ALBANY COUNTY — In a county dominated by Democratic voters, next Thursday’s primary will decide the next county executive.

Incumbent Daniel McCoy, 46, an Albany firefighter who served in the Albany County Legislature for 12 years, is running on his four-year record. He says he has put the county back on solid financial footing, fostered programs for youth, and served as an environmental steward — most recently on Tuesday, announcing intent to file a lawsuit against Global Companies, which ships crude oil by rail, for a violation of the Clean Air Act.

His challenger, Daniel Egan, 53, an administrator in the state’s Department of Health and former member of the Albany school board, has criticized McCoy’s handling of home-care for the elderly and his treatment of county leaders, and has accused him, in campaign literature, of “reaping the financial rewards of doing the bidding of his corporate insiders and wealthy special interests.” Egan says he would make inclusiveness and trust a cornerstone of his administration.

Both men have served in the National Guard, and both live with their families in Albany.

“I work for the people,” McCoy told The Enterprise in an interview this week.  “What I take the most pride in is I started a tour of all 19 municipalities my first year and I’ve done it every year since. Now I’ve added office hours, where I sit and listen to people.”

McCoy said he is also proud of his environmental record. “The rail trail wasn’t open when I took office, and now it will run from the town of New Scotland to the Port of Albany,” he said. “We worked with partnerships to do that.”

He also said, “Our stance on the oil trains has made that a national issue.”

McCoy went on, “We got an Energy Star for 112 State Street. I’d love to see county government off the grid in four years.”

He also said, “When I came in, we were borrowing $15 million a year to make payroll. We cut that back, little by little. Every union contract is settled. Every worker has gotten a raise.  There’s a zero-percent tax increase this year. I’ve been holding very fast.”

“The most important thing to me is ethics in government,” said Egan in an interview at The Enterprise on Tuesday. “I can do the job. He’s not qualified, he’s not a progressive. He doesn’t have the heart to do the job.”

Egan described himself as a “lifelong progressive,” stating he “fought against apartheid” in South Africa.

He also said, “McCoy drives a county vehicle; I will not.”

Egan said that, when he first considered running in January, McCoy had $250,000 for his campaign. “I had $246,” said Egan, commenting on the “1,000-to-one odds.”

As of Wednesday, contributions to Egan’s campaign since Jan. 1 total $62,274 with another $4,435 of in-kind contributions and $116,500 in loans to himself, according to the New York State Board of Elections. Egan has spent $183,209 and has a balance of $5,321.

In the same time frame, McCoy has garnered $154,151 in contributions and $394 in kind with no loans; he has spent $154,545 and has a balance of $127,761, again according to the New York State Board of Elections.

“They get in office,” Egan said of incumbents, “and pile up cash.” He asserted that “people are terrified” to donate to his campaign. “They’re afraid they will suffer retaliation,” he said, naming job loss or contract loss.

Egan’s campaign has mailed a series of fliers to residents’ homes, alleging “sweetheart deals for special interests.”

“I’ve been in politics for 25 years and I’ve never seen a campaign this dirty, this low,” said McCoy. “He used fake numbers. He never wants to debate me.”

“I’m about trust, about ending corruption,” said Egan. “A pay-to-play system undermines trust.”

On the pay-to-play allegations, McCoy said, “Seventy-five percent of my donations come from blue-collar workers. Look at my filings. Show me, prove it. It’s a lie; it’s a stunt. He won’t identify who said they won’t do business in Albany County...If they feel it’s corrupt, why wouldn’t they say something?”

Requests for proposals, McCoy said, are “all vetted before it gets to my desk.” He added, “We try to get more people to bid.”

McCoy went on about county transparency, “I created See Through Albany County,” a webpage with links to the State of the County Address, the county budget and Charter Review Commission, the county legislature, the Contract Administration Board, and elected officials and department heads. Take-home vehicles and cell-phone allocations are also itemized. “It’s the taxpayers’ money,” said McCoy.

Continuing McCoy said, “I videotape all the meetings where contracts are voted on.” The chairman of the legislature, the county clerk, and the county executive vote on expenditures under $100,000. “It’s live as we vote,” he said.

Egan is also critical of the way leaders in the county have been treated. He notes that Judy Coyne, who resigned as the Department of Aging commissioner in 2013, and James Crucetti, who resigned as health commissioner in January, have endorsed him. Egan said that McCoy has “terrible leadership standards.”

Egan said, if he were elected, “Everyone who aspires to be a supervisor would go to school for leadership. Employees deserve good leaders.”

“I believe in leadership, and the people in the county lead,” said McCoy.

