KAREN KLOTZ IS KOO KOO FOR KOKOA PUFFS

Reading a letter to the editor in a local paper penned by Karen Klotz, one has to wonder at her comparisons to the current and proposed charters.  There will be a vote on either keeping the current form of government or switching to a new Professional/Council/manager form.

Mrs. Klotz, wife of respected past Mayor Ken Klotz has now become the bull dog face of the anti Charter Change group called SUCCESS.  If Karen had 1/3 the class of her husband she still would be a bull dog.  She takes the reins temporarily from Remiga Foy who fell ill and we all hope Foy gets better soon. 

Anyway, as I said Mrs. Klotz is the new poster face of her group and she does present a scary profile.  She believes that a strong point of the current form is that the elected officials can see first hand how their departments are run and that they can often hear from constituents.

WHAT??  If you think this a strong point of the Commission form you must be daffy.  Under the proposed form our ELECTED Mayor and 4 Council persons can see how departments are being run and will have more time to hear from constituents who hopefully won’t have to file a FOIL request for public information like our current Mayor Johnson has everyone do.  Why you can’t even go the Building Dept. to get public information because you are told they are not to talk to citizens per Johnson’s orders.  The Mayor or Council person can take the information to the City Manager and tell him or her to look in the matter and report back to them. This is easy for everyone to understand except for Karen & Jane Weihe and the faithful in SUCCESS.  Try calling the Mayor or the Commissioner of DPW and see how long it takes to get an answer.  Mayor Johnson, 23 calls, no call back.  DPW Commissioner, 29 calls, no response.  Visiting the offices are not going to get you anywhere.  Try getting past the Doberman (Shauna) and Skip’s Mexican hairless (Diane), no dice there either.  So much for access to our Commissioner’s.

Klotz’s next miss is that a citizen told her that if the change takes place we would no longer have to grovel to the Mayor and Commissioner’s during the comment period.  This is one that even Karen should understand.

There are usually about 10 people at a Council meeting unless some issue affecting a group or proposed laws being changed (old time Saratogian’s do not like change of any kind even if it helps them in the long run).  Citizens have a time limit of 15 minutes, each citizen wishing to say something to the Council has 2 minutes to say what they want.  You cannot direct your question to a specific Council person and the Council is forbidden to engage or answer your question.  You can have no impact on the agenda that night even if an item comes up for a vote that may be against public wishes.  This scenario Mrs. Klotz sees nothing wrong with and wants to keep this feature in our current form of government.

Mrs. Klotz also interjects her ideas and those of her group that are totally false and knowingly spreads this misinformation just to confuse voters.  She says ‘it’s a stretch that an appointed City Manager won’t hire an assistant City Manager” why stretch the truth Mrs. Klotz, no one has ever mentioned this except your group. She then goes on to say that the Proposed Charter says that the City Manager doesn’t even have to live in the City, the Proposed Charter says “ The Manager need not be a resident of the City or New York at the time of appointment, but may reside outside the City while in office only with the  approval of the Council.  How about if the Manager lives in Wilton?  Will that adversely affect his or her position?  We had a Commissioner that lived outside Saratoga Springs for over 30 years and never once did I hear Mrs. Klotz at a Council meeting say that wasn’t right.

Mrs. Klotz also tries to make a point that Saratoga Springs is the envy of everyone around.  Envy, I don’t know, but Saratoga Springs is a fine city to live in and changing our government structure will not make the city anything less.  The truth is that once you get an experienced Manager in position the real savings will show how many years ago we should have made this change. 

Mrs. Klotz you are right.  The voters will not be asked if they want a City Manager, they will be asked to choose a more cost savings, efficiently run government.  What we have is a 100 year old model that if replaced years ago, Saratoga Springs could be sitting on a much higher surplus than we are now.

Read the Charter; attend the informational forum on Thursday October 25^th.  Attend to get informed and make a real decision that will be best for Saratoga Springs now and in the future.