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"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."
Union College ice rink plan clears major milestone in Schenectady, Local development agency gets approval to carry out environmental reviews for the 3,600-seat arena slated for construction next to Rivers Casino: https://www.timesunion.com/news/arti...ly%20headlines
"A plot of waterfront land on the Mohawk River is closer to being turned into an ice rink for Union College.
The Metroplex Development Authority was given the power this week to carry out a state-required environmental review of plans to build the 3,600-seat arena between Rivers Casino & Resort and the Mohawk Harbor residential and entertainment complex on Erie Boulevard.
Construction of the arena, which would seat 2,200 spectators for hockey games and about 1,400 more for other events, would complete the Galesi Group’s makeover of land that once was home to the American Locomotive Co., the train builder that decades ago gave Schenectady the second half of its descriptor as the “the city that lights and hauls the world.” (General Electric’s downtown plant inspired the first half.)
“It was a good discussion, it’s very preliminary, the project’s not been approved by the college, by the developer, it’s just every preliminary to start the State Environmental Quality Review Act process, which it has to do,” Metroplex Chairman Ray Gillen said this week. Metroplex oversees and helps fund construction projects around downtown and other commercial corridors in Schenectady County.
The Galesi subsidiary Maxon Alco Holdings will develop the arena, plans for which were reviewed this week by the city’s planning commission, which will sign off on the project. The Daily Gazette previously reported on the session.
The hockey arena would serve as home of the Union College men’s and women’s hockey teams. The new rink would be an alternative for rehabilitating Union’s current on-campus site, Messa Rink at Achilles Center, which needs extensive work.
Last year, Union President David Harris announced that the school was negotiating a long-term lease to be the primary tenant of the rink and was optimistic a deal would be made.
“The rink, which would be adjacent to campus and part of the thriving Mohawk Harbor, would provide our men’s and women’s hockey teams with a significantly upgraded facility, and our fans with a much-improved experience,” he said at the time. “The Mohawk Harbor option provides us the best option, and because expenses are shared with other parties, it is also the most cost-effective option.”
The arena would also be used for youth hockey practice and tournaments, officials said.
It was unknown Friday how much money — if any — Union College would contribute to the construction of the rink. A spokesman for Union said the college would not discuss negotiations for the project.
When the state began the process of granting casino licenses a decade ago, theater operators and other entertainment venues received legal protections that promised competing facilities would not be built at the new gambling halls. A coalition of upstate arts and entertainment venues, including Proctors theater in Schenectady, touted agreements with the casino operators that protected them from the threat venues larger than 1,000 seats would be built at the casinos.
Rivers never constructed such a facility. The ice rink is being built on non-casino land.
Philip Morris, CEO of Proctors, offered no objection to the construction of a potential competitor just a mile from the downtown theater. He said he has been told the arena will mostly serve as an athletic facility for Union’s teams and as a location for youth sports when not in use by the college. Another person familiar with the plan who spoke on condition of anonymity, said it will serve as space for conventions and trade shows at the complex.
Morris said he expects the only overlap will be occasional rock concerts. Proctors primarily features a year-round schedule of Broadway touring musicals and other live shows that draw thousands of people downtown each week. But musical concerts — Bob Dylan plays there Monday — are also part of the Proctors roster. Morris said he expects the arena will host concerts but doesn’t expect a steady flow of them.
“A couple of times a year it is not that big a deal,” he said.
The rink will include 1,472 parking spaces at a combination of on- and off-site locations, including 450 slots at 200 and 220 Harborside Drive, 138 that will be added on-site and across from the existing driveway to the rink and 84 next to Druthers amphitheater in Mohawk Harbor, and 800 spaces at the Golub Corp. headquarters on Nott Street."
"Jordan B. Peterson, the controversial Canadian psychologist, is bringing his “We Who Wrestle with God” tour to Proctors Theatre on Feb. 6. Schenectady will be the third stop on Peterson’s 51-city tour.
Peterson, a professor emeritus at the University of Toronto, first gained public attention for a series of lecture videos attacking a bill proposed by Canadian parliament to ban discrimination based on gender identity or expression and stating his refusal to use his students' preferred pronouns in 2017. His lecture titled “Identity politics and the Marxist lie of white privilege,” given at University of British Columbia Free Speech Club later that year, has garnered over six million views on YouTube.
His conservative views have earned him a dedicated, right-wing following, bans from various social media sites and an order from the College of Psychologists of Ontario to undergo social media training, which was upheld in court this summer. His X account, then Twitter, was suspended after several posts misgendering and deadnaming actor Elliot Page last year; Elon Musk reinstated Peterson’s account when he took over the site. In October, Peterson’s Instagram account was temporarily suspended, which Peterson called a “coordinated attack to take (him) down.” The suspension came after Peterson told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “give 'em hell” following Hamas' attack on Oct. 7.
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