 

Daniel Egan addresses a mixed-race, mixed-age crowd on Aug. 26 during a candidates’ forum sponsored by the Albany NAACP, The League of Women Voters, 100 Black Men of the Capital Region, and several neighborhood associations. The Enterprise — Michael Koff

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ISSUES

The Enterprise questioned the candidates about these issues; background may be found in the related story.

Heroin

“Addictions are very personal for me,” said Egan. “My grandfather was an addict.” An orphan, he grew up in an institution and worked in a factory full-time when he was 12. A combat infantryman in World War I, he became an electrician at Dannemora.

He was addicted to alcohol, Egan said. “My dad had to take care of the family.” Egan also said he had cousins who were addicts. “One shot himself fatally,” said Egan. “One of my sons is an addict.”

Egan said of addiction, “Law enforcement is the wrong approach. It’s a medical problem. If someone had cancer, you wouldn’t judge their character. You would do what you could to help.”

Egan reiterated that addiction is “a medical and a public-health problem, not a character flaw. It’s not about ‘bad people,’” he said, making quotation marks with his fingers. “Most people in jail have substance-abuse problems. Both the county and the state need to work on this....We need to back off for small quantities of marijuana,” he said of prosecuting those who sell drugs.

The solution, he said, comes with jobs and economic development. “If you live in a community where there’s no opportunity to meet basic human needs like feeding your family,” Egan said, it’s likely you would turn to crime. “There’s been no gain for the middle class since Reagan,” he said. “We need economic opportunity for everyone. That’s the cornerstone of what I’m doing. People feel excluded...Local government is not responsive to them. They don’t have a seat at the table.”

McCoy’s response to stemming the heroin epidemic is to educate. Referring to Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple, he said, “Sheriff Apple’s been out in front with my office doing education. We’re trying to get the health department to step it up.”

He referenced a program to equip police departments and others with Narcan kits, containing an opiate antidote, which can save the life of someone who has overdosed on heroin.

McCoy also said the county has gotten involved with the LEAD (Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion) program. “We signed on with the district attorney and the sheriff. It gives officers the opportunity, instead of arresting someone, they can be put in a program to get help, instead of locking them up.”

Veterans

McCoy said that an all-volunteer program with incarcerated veterans at Albany County’s jail has been successful. “I sat down with Sheriff Apple and we identified veterans to go to a different tier.” The veterans are mentored by volunteers from the Soldier On program who “work with them on changing their lifestyle,” said McCoy, “so, when they leave jail, they have a crutch.”

Asked about the progress with a Soldier On facility in Colonie, McCoy said that the county is working in “partnership with the Shaker Society,” which has land and historic but rundown buildings.

The Ann Lee Home, formerly used for the county’s nursing home, will house veterans.

“Delaware Engineering is doing a study of the property,” said McCoy. The plan is to have 150 apartments. “We hope by November to get a shovel in the ground.

The money for the project, said McCoy, who is a member of the New York National Guard, was raised through federal grants, a benefit concert, and local veterans’ posts.

On dealing with troubled veterans, Egan said, “This has happened after every one of our wars....We better think about the human price paid — it goes on for decades — before we go to war.”

Egan has been an infantry officer in the National Guard and, he said, his father and grandfather were infantry sergeants.

“I don’t think there should be homeless veterans,” he said. “One of the buildings we renovate,” he said, referring to an economic development plan he has, “should be a home for homeless veterans — a real home, integrated into the community, not out and away from everyone,” he concluded, alluding to the Shaker site, which is rural.

Suburban poverty

“The best social program is a good job,” said Egan. “We are extremely weak on what we do for economic development.” Albany County, he said, is “very narrow” in its approach, giving “huge tax breaks for companies without widespread economic development.

He cited the Vista Technology Campus, located in Bethlehem and New Scotland: “Five-hundred jobs were promised for big tax breaks and no new jobs were produced.”

The campus was built by Columbia Development and BBL Construction Services. “BBL is one of Dan McCoy’s major campaign contributors,” said Egan.

Egan cited Troy as a city that does “a great job in economic development, clearing away any hassles for small businesses.”

He said that government should “get out of the way; get obstacles away.”

“The county should have an active role in supporting small business,” said Egan. “I’d like to start a small-business incubator.”

He went on, “I work in a lab. If anything goes wrong, I’ve got one guy I call. Albany County could be the rep, to make it easy for business.”

Secondly, he proposed spurring residents who are eligible for food stamps to get them, which he said would help the economy. “Albany County is one of the worst counties upstate getting those who are eligible to actually receive their food stamps; it’s below 70 percent,” he said. He attributed the low percentage to “incompetence” on the part of county government.

