WARDS 14, 8 and 9 ARE KEY IN
THE 2009 ALBANY ELECTIONS

Wards 8 and 14 are the largest in the city
and produce the highest voter turn-outs.
Add Ward 9 and you have what amounts
to the swing area in the 2009 Albany City
elections.

This was true when Helen Desfosses was
elected Common Council President in
1993.


Factors that will determine how residents
of these wards vote in the September 15
Democratic primary and November 3
General Election, include:

1. Lack of a police presence to deter crime
and control speeding traffic on neighborhood
residential streets.

2. Failure to raze the derelict building at
New Scotland and Whitehall and create the
Dan O'Connell Memorial Pocket Park on the
3/4 acre parcel.

3. No real effort to promote emergency/
disaster preparedness on the part of
households churches, synagogues, schools
and neighborhood businesses, including
food stores, gasoline stations and pharmacies.

4. Failure to make needed improvements to
Buckingham Pond Park.

See numerous unacted upon recommendations
posted repeatedly, for the past year, on:

http://bpcnanews.blogspot.com/

6. The closing of St Teresa's church/school
which erodes neighborhood identity, resident-
ial integrity and quality of life, making the
New Scotland Avenue corridor ripe for the
spillover of crime and blight from the Park
South urban renewal project.

Where is the effort to convince the Diocese
of Albany to reconsider?

One candidate for Common Council President
has his objective of making St Teresa's school
a PAL center. This candidate has had the full
support of the 9th Ward Democratic Committee.
Not looking out for the folks, are they?


8. No real effort at property tax relief and
failure to call on the Governor and State
Legislature to amend the recently enacted
local government consolidation bill to
include consolidating Albany City schools
with city government, create one property
tax roll to finance both, make the Mayor and
Common Council responsible/accountable
for the performance and operation of city
schools; and return to a K-8 neighborhood
school system.

The Common Council has not sponsored
voted upon and sent , a Home Rule Request
to the State Legislature, while it is still in
session, to enact the necessary amendments
to state law now.


It is no secret that declining neighborhood
residential integrity and quality of life
growing crime, violence and public safety
concerns, and ever increasing property
taxes to finance dysfunctional city schools
are the root causes of flight from Albany
which further erodes the city property tax
base.

The incumbent Common Council Members
from the 8th, 9th and 14th Wards bear the
burden of not addressing or acting to
resolve the above mentioned issues.

Do you suppose they will before the
September 15 Democratic Primary? Not
likely, because the incumbent Common
Council Members have no known challengers.

Could these issues impact the citywide
primaries? Perhaps, but unlikely because
challengers have no record of addressing
the above issues either.

However, a lower than normal primary
turnout from Wards 8, 9 and 14 could
impact the outcomes of the September 15
Democratic primaries in the citywide
races.



The incumbent Common Council Members
from Wards 8, 9 and 14 have not done
their jobs. They have let their constituents
down and they have made the Mayor more
vulnerable in the September 15 Democratic
Primary.

Therefore, it is incumbant upon the Mayor
to take the lead and address the above issues
BEFORE the September 15 Democratic
Primary.

Joe Sullivan