July 26, 2007

some thoughts

I've been allowing my renting Guitar Hero Rocks the 80's to subtract time from the blog. Of course, the Post-Standard did go a few days without much politics, but they did post a few things.

Number 1, I've been meaning to comment about the article "Bruno cleared, Spitzer spanked." First off, good alliteration. Second, I guess I've got to give kudos to Cuomo for saying the Governor took things too far. Mind you, I'm for anything that moves Bruno out of there, as he seems to be doing a good job of holding up the whole process, but all this did was create a lot of anxious newscasters. Also, Cuomo shouldn't be afraid to speak up to Spitzer (see, I can do alliteration too), but part of me wonders if this isn't just so he looks good to take over as Gov when Spitzer runs for Prez. It's always about moving up, can't we just do our jobs people. By the way, if anyone wants to offer me a job...

Number 2 is Mahoney. She's calling for fair play in these county exec campaigns, but I didn't really get a chance to read that article, so that's all I've got. I hope for fair play too. She also put out a tax plan (or some details) that called for a cap on senior citizens property taxes. I can understand this, since they're on a fixed income, but on the other hand property tax is a struggle for everyone in this state. As a young'un with retired parents, I can see both sides. Also, someone logged on Syracuse.com and posted that this has to do with assessments which aren't really a county thing. I'm undecided, please discuss.

July 22, 2007

Oh yeah, duh...

Tom Buckel (County legislator candidate, 7th district, north side of Syracuse) wants me to get him some volunteers. So if anyone wants to help elect a county legislator, and can give about 2 hrs about 6 times between now and end of August to walk a target district, drop me a line. Heck even if you want to pick some other candidate, I've spoken to quite a few of the Democrats, and am still trying to set things up to speak to a Republican named Moynihan, so drop me a line or check out the democracywise link to the right to find out info on any local county race. The advantage of county races are that you get to meet the candidate and find out what they're really about.

This conversation may be monitored to improve your service

So one of the things I hadn't thought about is that certain groups monitor the blogs, so that simply by mentioning DELAVAN ART GALLERY, for example, or DAN MAFFEI, I merit some attention. Of course, they're looking for positive attention, so I doubt the words Walsh or Sweetland will get me repeat viewers.

Speaking of Sweetland, I think he's stalking me. I've seen him twice just this week. Oh, wait, I work at the civic center, never mind. But the first time he was buying a hot dog, and I'm pretty sure he parked his car in Judge Tormey's spot.

The post-standard recently reported that the governor is sending out a lot of angry letters about empire zones, apparently to yell at companies that got the benefits and hired little or no people. The article doesn't say for sure what the next step is (hopefully something more than another angry letter). It's a good first step, but I say we mail out one big angry letter to all our state representatives in the form of a signed petition.

The Barack Obama fundraiser at the Delavan was a good little event. I didn't get the phone call from Tom Buckel I expected but I did get called by a friend about some goings on this weekend, and unfortunately the crowd was between me and the door, so I had to go hide behind some art and take the call. Sorry to anyone if I seemed like the guy from that bit on Trigger Happy TV who would yell into the giant plastic cell phone (they actually did have one skit that began "I'm in an art gallery!")

Maffei.

July 17, 2007

Oh no! They've called my bluff!

Just kidding, it wasn't a bluff. But I'm being called out on my "I will vote for a Republican if they can convince me," statement. Deborah Moynihan, running for leg in the 19th, wants to convince me. She states that, while I state I'm not married to the Democrats, I seem to think the future of our community is in their hands. To this I'd comment that right now it seems to be in Republican hands, and it ain't looking so hot. But she does bring up the point that there is deadwood on both sides of the aisle, which is not only true, but the reason the remaining Democrats have been so powerless (sorry Mr Ryan, some of that's on you). An additional reason for my leaning toward Democrats: I'm a liberal son of a bitch. You'll have to keep that in mind Ms Moynihan. Note that I didn't back down and call myself progressive. I'll email Ms Moynihan back and report the details.

In other news, money. Walsh has raised $299,000 to Maffei's $211,000 in next year's repeat of last year's contest for the 25th Congressional. Both parties are saying the majority of the other's money is coming from outside sources and doesn't indicate CNY enthusiasm, and I'm afraid they may both be very right on that.

Meanwhile, the local County Executive race shows that Sweetland raised the most but has spent a lot of it on dumb commercials. Magnarelli has the most on hand by far, although $70, 500 of that is leftovers from his assembly campaign. The stats in thousands Sweetland $141 raised, $67 remaining, Mahoney $62 raised/$17 left, Magnarelli $136/$115, Ryan $49/$27. Once again, everyone is shouting reasons why their amount means more than other peoples', so take the numbers for what you will.

July 16, 2007

well, it is politics, and it is local...

It's just not local politics. Syracuse for Obama is having a fundraiser/ get together at the Delavan Art Gallery, 501 W Fayette, Syracuse, at 5:30 pm this Wednesday 7/18/07. I haven't decided yet if I'll stop by or not.

The post-standard reported on the opening of Joanie Mahoney's HQ. I walked by it today at lunch time. I was going to pick up a brochure, I'm not locked into the democratic party, I just usually vote that way. I was going to give her a chance to convince me, heck, I liked her better than Driscoll last year but I'm not in the city. No one was inside though, so I couldn't get any info. Side note, it's just down the street from Dem HQ, I felt like I had to sneak around.

