the bills for the next SEVEN YEARS would be based not on the property's developed value, but on its existing assessment as a derilict hulk.
Then in, oh, maybe ten years from now, if everything goes absolutely perfectly, they would begin paying 10% of the annual real property taxes, then gradually phasing that in until about twenty years from now they would pay full taxation of whatever the assessment is then, which would be based entirely on whether the "luxury apartments" are still viable.
But let's use a little basic math to figure out how Mayor Thane arrives at her $890,000 figure. I'm rounding this out, as I'm sure she did. Applying the City of Amsterdam's current tax rate, in order to raise $890,000 the assessed value of the Chalmers Mill would have to be . . .SIXTY FOUR MILLION DOLLARS.
But wait, there's more. Since the city is not currently at full value, we need to apply the equalization rate to arrive at a full value assessment of ONE HUNDRED TWO MILLION DOLLARS!
Add school and county taxes to that figure and the Kaufman enterprise would be facing a tax bill of $3.8 million dollars. Does he impress you as the type of guy who would allow an assessment like that to go unchallenged?
As a comparison, let's take a look at Kaufman's vaunted Harmony Mills project in Cohoes (and ignore all the other undeveloped projects he has left hanging all over the state). Harmony Mills has an assessed value of five million dollars and full value of eight million. A mere NINETY FOUR MILLION DOLLARS less than Mayor Thane's estimate for Chalmers.
Oh, and how much is his actual tax bill?
Zero.
That's right, title is held by one of their tax-exempt development agencies. Recall that Mayor Thane has a similar plan for the Via Ponte project, of which Chalmers could be a part.
So the working-class taxpayers of Cohoes are subsidizing luxury apartments and getting good feeling in return.
The Mayor of Cohoes is as enthusiastic about Uri Kaufman as Mayor Thane.
Of course, he received a one thousand dollar campaign contribution from the idealistic Mr. Kaufman.
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Many thanks to my dear friend Marie Gavry for chronicling the last show.
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Sarah
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Jul. 4th, 2009 @ 08:19 am
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"I don't mind the press examining me under a microscope," said Richard Nixon. "I do object, however, when they use a proctoscope."
Unless you've been in that position you can not begin to appreciate what Sarah Palin and her family have been going through in the last year. From late yesterday and into today, pundits and polticos who 24 hours earlier had never given the possibility a thought have been burying us with the true meaning of her resignation.
How about this? It's her life and her family and they want to live it their way.
She doesn't need to justify her position to me, or you, or Katie or David or the news folks who have inundated us with non-stop Michael Jackson.
God bless her and her family. May they have a semblance of peace.
Buy my murder mystery The Evil Has Landed
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