CAN MISINFORMATION HELP OR HURT SUCCESS??

Is SUCCESS is in trouble.   Saratoga Citizen and voters are asking this question, if spreading misinformation and it back fires will SUCCESS be in trouble?  They have no facts to back up any of their claims.  In a hand out on pretty pink paper they had some information that you can get off of their website.

BEGINNING of SUCCESS STATEMENT

“Radical Change Proposed for 
Saratoga Springs Government 
Let’s not surrender control of our city government to a stranger. We don’t know either the new City Manager czar or how the City Manager form of government will really work.

Commission: VOTERS WIN

Proven. Look at how successful Saratoga Springs has become,  
Efficient government.  
Mayor and all Commissioners are elected and accountable to voters every two years.  
Direct responsibility. 
No tax increase. Large reserves. 
Strong, knowledgeable council 

City Manager: VOTERS LOSE

Unsuccessful. Used by many depressed upstate New York cities.

Bigger bureaucratic government costing more.

*Undemocratic. City Manager is unelected and unaccountable to the taxpayers. 
All city administrators are appointed by city manager. 

Council members denied contact with department heads and employees.   
*Significantly higher cost/taxes. Total cost still unknown. *Strong, knowledgeable council Weak council, completely isolated from the departments

 Commissioners are accountable to the voters every two years. Four year staggered terms mean it could take 4 years to clean house of bad council members.”  End of partial SUCCESS STATEMENT!

If Jane Weihe is one of the best SUCCESS can put forward in a debate, they have a problem.  A well respected former Mayor Ken Klotz made more sense.  Also, he agreed at times with statements made by Kane & Martin but did tell why he felt this form we have provides some of the same points.  One big agreement he had was, and you must remember that Mayor Klotz appointed a Commission that passed a tweaked Commission Charter in 2000.  He said one weakness of this government was that the tweaked Charter mandated some very important departments in the City.  A full time Human Resource position and a Director of open land a spaces to name a few that can’t even be implemented. 

Jane said that as drawn up she couldn’t live under this proposed new Charter.  Let’s hope if the new Charter passes we don’t lose Jane as a Saratogian, she’s too funny.

                                                   

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.

HIDE AND SEEK, A SUCCESS TACTIC

The League of Woman Voters cancelled the debate between 2 members of Saratoga Citizen and 2 members of SUCCESS scheduled for 9/19 because SUCCESS could not field 2 people to debate against Saratoga Citizen.  SUCCESS had also backed out of a scheduled debate at the library scheduled for the 13^th of this month for not being able to field a person for the debate.  This would seem odd as Remiga’s group has been spreading a lot of information lately and if anyone has read the Proposed Charter knows, it is misinformation they are spreading.  The debate would bring this out into the forefront and they can’t get caught in a venue like this without facts, something they just don’t have.

If you were at the evening of discussion they held with SUCCESS members Scott Johnson, yes our own Mayor (has anyone but me noticed how blood shot his eyes look all the time)?  How can he be holding office and be a card carrying member of this group and his partner Joe Dalton, who it is said, upon arriving in Saratoga to start his job declared a statement regarding Saratoga as being a city in the sticks.  This is the same Dalton, who was making $190,000.00 in salary and $25,000.00 in other income from the Chamber plus retirement and all the other benefits.  Anyway, Remiga did have the sense to take questions from the audience, but only from SUCCESS members.  She advertised it as an open public meeting, although she never recognized many of the hands raised by Saratoga Citizen members or regular citizens who had just woken up from the Mayor’s speech.

Well some news on a Saturday, the League of Woman Voter’s has announced that a debate on October 25^th from 7:30 – 9:30 will take place at the Saratoga Springs High School Auditorium.  Those in the debate for the group against Charter Change (SARATOGIANS UNITED TO CONTINUE THE CHARTER ESSENTIAL TO SUSTAIN OUR SUCCESS), again they can’t remember their name so they use SUCCESS, will be Ken Klotz & Jane Weihe and representing Saratoga Citizen (Saratoga Citizen) will be Pat Kane & Batavia City Manager Jason Molino.  Pass the word around.

This event will go on said a spokesperson from the League, no matter if SUCCESS is there or not.  Captain America feels that former Mayor Karen err I mean Ken Klotz or Jane Weihe will pass on the spotlight.  Expect some red faces when they can't come up with anything but 'look at wherre we are now'.  Pass on the information, you will want the truth and this will be the place to get it.