“If we got from 70 to 90 percent, we’d bring a million dollars a month to the community,” said Egan. “They’ll spend it at the corner store; money will circulate rapidly.”

The centerpiece of Egan’s plan for economic development is a large-scale apprenticeship program. “We have thousands of vacant and decaying buildings,” he said. “They sit there and drag down our neighborhoods, attracting crime....The county owns hundreds and the Land Bank has the mechanism to buy more. We should take our young people without opportunities and train them. Most in the building trade are older and would be happy to mentor.”

Egan went on, “We can rev up the economy, rebuild our work force. Numerous grants are available, and we’ll recover costs by renovating and reselling houses.” He also said that, having young people employed would deter crime.

Egan concluded, “A job is not just money for your family but it is also dignity. There’s this pride.”

On suburban poverty, McCoy said, “People are embarrassed to use services and they shouldn’t be.”

At a time when municipalities are cutting budgets to stay under the state-set tax-levy limit, recreational programs for kids have been cut.

“We’ve launched an AAU program,” said McCoy of the Amateur Athletic Union. “We’re going out to the Hilltowns. The sports, which include flag football and karate, “give kids a foundation,” said McCoy.

He went on, “It’s free for kids. It’s not just about sports; 99.9 percent will never play pro sports... but we can make them great citizens.” Also, he said, “We can help them with food programs.”

McCoy said the county is also using court programs to “help kids who get into trouble.”

“The justice system has to help poor and rich equally,” McCoy said. “Project Growth helps them find a job. Then they pay back their own restitution.”

Another help in suburban and rural areas, McCoy said, is public transportation. “The CDTA cancelled their bus in the Hilltowns,” McCoy said of the Capital District Transportation Authority. He went on, referring to the Berne supervisor, Kevin Crosier, “We got a bus back up there, run by volunteers.”

McCoy continued, “We brought food to the Father Young site so seniors could get a hot meal once a day.”

Another program to reach out was to have probation officers visit at parolees’ homes rather than having them come to the Clarksville station. That service wasn’t very popular. “People don’t want people to know,” said McCoy.

Finally, he noted that Lawson Lake was “open to all the kids in the county.”

 

^{Daniel McCoy speaks last Wednesday at a packed forum for the two Democrats facing off in the Sept. 10 primary for Albany County executive; the forum was held at the First Unitarian Universalist Society of Albany. The Enterprise — Michael Koff}

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Consolidation

“The only positive thing I take away from the 2-percent property tax cap is it has forced towns, cities, and villages to do things they haven’t done,” said McCoy, speaking of municipalities sharing resources.

He cited the example of a shared emergency 9-1-1 system , saving Cohoes $460,000 annually; Watervliet, $139,000, and Green Island, $32,000 a year.

“We’ve shared salt sheds and maintenance buildings in the Hilltowns,” said McCoy, splitting payment for light and electricity according to use.

“This is about trust and efficiency,” said Egan of consolidating or sharing services.  “We started as a spread-out, rural society. Our government structures have grown up. The structures have been outgrown. We have a 20^th-Century economy harnessed to a 19^th-Century government.”

The economy, he said, is fueled by manufacturing, hospitals, and the university. “We have no big tech firms, no robotics, no widespread commercial research.” Describing the 19^th-Century government, Egan went on, “When you walk into county offices, [you encounter] antiquated processes.”

He said he led the Albany school board to allow registering students for school remotely rather than in person.

“Technology comes from so many sources,” said Egan as he held up his iPhone.

He went on, “I go to a lot of little street fairs, with tents and stands. Why no tent for the county?” He envisions a tent where county staffers have laptops to offer ready answers.

“My office is wherever I am, not at 112 State Street,” said Egan. “I’ll talk to the people about their issues; we’ll clear obstacles right here and now. I will do this my entire term.”

Egan concluded, “We still think in a paper-based way.”

He also said, “I’m not a fan of Governor Cuomo. We need local leaders to stand up to him. He treats this region badly, especially in education...He thinks, because he asks for consolidation, it should happen.”

But, said Egan, that’s not the case. “People have local pride; that’s something we should foster, not fight. Consolidation threatens that. People feel that they lose control. This is an issue of democracy.

“Another part is distrust. We have an exceptionally corrupt county government. They’re right not to trust a corrupt county to do the job better.

“Third, we don’t know how good they are at these jobs. We need to solve it by building trust.”

Egan said that he would appoint a chief transparency officer “to share data in a meaningful way for everyone.”

He is not impressed with McCoy’s webpage on the county site. “I’ve looked at See Through Albany County,” said Egan. “We need a 21^st-Century way of looking at things — tables, charts, graphs. For example, what does it cost to plow a mile of road?”

