New G’land GOP’s proposal defeated

GUILDERLAND — Department leaders won’t be required to address the town board any time soon, but they will be invited.
Councilman Warren Redlich made a proposal Tuesday to have the heads of various town departments come before the board in what he termed, "a vote for open government."

His running mate on the Republican line in the fall election, Councilman Mark Grimm, ran on a platform of opening up Town Hall. The pair ousted two incumbent Democrats on what had been a single-party board.

Redlich’s motion was voted down along party lines, 3 to 2.
"I was shocked," Redlich said yesterday of the Democrats’ opposition. Although they still have a majority on the board, he said, the Democrats were burned by the last election and they’re reacting to that. "They don’t believe the voters elected us, they believe we stole the election," he said.
"It’s political; I’m not going to deny that," Supervisor Kenneth Runion said yesterday, after saying that the department heads on Redlich’s proposed schedule were the ones he had been critical of during his campaign.
The first department Redlich wanted represented, at the Feb. 12 town board meeting, was the assessor’s office. Redlich ran on a platform of fair tax assessment, and accused the town of poor assessment practices. Yesterday, he didn’t deny the connection, saying that one reason he put that department first was "because I got elected on fair tax assessment." The other reason, he said, is that the taxable status date is March 1 and Grievance Day — when residents can ask for a reduction in their assessments — is at the beginning of May, so he’d like to air problems he sees in the department before then.
"The campaign is over, the election is over. Let’s get down to business," Carol Wysomski, the town’s assessor, said yesterday.

She received an invitation from Redlich on Wednesday, the day after the meeting, to appear at the Feb. 12 meeting; she doesn’t plan to attend. Wysomski said she attends a class on Tuesday nights, which is when the board meets.
Through the six administrations with which she has worked, she’s never been required to appear before the board, Wysomski said — although she has come before it voluntarily in the past. "I don’t like being put on the spot like that," she said of Redlich’s motion.

As the board’s liaison to the assessor’s office, Redlich should have come to Town Hall to introduce himself and ask any question he might have, which she would be happy to answer, Wysomski said.
"The liaison thing is an empty designation," Redlich answered through The Enterprise yesterday. "It’s an empty title, because Runion is liaison to everybody, and everyone in town government knows it."
Regardless of his status as liaison, Redlich wants to have discussions in public, he said. "I think this is something town residents want to see, instead of me doing it behind closed doors," he said at Tuesday’s meeting.

The idea behind the plan was to let the board ask questions to better understand what each department does and find out what plans each may have for the future, Redlich said. Scheduling the conferences during town board meetings would make it open to the public so that interested residents could also get a better understanding of what town departments are doing, he said.
To Redlich’s initial pitch on Tuesday night, Runion answered, "I have a couple of issues with it." Each department has representatives available to answer questions when a board member has one, he said, and two of the people on Redlich’s list to appear — the highway superintendent and the receiver of taxes — are elected officials and so may not have to respond to a request from the board. Several other arguments were made between the two parties on the board during a lengthy discussion before the votes were cast.

Runion said yesterday that Redlich’s invitation to Wysomski was more appropriate than his proposal at Tuesday’s meeting.
"There’s a distinction," he said, between the request that Redlich first made and the invitation that he extended on Wednesday. He added, "It may be subtle."

Other business

In other business, the board:

— Voted unanimously to appoint William Cook and Michael Hotaling, both Republicans, and Abel Palma and Charles Arcolano, both Democrats, as machine custodians and James Bruce, a Republican, and Thomas Robert, a Democrat, as party representatives for the primaries and elections in 2008;

— Voted unanimously to appoint Michael Borges to the Economic Development Advisory Committee;

— Voted unanimously to release the escrow for the Bentwood 2C subdivision, Spyglass Court;
— Voted, 4 to 1, after lengthy discussion and debate, to install a stop sign at the intersection of Curry Road Extension and Kings Road. Before casting the only dissenting vote, Redlich, a lawyer, argued that a stop sign wouldn’t be sufficient to make the intersection safe. Rather, the board should have the highway department or a qualified engineering firm assess the intersection, he said. A "T-intersection" would likely be more safe than the current "Y-intersection," he said, and warned, "Now that the town is on written notice that there is a problem with the intersection... we’re exposing the town to liability";
— Voted unanimously to make a formal request to the highway department to review the design of the intersections at Curry Road Extension and Kings Road, Johnston Road and Veeder Road, and Gun Club Road and Western Avenue. Redlich made the motion following the previous vote because he felt that the "triangle" intersection used in the first two examples aren’t safe; Runion offered the third example, although it doesn’t employ the "triangle" design;

— Voted, 3 to 2, to install two stop signs on Penney Lane, one at the intersection of DiBella Drive and the other at the intersection of Timothy Lane. The request came from residents of the development, said Councilwoman Patricia Slavick, who is the liaison to the traffic safety committee.

Town Clerk Rosemary Centi lives in the neighborhood and explained the layout of the suburban roads to the board, adding that some people have a tendency to speed on the straighaways.
"This is a place that doesn’t need a stop sign," Redlich said, and suggested that maybe it is a place that needs a police officer who could issue speeding tickets. He went on to say that using stop signs as a means to slow traffic demeans their effectiveness elsewhere, in places that require a full stop.

Councilman Paul Pastore countered that he thought there were many law-abiding residents in Guilderland who would obey the signs;

— Voted unanimously to make changes to the employee manual;

— Voted unanimously to appoint Janet Thayer, Christopher Knauf, and Robert Hilt to the town’s ethics board; and

— Went into closed session to discuss contract negotiations with the Police Benevolent Association.