As for what I've been doing lately (instead of posting, sorry) I went to a Neighborhood watch BBQ with Tom Buckel (running for leg in the 7th, north side) and went to Candidate training as his guest. That training was cool, even though it was the same as what I'd done before. I got to meet a lot of the candidates. Tina Bennett definitely looks less evil and seems less pure ego then her opponent Bill Fitzpatrick. Bill Magnarelli gave the intro, and did a good job, which, when added to his prior support of the empire zone reform bill, is making me lean more toward him. We'll see.

July 10, 2007

Political goings on

CSEA, the union, had a picnic to protest the Berger commision's suggestion to take Van Dyne out of county hands. The picnic had only hot dogs, no Burgers, haha, those union guys crack me up. No, not really. But Nick Pirro cooked some of the dogs (really, look at the photo in your paper), so that's mildly humorous. Speaking of county execs, the dems and republicans had their candidates at the picnic, except Ed Ryan, who had a scheduling conflict. Ed, I don't know what you had, but that's because I didn't read a news article about it, so politically I think you lost out on that one.

Another Young Dems meeting tomorrow, at Democratic Headquarters, 248 E Water st, not Warren, where I tried to go last time but Warren doesn't have that number. 7pm.

Tomorrow's Neighborhoods Today Picnic at Washington Square Park on Thursday, 6 pm. County Legislator Candidate Tom Buckel to speak.

And Saturday, candidate training for democrats. I'll be going to everything from the Young Dems on down, so I'll be keeping busy. What will you be up to?

July 7, 2007

random things (as opposed to the usual format)

Ed Ryan opens his campaign headquarters, and promptly vows not to return. Really, read the blurb in today's paper. He'll be out in the field. It makes sense campaign wise for him to stick to the field, but I'm not sure about announcing it. I would post the contact info for the new HQ but I can't find the info for other HQs and I want to play fair. It's in the article anyway, look in the paper or search syracuse.com.

The big politics article today is about judges being appointed "acting" judges of a higher level, usually with a bump in pay. As someone who works in the court system, let me ride both sides of this issue. First off, 2 of the big examples cited are Judge Merrill in drug court and Judge Rossi in Integrated Domestic Violence court. Let me say that these two positions need to stay. Without being an acting count court judge, Judge Merrill could not run drug court, and we need a drug court. Some would argue that treatment is letting defendants off the hook, but these people have not been before Judge Merrill. Trust me, if someone screws up drug court, they're paying for it. As for IDV, domestic violence often involves custody desputes and divorces, felonies, misdeanors, and violations (harassment is a violation). Giving a family court judge like Rossi extra authority so he can handle the whole case allows him to be familiar with all the issues. Similarly, Aloi gets his acting position so he can handle anything from Rossi that has to go to trial, since Rossi doesn't handle trials.

That being said, the "acting" judge system does give power to people who weren't elected by the people to have that power, the power instead being handed out by Administrative Judge Tormey. For family court judge Walsh Hood to have no family court cases and instead handle matrimonial issues seems to be giving her a higher post than she was elected to.

Finally, some words on Syracuse.com's forums. Posting there has taught me several things: 1)Lawrence Moten had better stats then I remembered at SU 2)There seems to be a lot of discussion about running Tina Bennett for DA 3) People do not read posts completely before they respond to them (here I'm thinking conservatives responding to my posts, maybe we need a special reading class for them). Despite that, I'll continue to post because my new counter tells me the majority of my tiny number of hits come from there.

Oh and I got added to the blogroll (that sounds like a terrible type of bread) at the Brennan Center! They waited a while to make sure I'd keep posting. So some people are reading.

July 3, 2007

That is absolutely nothing like a plan another candidate just put up

Sweetland has put forth his 9 point plan to save the county. If you actually click the link, you should note that the 2nd point should say "show" fiscal impact, and not "slow" fiscal impact as Syracuse.com was good enough to type.

A lot of it has to do with setting limits on spending. And then there's the interesting stuff. Webcasting budget hearings, online satisfaction surveys. These would be good for open government, which is a plus, but I'm not sure how many would tune in. Applying surplus over the 10% county policy to tax relief. Hmm, I thought I heard something like that before... (coughs the words "Ed Ryan"). But didn't Pirro himself call such a thing reckless?

And of course there's the proposal that all non-mandated (by the state) programs expire after 4 years and have to be renewed. According to the post-standard, Ed Ryan, and Sweetland's own party member Joanie Mahoney, "non-mandated" includes a hell of a lot of services, including the Sheriff's office. Call me crazy, but I think we should be able to agree we need a Sheriff's office.

Kudo's to Joanie by the way, for asking where exactly this plan has been all the time Dale's been in county government. Ed Ryan for his part called the plan non-specific, while Bill Magnarelli again said that property tax relief is important but we need to spend on job creation. Someone needs to give Bill's record a nudge, he seems to be stuck.

Finally, I would like to point out that Dale wants all legislation to show fiscal impact, but when asked did not put a dollar figure to the "potential savings" of his plan.