Data needs to be put in context, Egan said. “I want a data-rich website with graphs that make it easy to see comparisons. There’s years of work to be done. Trust builds slowly. Over time, we build trust. By being transparent, accounting for every dollar.

“I want short mission statements for every county department that includes goals and how well we’re doing so you can measure and hold me accountable.”

Raising his right hand, Egan said, “If we’re lousy, if we don’t meet our goals, I’m the leader; I admit it. If a village can do the plowing cheaper, contract with them. I don’t want layoffs. My theory is, there’s plenty of work to do. If you lay someone off, what do they do? Go to public assistance,” he said, answering the question he had posed.

Once corruption ends and trust is built, said Egan, “That’s when productive discussion takes place on shared services.”

Care for the elderly

“Right now, the Department of Aging and the nursing home are two different things,” said Egan. “One commissioner should be responsible for both.”

Currently, in Albany County, one out of six residents are elderly, said Egan; in 15 years, it will be one out of four.

“The problem is getting bigger,” he said. In conversations during his campaign, Egan said, he’s learned “thousands of voters want a public nursing home”

Referring to Michael Breslin, the county executive before McCoy, Egan said, “His plan was to get out of the nursing-home business. Dan McCoy was a strong advocate in the legislature and then, as executive, he threatened to veto the budget unless the nursing home was privatized. Now, he says he led the way in protecting the nursing home. People lose trust.”

Egan concluded, “My plan is to have one responsible leader for all senior services...We need a range of services with case managers to make visits and see how needs are progressing or regressing.”

Egan also said that the current county nursing home has a one-star federal rating on a five-star system. “I think that’s disgraceful,” he said. The quality of the nursing home needs to be raised, he said.

The Expanded In-Home Services for the Elderly Program is a statewide program. “Many counties pay a supplement,” said Egan. “In times of fiscal distress, you prioritize. When there’s not fiscal distress, it’s inexcusable, he said, of not providing in-home services.

“Without informing the legislature, McCoy diverted money from EISEP,” said Egan. “One million dollars was not used...The Commissioner of Aging was not informed of the waiting list. People didn’t know about the program; 147 people were on a waiting list and 39 died without receiving services.”

Egan concluded, “It’s important we have one leader who oversees everything and can see the big picture to get the layers of care they need.

“Most people don’t go into a nursing home,” said Egan. In-home care is less expensive. “People like being in their homes,” he concluded.

McCoy said that, when he took office four years ago, county finances were in bad shape and the nursing home was losing a million dollars a month.

“We’ve been debating that nursing-home topic since 1990,” said McCoy. “We took a $15 million deficit and knocked it down to $4 million.”

He also said the county along with Albany Medical Center has applied for a state grant to create a medical facility in the nursing home that would serve residents not living in the facility.

Responding to Egan’s EISEP accusations, McCoy said, “EISEP is not for medical care. You don’t deal with a person. It’s for doing laundry, cleaning house, preparing food. It’s basically for people that don’t meet the poverty level for Medicaid.

“Counties are supposed to match 20 percent. We’re the most generous in the Capital Region. My predecessor froze it,” he said, referring to Michael Breslin. The county was “in the hole for $18 million. I re-opened it at the end of 2013. I was getting my sea legs,” McCoy said of taking on the leadership role in the county.

Minimum wage

“I’m in support of raising the minimum wage,” said McCoy. “I’m in support of this governor — the first time I’ve said this — the Senate and the Assembly to set a statewide rate.”

If the rate were to be set on a county-by-county basis, McCoy said, “We could lose potential growth...It could be a ripple around the state.” Businesses might leave Albany County, he said, for a county with a different minimum wage.

Asked what dollar amount he’d recommend for a minimum wage, McCoy said, “We’re just getting out of the Great Recession. People are still having a hard time.”

When he became executive, McCoy said, the unemployment rate in Albany County was 7.5 percent; now it is 4.8 percent.

“We’ve added 10,000 jobs. Great,” said McCoy. “But the jobs don’t pay the same as the ones we lost.”

“The wage should be a living wage,” said Egan. “I’ve supported $15 an hour for a long time. It would be best if the state did the right thing.

Egan said of the State Wage Board’s proposal, “2021 is a long way away if you’re supporting a family. It’s an insult to working Americans.”

Asked about the effect a minimum $15-an-hour wage would have on small businesses, Egan said, “There needs to be a come-out for micro-sized businesses. They need to be exempt.”

Egan went on, “People deserve fair wages...The political reality is, if the state doesn’t act, we should still be able to.

“We need to be careful not to put counties in competition with one another. We need to reach out to neighboring counties and work and act in unison to meet needs. We need to build trust to act regionally. We would have to start with local control.”