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MAYOR THINKS OUTSIDE THE BOX

Last week Mayor Tutunjian gathered the press together for a major announcement. As The Record described it:

"On a bright and sunny Wednesday afternoon outside City Hall, Tutunjian pointed to strides made in placing Troy in its best fiscal condition in decades as the reason for having $4.8 million in reserve to spend, in part, on infrastructure improvements."

That's the official line.

A press conference (which for some inexplicable reason was actually covered by the press) to announce that the city will pave roads? That's like a plumber announcing he snaked a toilet, except you never see the press covering that announcement. Wow, paving roads. How innovative. It's not every municipality that gets paved roads. Now well be able to get the flock to market easier.

We won't repeat what an astute student of local politics pointed out, we'll just steal it:

If we were a bit more cynical we might speculate that the mayor has been saving the money for the last 3 ½ years so he can pave roads, fix up parks and do other stuff voters like in the year they head to the polls to decide if he deserves a second term.We don't mean to bash him for it. Mayor Mark Pattison did the same thing, as did Albany Mayor Jerry Jennings. It's a tried and true technique that probably works even if residents have to dodge potholes for a few years until election time.As one observer said, "it's a good thing the election is every four years and not every 10 years."

You wonder what that CDBG/HUD money, transfer, shell game was all about for the past two years? Wasn't it just a few months ago that Harry was going to have to layoff the entire Water Dept. if he didn't get that utility rate hike?

DISTRICT ATTORNEY

An interesting phone call received by an alert reader:

Some of the questions:

1) Do you have a favorable or unfavorable impression of
Joe Bruno, Ken Bruno, Harry Tutunjian, Greg Cholakis, John Aretakis, Hank Bauer,
Patricia DeAngelis?

2) Would you consider it a positive or a negative that John Aretakis would be one of Greg
Cholakis's closest advisors?

3) Would it bother you to find out that Greg Cholakis received the nomination as the result
of a back room political deal?

4) Would the fact that Hank Bauer was removed from the City Court Judgeship because of
the "perception" that he was too hard on crime influence your vote?

If you can't figure out who paid for this poll, read question 4 again. Not only is it a dead giveaway, it's a lie (we're sorry, not a lie, a misrepresentation). Nonetheless, we'd love to see the results.

Bauer does have a fundraiser coming up soon. The interesting part is, although the invite lists his current title (City Council President), there is no mention of which office he seeks. It doesn't say District Attorney and it doesn't say At-Large, Troy City Council.

COUNTY LEGISLATURE

Does everyone who does something useless now have to pay our County Legislature a royalty?

On the agenda for the next meeting? Rensselaer County to join NATO.