July 7, 2009

The latest plus I weigh in on the mayoral race in Syracuse

Rep. Dan Maffei held a town hall meeting on health care, and a good time was had by all. No, actually what happened is the people from both extreme sides came out and tried to shout over the other, with one fellow being escorted out early on by Syracuse Police. Apparently whenever someone tried to speak that advocated for expanding the government's role in health care, that person was often booed by those advocating for no government role in health care. So, to those of you who didn't go because you thought it sounded kind of dull...

NY state is reinstating empire zone benefits to 96 businesses. Without looking into each one I can't really tell if this is good or not, but at least they're looking at it closer. As opposed to previously when they were basing it entirely on whether the companies answered a single complex question yes or no (really. Sadly, this was in the Post-Standard. And no, they didn't check to see if the yes or no was accurate) (FYI, yes was the bad answer).

State assemblyman Will Barclay states he won't run for John McHugh's soon to be open Congressional spot. Good. Having lived in Barclay's district a good portion of my life, I've yet to see tremendous progress due to him, and mostly seen him winning his seat back year after year due to the fact that the "big city" in his district is Fulton. Yeah, lots of Dems in that territory. Please, no emails, no disrespect meant to Fulton.

I feel I should weigh in on the mayoral race. Early yet, don't know much about too many of the candidates, but I am not a Miner fan. Saw her speak at a Magnarelli rally and she spoke longer than the candidate (which was slightly annoying) but didn't manage to impress me at all. She's managed to continue this trend of not impressing me. Don't know much about Nicoletti, but I think he needs to pick it up a bit if he wants to win a primary. Jennings is for accepting city construction bids without making sure the company pays the prevailing wage, which I'm against, but is for increasing participation by minority owned businesses in city contracts, and for creating an economic development office focused on small businesses, both of which I'm for. Nicoletti's and Kimatian's websites don't say much concrete on their views. Jennings website seems informative and allows you to ask him questions. Be interesting to see how the primaries turn out.

July 1, 2009

Fairly Random

Both Destiny USA and the NY State Senate seem to have stalled. I am not really surprised at either. If I had to pick, the senate surprised me just a little more, which is slightly more than not at all.

Onondaga County bans texting while driving. I may be in trouble.

On a humorous note, Democrats in the stalled Senate claimed to have a quorom (majority of members there so they could vote, to save some of you the trip to www.m-w.com), when one of the Republicans cut through the Senate Chambers to get a across because Democrats had blocked the other path for a press conference they never held. Sure. Whatever works in New York State.

Somehow I have ended up on Fred Thompson's email list. Didn't realize he still had one. I am looking for a job. Maybe I should count this as contact and ask if he'll add me to his linked in network if he has one.

My two legislature faves, Tom Buckel and Dave Stott, picked up endorsements from the working families party, as did Monica Williams, whom I also helped last time around a bit.

That seems enough chatter for now.