NEW SCOTLAND — The town’s Republican and Democratic chairmen will face off on Election Day, Nov. 3, to represent District 38 in the Albany County Legislature.

New Scotland Republican Chairman Timothy Stanton is challenging incumbent Legislator L. Michael Mackey, who serves as the New Scotland Democratic chairman.

The Enterprise asked each candidate to respond to the same questions about issues in Albany County. (See front page of this election section.)

Stanton is a farmer who, with his family, runs Stanton’s Feura Farms, in Feura Bush, and Our Family’s Harvest, in Slingerlands. 

Stanton has run for town council twice before, but has not yet won a seat.

“I’ve always had good support in my area of town,” he said, previously.

Mackey, 59, is an Albany attorney with 34 years of experience. He grew up on a farm in a small town in northern New York, he said.

“We raised heifers for dairy farms,” Mackey said. Mackey later attended Albany Law School, and now lives on Altamont Road.

Feel-good legislation

In recent years, the county has passed “nanny” laws to regulate the sale of toxic toys that contain heavy metals, and the use of Styrofoam restaurant containers. Both candidates were asked their opinions on the effectiveness and appropriateness of such legislation.

“They’re absolutely ridiculous, and they shouldn’t be legislated at the county level,” Stanton said.

The Styrofoam law “only affects one business — Dunkin’ Donuts. That’s it,” Stanton said. “Any place that sells groceries is exempt.”

Stanton said that the county passed that law “just to say that they did something. Talk about a law that was just for propaganda. Dunkin’ could probably fight that.”

“That was of interest to me as it worked its way through the legislature,” Mackey said. “They’ve found it’s difficult to recycle Styrofoam — the cost is high — it is generally not recycled.

“The volume of Styrofoam that goes into landfills is a significant problem, a problem that is costing taxpayers money and is continuing to cost taxpayers money,” Mackey continued. “Is it in the taxpayers’ interest to do something about Styrofoam? The county legislature came up with a compromise and banned it for only national chains.”

Mackey said that other cities in the country ban Styrofoam.

“National chains have already adapted to that. [The ban] did not impose any significant burden on national chains,” Mackey said. “They already have alternative products. I think it was an appropriate law to put in place, and is, ultimately, to the benefit of taxpayers.”

About restrictive legislation elsewhere, Stanton said, “Neighboring counties have none. That’s one of the things that drives me crazy is hearing these laws. What makes Albany need them?”

Mackey spoke also about the toxic toys ban.

“I voted for that,” he said. “It’s probably something that the state should pass, but if the state is not going to pass it…I would rather have it in place here than not in place at all.”

“It’s enforceable,” he continued. “We may need to purchase an additional piece of equipment. There are no significant impediments to its enforcement.”

Crude oil trains

Candidates were asked if the county, which imposed a moratorium on Global Partners’ plans for oil boilers at the Port of Albany and recently joined a lawsuit against the federal Transportation Department to ask for tougher safety standards for trains carrying crude oil through the county had acted appropriately.

“The county has overstepped their bounds, there,” Stanton said. “It’s covered by the federal regulations. No matter how much they squawk about it, the county’s not going to be able to supersede them. It’s more propaganda.

“It’s a federally regulated industry,” Stanton concluded.

“We really, really have to be careful with the oil trains coming through the area,” Mackey said. “There have been catastrophes elsewhere. If they can be made safer, we have an obligation to see that that happens.”

County charter changes

Mackey and Stanton were asked if they supported revising the county charter; the legislature drafted changes to it, but the county Executive Daniel McCoy did not sign the legislation, as, he said, it does not have an independent process for redrawing the county’s legislative districts. Voters will decide on the changes on Election Day.

“He did not veto — it will go on the ballot. He can sign it, or veto it,” Mackey said of McCoy. “I think it’s good. It’s a result of a lot of work by the legislative committee, several years of work. It will make the charter more user-friendly, if anything. It will be easier for members of the public to understand.

“It was time for an update,” Mackey continued. “The current charter was written decades ago. There have been many amendments since then.”

The changes, he said, are “putting it all into one document.”

Stanton did not comment on the county charter.

Minimum wage

Statewide, the minimum wage will increase on Dec. 31 from $8.75 to $9 an hour. Because of a State Wage Board recommendation, by 2021, minimum wage for fast-food workers will increase to $15 per hour. Senate Democrats last year backed a bill to let local governments set their own minimum wages. The Enterprise asked candidates if they supported the increases, and what the minimum wage should be for Albany County.

“I don’t support the $15 fast-food wage,” Stanton said. “I saw a report that said 50,000 state workers would then be paid less than that. I don’t think that’s fair.”

“The big thing is that forcing up the minimum wage is going to force more business out of the area, and I am definitely against that,” Stanton said.

A wage hike in one state near other states with lower minimums would affect businesses, he said.

“Businesses are going to leave and go to other states,” Stanton said.

“It’s a tricky issue to do that county by county,” Mackey said. If one county paid $15 per hour and another paid $12, counties would be in danger of losing jobs to their neighbors, he said.

“It’s an issue much better handled at the state level,” he said. “I certainly support a $15-per-hour minimum wage, but we have to be careful when it comes to farm workers — most of them are already challenged, especially financially. If we change the minimum wage, we must look at it to make farming viable.”

Mackey said that some farms provide housing as part of workers’ payment; a flat minimum wage could have “unintended consequences” for farmers, he said.

Care for the elderly

The county’s nursing home has been the subject of debate in previous elections regarding privatizing the home or shutting it down, but this year’s focus was the Expanded In-Home Services for the Elderly Program, meant to provide stay-in-place help for elderly county residents who otherwise would have to go to a facility.

