To the Editor:

It is the best of malls; it is the worst of malls. Wasn’t it refreshing to read last week that the owner of Guilderland’s Stuyvesant Plaza is purchasing $10,000 worth of gift cards from the restaurants in the plaza to donate to local health care workers on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic as a gesture of community support in these difficult times?

Recall also that, right at the beginning of the pandemic, Stuyvesant Plaza gave rent relief to its tenants who were deemed non-essential and forced to close their doors in an effort to help them keep their businesses afloat.

In contrast, Pyramid Corporation, the owners of Crossgates Mall, also located in Guilderland, citing financial hardship, reneged on payments for two new town police officers [part of an agreement that was to have expanded hours for patrols at the mall]. Yet, they had the funds to undertake a premature and illegal clear-cutting of the land for the proposed, but not approved, site for a Costco store in a continence of their effort to destroy the environment and pave much of the land that they have acquired over recent years, with the pandering of our town boards.

When the time comes that we will be able to return to some semblance of normalcy, which of these two Guilderland shopping venues will you patronize, the one that essentially gave an obscene gesture to the residents, or the one that stepped forward and demonstrated commitment and kindness to those in need?  The latter act will be the far, far better thing to do.

Frank Casey

Guilderland

Editor’s note: Frank Casey is a member of the Guilderland Coalition for Responsible Growth.

The town is keeping the two full-time police officers on its payroll, Supervisor Peter Barber said, and Pyramid Management Group had already made one quarterly payment of a little over $30,000. Barber says the town has had recent retirements in its police force and can weather the short-term financial fallout of the coronavirus pandemic with its savings.