From an article in the Albany Times-Union...
Is the 'New Schenectady' really so great?:
https://www.timesunion.com/churchill...ly%20headlines
"I recently predicted that Mayor Gary McCarthy would win re-election with ease. Matt Nelligan begs to differ.
The challenger says his polling — he didn’t want to release the numbers — suggests that dissatisfaction with Schenectady’s direction is deep and voters want an alternative, even a Republican one in a city where GOP influence has waned. They want change, Nelligan says. Big change.
“I think we’re going to shock some people,” Nelligan told me “We can win the race.”
Well, what else would he say? Boy, am I going to get schnitzelled. I’ve got no chance! This is going to be humiliating! Optimism is the default setting even for candidates who know an Election Day abattoir awaits.
And wouldn’t Nelligan’s claim about Schenectady’s direction surprise anyone who knows its remade downtown, a place of drastic change and improvement? What about the restaurants and new apartments? What about that spick-and-span (and dreadfully sterile) casino neighborhood by the river?
What about “New Schenectady,” as the rebranding catchline describes the city?
“Schenectady has undergone a renaissance during my term as mayor,” McCarthy said last week during a debate, citing downtown and neighborhood construction, park and housing investments, and other evidence of progress. “These changes did not just happen. Vision, leadership and competence made it happen.”
Nelligan says McCarthy, in office since 2011, lives in a fantasy land. Yes, downtown is better than it was a decade ago, he says, but that progress shouldn’t obscure the neighborhoods marked by crime and crumbling sidewalks. Schenectady is working for developers, Nelligan claims, but not for residents.
“We have broken infrastructure, broken schools, high crime and high taxes,” said Nelligan, 50, a Watervliet native who lives near the Central Park Rose Garden. Bald and heavily tattooed, at least by mayoral standards, he’s run an aggressive campaign notable for policy proposals that include term limits for elected officials, ethics reform, a city-funded sidewalk replacement program and more.
McCarthy and Nelligan paint such drastically divergent views of Schenectady that Andrew Waite, columnist for the Daily Gazette, wrote that it seems like they live on different planets. A rising city? A declining city? Whose take is more accurate?
Of course, the dynamic is typical for races pitting an outsider-type challenger against an established incumbent. Though Nelligan has long been active in GOP circles, he has never held office in Schenectady. The city’s successes and failures aren’t his, and he wouldn’t be running, presumably, if he believed the former outweighed the latter.
McCarthy, seeking his fourth term, can only run on his record. If Schenectady residents think things are groovy, he’ll win big. If they don’t… well, he might still win, but Nelligan could at least have a fighting chance. (A third candidate in the race, Ed Varno of the Working Families Party, may also grab dissatisfied-with-McCarthy votes.)
Nelligan’s biggest adversary might be apathy. In a city of 67,000 people (and more than 35,000 registered voters) notorious for dismal turnout, McCarthy has never needed more than 4,800 votes to swat away a general election challenger. The mayor needed only about 1,500 votes to fend off primary opponent Marion Porterfield.
Maybe that apparent indifference to local politics reflects satisfaction with life in a city where violent crime is well below what’s experienced to the east in Albany and where, according to sales statistics from the Greater Capital Association of Realtors, median home values are surging. ($206,000 last year compared to $85,250 in 2016.)
Maybe things are A-OK in Schenectady? Nelligan doesn’t think so.
He points to a school system in which, among other dismal metrics, only four percent of Black students passed the state’s math test, a performance that lagged even other struggling districts. Sure, schools are technically beyond mayoral control, but Nelligan says he’d use his City Hall bully pulpit to demand better while appointing a full-time City Hall liaison to the district.
Schools are too important to the life and future of the city — and its tax base — to justify a hands-off approach, Nelligan argues. It’s a strong point, I think. But are Nelligan’s arguments strong enough to carry a Republican in a city where Democrats have almost a four-to-one enrollment edge? Strong enough to cut against all the talk of “New Schenectady,” where progress is said to be ample and obvious?
“It’s an impressive record,” McCarthy said of improvements under his watch. “Some try to put a negative spin on our success and divide the community.”
Schenectady, a city on the rise. Voters will tell us if it’s so."
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