The City of Troy, New York, "Where Henry Hudson Turned Around."

Thursday, December 03, 2015

MORE ANNOUNCEMENTS

In addition to naming Monica K. as Deputy Mayor (subject to the approval of the City Council), Mayor Elect Madden announced that Kevin Glasheen will be the City's top lawyer (or Corporation Counsel).

Glasheen is currently Of Counsel with Barclay Damon (formerly Hiscock & Barclay).

This announcement was not much of a surprise as Glasheen was almost immediately mentioned to be in the running for the spot. The real question was whether Glasheen would leave a lucrative practice to take the job. We imagine Glasheen might have been ready to hang up his spurs at Barclay when he made his decision to join Team Madden.

Barclay Damon is a large law firm with offices in Albany, Syracuse, Washington DC, Boston, NYC, Buffalo and Toronto. They also have offices in Elmira?

Our previous Corporation Counsels have been drawn from small law firms or, in the case of Silverman, the District Attorneys Office. It will be interesting to see if a Corporation Counsel from a higher-end law firm brings anything different to the role. Barclay Damon is involved in high-end litigation and commercial deals worth millions of dollars. Perhaps it will make a difference, perhaps not.

The firm of Goldberger & Kremer has done much of the city's legal work in the past, particularly in the area of contract negotiations. Will Glasheen, no stranger to such negotiations, take on this role and save the city some money?

TRANSITION NEWS

In the meantime, Mayor Elect Madden appears to be taking the City's financial situation seriously and has pledged to devote his efforts to seeking long-term solutions. Well, that's a start.

There was more good news yesterday when we learned that Jeffrey Nesich is on the Madden Transition Team. Nesich is currently with the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision and is something of a fiscal wizard. He has been consulted by both Democratic and Republican Administrations in the area and is respected by many. If there are some fixes for Troy's budgetary problems, Nesich will find them.

News also reached us that the Transition Co-Chairs have finally met. For the first time. Just days ago. We find it odd that the Transition Team seems to be only just getting off the ground. Perhaps they waited for the budget outcome but there is still much they could have done before then December 1.

That's all we got.





12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Democratus, you may want to check and see who gave Lou and his failing administration budgetary advice starting 4 years ago. None other than Jeffrey Nesich, A budget wizard? I think not.

Anonymous said...

You think wrong. Lou's budget have been sound. The problem this year was mainly that deferred pension issue. Is that Nesich's fault? I think not.

Anonymous said...

Drawing down the reserves to zilch to balance the budgets over the last three years. Well the reserves have run dry, what will political hack Jeffery propose now? He's Dunne with a job.

Anonymous said...

The reserves are not down to zilch. Although Harry used most of the reserves leaving Lou a lot less than Mark left Harry.How do you think Harry had years where spending went up but there was no tax increase?

As for Dunne, I'm sorry, but what has he got to do with the budget? Nothing. Stop obsessing.

Anonymous said...

Dunne has as much to do with this as Harry does.

Anonymous said...

Fire Harry. He the one behind all this Jim BS. Trying to embarrass Jimino right from the County office building.

Anonymous said...

Harry was in office 4 years ago, at some point Lou being a Math man should have seen this coming, and done something. \So now whos obsessing??

Anonymous said...

They all new it was coming. They talked about it last year at budget time. They all agreed to defer it until this year.

Anonymous said...

Hopefully Mr. Madden will do something that puts an end to the padding of overtime and a large pension that the taxpayers have to pay for forever. This is a huge part of the fiscal issues in Troy and is the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about.
Enforcing or instituting residency requirements for city employees might be something else to consider.

Anonymous said...

Wait a minute mister!
Overtime SAVES you money because it's cheaper than hiring and training new people!

Remember, we are heroes! What? Do you hate heroes?

Anonymous said...

Wait a second here. Weren't you the same guy making the exact opposite complaint before? Attacking the view that filling vacancies lowers overtime costs? It might at some validity to your insessent babbling if you actually maintained some continuity in your gripes.

Anonymous said...

I guess I'm busted! Yes, that's me! I guess I'll break it down so you can understand it:

The first rule of Public Safety Club is this - You pay, you always pay no matter what.
If you don't pay , you hate heroes!
We got you by the short hairs! Haaaaa