“We should support in-home services to the fullest extent,” Mackey said. “There still remains a need for nursing-home services. There are people who need and want that level of care.

“It’s important that we support the nursing home. The success in turning around the nursing home is the greatest success I’ve seen in my four years in the legislature,” Mackey continued.

The facility’s $15 million deficit has dropped to $4 million, and is slated to be cut in half, and then eliminated in the coming years, Mackey said.

“Eventually, it has to be shifted to private,” Stanton said. “In general, the private sector can do things more effectively than government can. We still have to have government involvement — we need a last resort for people.”

Stanton said that the county can oversee the nursing home, or help fund the people who live there, “but the actual administration of it should be private,” he said. “A lot of that could be done with home care, but you need both.”

The facility is also being redone, with state-of-the-art equipment, Mackey said.

“It’s really important to have a county-run facility,” he said. “Privatizing would have cost more than, ultimately, we’re paying” for the consultant who overhauled the administration.

“It’s a safety-net facility for people who lack the funds to get into a private facility,” Mackey said. “It’s also a facility that caters to Alzheimer’s patients — our area of special concern. A lot of private facilities don’t like to take Alzheimer’s patients. It’s so much work.”

Young people with mental disorders often must go out of state to find proper facilities, Mackey said, noting that the distances can be “hard on families.”

“We really fill that niche,” Mackey said of providing care for people with mental disorders. “It’s a great accomplishment.”

Veteran care

Candidates were asked what the county should be doing to help struggling veterans, and about progress being made on the Soldier On facility proposed to provide housing and peer-run programs to veterans who are addicts.

“I’m all for anything to help veterans,” Stanton said. The county should “help to facilitate that in any way they can.”

“We approved the environmental review some time ago” for 150 apartments in the Soldier On facility, Mackey said. “That’s a really good start. There’s always more that can be done. If that is insufficient to meet the scope and the need, we should repeat the process elsewhere and do what we can to support our veterans.”

Suburban poverty

Because suburban poverty is more hidden than urban and rural poverty, and because of the spread-out nature of suburbs, poor suburbanites often lack access to social services that tend to be located in cities. Candidates were asked what could be done to help Albany County’s suburban poor.

“I think the services are out there,” Stanton said. “Networking people to the services could be helped out by the county or the town,” Stanton said.

“Our town has a van for aging,” he said, giving an example. The county could be “devising ways to get people to the services,” he said.

Mackey also referred to senior services in New Scotland, stating that Senior Outreach Liaison Susan Kidder contacts him when a senior is in need.

“I’ll help work them through the system, or put them in contact with someone,” Mackey said. “The town of New Scotland does a tremendous job that way.

“It’s really important to have as much outreach…to identify people who need services to provide transportation or home visits, if possible,” he continued.

Services consolidation

“It’s the age-old question,” Stanton said. “Yes, it’s a good idea, but how to go about it is a problem…that should be investigated.”

Stanton said that there are “layers of the same services in the same town,” and that the county should look at the process of sharing.

“How…you share, is a problem,” he said. “How do you alleviate some of these and maintain the same services?”

“Wherever you can logically do it, you should do it,” Mackey said. “It has been done for years, but there is more of a focus now.”

Watervliet and Cohoes saved money by consolidating 911 services, he said.

“We funded a study that is ongoing now as requested by the county comptroller to really study throughout the entire county where services will be able to consolidate,” Mackey said.

He said that the county approved about $100,000 for the study, done by a State University of New York College at New Paltz professor with expertise, to study in two phases what has been done to consolidate services, and what can be done in the future. Funds for the study were taken from the savings obtained from refinancing county debt, at the comptroller’s suggestion, Mackey said.

Heroin treatment

Faced with a marked increase in the use of heroin in the county, the Albany County jail has also seen an increase in the number of inmates who arrive at the facility with heroin dependency. The jail had offered methadone treatment, but most inmates stayed for an average of 30 days. After this time, the facility no longer tracked the health of inmates, who often reverted to heroin addiction upon release. Before the sheriff’s new program for heroin treatment was announced on Oct. 9, candidates were asked what the county could do to stem heroin use and prevent addicts’ recidivism.

“How do you keep addicts from going back?” Stanton asked. “I don’t think anybody has the answer to that question. The problem is, they only have them a short time. It’s a tough thing to help.”

“It’s a terrible problem, and it’s a complicated problem,” Mackey said. “I don’t pretend to be an expert…but from a legislator’s point of view, what we need to do — and what I’m doing — is listen to people with expertise and provide them with resources to deal with the problem.”

Mackey said that the county can provide financial resources to the district attorney, the sheriff’s office, the health department, and the court system to help stem heroin addiction and recidivism.

“An approach has to be multi-faceted — first, and foremost, is education. Youngsters need to understand just how dangerous it is,” Mackey said. “First, we need to be supporting these education efforts; second, purchasing Narcan kits so first responders can save lives; and third, we have to make rehabilitation available. That becomes complicated — it gets the court system involved. The county legislature is limited by what the courts do.”

Other issues

“We passed the drinking water protection law – the first in the state,” Mackey said. Mackey introduced the anti-blasting bill to protect private well owners from having to prove that future water issues stem from blasts done by corporations. Under the law that passed this year, blasting entities must test wells, as requested by property owners, before and after blasts, and remediate any disturbances.

Similar bills have been introduced in Schoharie and Rensselaer County, where Mackey has been asked to speak to the counties’ legislatures, he said.

“That was a major accomplishment of the legislature,” Mackey said. “It was just a common-sense approach to the problem.”