A big win! And a huge loss

Kudos (no, really) to the Plattsburgh Common Council for voting to accept funding to continue the Saranac River Trail. These sorts of projects help create a place worth living in, and caring about.

The unanimous vote happened in no small part thanks to the persuasive arguments of Councilor Becky Kasper, who quelled yet another budget panic attack that could have doomed the trail and cost the city millions of dollars of infrastructure funding.

And then Kasper resigned from the Council, declaring quite eloquently that she no longer wanted any part of the current administration's "tyranny of despair."

I don't blame Kasper, at all, but this is terrible for the city. This happened on the same day that Community Development Director Paul DeDominicas, who's been in charge of handling nearly every major project on the city's plate right now, abruptly decided to resign. That's two more sane, experienced, open-minded city servants gone. Just like that.

To quote the bard Michael Ray Richardson, "The ship be sinking, and the sky's the limit."

Down the wrong path

UPDATED (Feb. 9)!
Tonight the Saranac River Trail is on the chopping block. It shouldn’t be, but this is life under Mayor Read, where if it’s not one stupid thing, it’s another. And another. And another ...

Yet this may be the dumbest mistake of all.

The Saranac River Trail (full disclosure: I was once chair of the Saranac River Trail Advisory Committee) is what we call a nice thing. And it’s a nice thing with a payoff. People like to use non-motorized trails. They exercise on them. They commute on them. They get a little dose of nature on them. They play on them. And for those lucky enough to live near trails, they make money from them, because their property values increase.

Yes, nice things cost money. Fortunately, much of the money for the Saranac River Trail’s planned expansion comes from state or federal government grants.

Here’s a rundown of past and present trail funding, by phase:

Phase 1 (completed)

Cost: $1.2 million

This is the part of the trail Plattsburghers already enjoy, which opened up the river from the southern part of Pine Street to Steltzer Road  and on through the SUNY campus. The whole 1.3-mile stretch was covered by the state Dept. of Transportation multimodal fund, and was done in conjunction with previously planned city and state spending on road improvements to Steltzer, Pine and George Angell Drive.

Phase 2 (planned)

Cost: $2.1 million

Cost to City: 20% of cost, but could go down to 5%

This section will connect create a safe route up Pine Street to Stafford Middle School, connect Pine Street to Saranac Street and a new riverfront park, connect the new park to downtown via Durkee Street and then head north to Bridge Street. It would be funded by the state DOT on an 80-20 match, but the city is eligible for additional state funding that could drive city costs down to 5%, or $105,000. To get the grant money, the city must have two bridges across the Saranac River, at Durkee Street and at Pine Street (more on this in a bit).

Phase 3 (planned)

Cost: $1.3 million

Cost to City: 20%, but could go down to 5%

This phase would take the trail east to Green Street, and on to the waterfront marina, making a nearly seamless pedestrian and cycling route from Lake Champlain all the way to George Angell Drive on the SUNY campus.

Tonight’s vote could jeopardize all of the above. When the original Phase 2 grant came in, the city thought it could refurbish the old Saranac Street bridge, which had served as a de facto pedestrian bridge for years. But the bridge was beyond repair, and had to be taken down. The trail suddenly needed a new bridge. Without that bridge, the city would rescind the right to all $2.1 million of the Phase 2 grant money, because the Phase 2 project calls for two bridges. There’s no negotiating this.

Thankfully, in 2016 the city and the Friends of the Saranac River Trail hunted down and procured a $500,000 grant from the state’s parks and historic preservation department to fund a new bridge. Problem solved.

Enter the Read administration. Suddenly, some city councilors have cold feet about the cost of the whole project, and last week tabled a vote to accept the $500,000 bridge grant and move ahead. If they don’t accept the money, all of Phase 2 falls apart—and with it, likely Phase 3. Because if you’re a state agency, do you really want to waste your time and money on municipalities that give back your funding?

The ripple effects would be devastating. Phase 2 was designed to be built in tandem with street upgrades for Pine Street near the Police Station and Stafford Middle School, and was to be a linchpin in the downtown redevelopment initiative. Years of planning and thousands of volunteer hours have gone into making the Saranac River Trail a reality. Prior city administrations made smart deals that will provide maximum bang for the taxpayer’s buck—a $5 million infrastructure upgrade for about a $700,000 investment. 

And yet the city is seriously considering turning down money that will vastly improve the community.

I’d love to end this with a snarky punch line. I can’t. This is too depressing.

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Big Bill

Some new information on Mayor Colin Read's hiring of Bill Owens has been circulating, so it seemed a good time to, as we say in the blog business, throw it out there.

But first, some background: As you may recall, the current mayor made a big deal of hiring the former congressman to wage war on the Town of Plattsburgh for having the temerity to consistently use fractions in an ancient PILOT agreement.

"From 1992 on the city was expected to get up to $850,000 a year," said Plattsburgh Mayor Colin Read. But in 2009, Falcon Seaboard sold the plant to Saranac Power. That's when the PILOT payments to the city, town, county, and school district started to drop off. The value of the land went down, and so did the value of Saranac Power.

"The facility was originally assessed at $200 million. It went down to about $32 million -- that's a significant decrease. The energy market has changed significantly," said Plattsburgh Town Supervisior Michael Cashman.

So the Town of Plattsburgh quickly struck a new agreement with Saranac Power to pay for so-called special districts that respond to the plant in an emergency. "The city has continuously received two thirds of the PILOT money that was negotiated. This other agreement was separate for the special districts," Cashman said.

Interestingly, Owens' firm had a hand in the original agreement, according to this fascinating letter to the editor. Well-played, if you're a heads-I-win, tails-you-lose fan.

Neither the mayor nor the attorney, for some reason, would say what the fees would be. But now we know. And Bill's bill on the back end is.... $350 an hour! And it's a discount. Such a deal.

Keep in mind that Owens and Read serve on the same board of directors, but that is entirely coincidental and perfectly legal and totally ethical and has no bearing on any of these completely good-faith dealings, so shutupShutUpSHUTUP!!!

But wait, there's more!

Behold, citizens, your tax dollars at work.

Conflict III: The Mayor Strikes Back (sorta)

Just as ye olde blog published the second post in what is now a full-fledged series on Mayor Colin Read's potential conflicts of interest, I spied an email from the City of Plattsburgh clerk updating my initial Freedom of Information Law request regarding the mayor's business dealings.

It contained a letter in which the mayor fesses up to various business interests, while pointedly stating he is under no obligation to disclose them under New York State law. We'll let lawyers, or voters, decide whether that's the case. What's important for the city is that Read has now disclosed in a public record some of his other jobs.

At first glance, he's taking the high road, but his answer about avoiding conflicts of interest in city business is, shall we say, lawyerly.

Here's the text of his letter, sent to City Clerk Sylvia Parrotte on Jan. 12, the same day the clerk sent me an email saying there were no documents on file regarding potential conflicts of interest:

So, the mayor sits on the board of the hospital, one of the biggest employers in the city; the local public TV station, which covers him; and the aforementioned (in this blog) communications and banking firms that have contracts with the city.

But because he doesn't own 5% of any of these companies, one of which, Arrow, has $2 billion in assets, it's all good. And he's under no obligation to recuse himself from any decisions involving these organizations, says he. The logic seems to be that because the city and state have no emoluments clause, there are no potential emoluments.

Good to know.

Another conflict zone

Thanks to reader input (who knew this one-horse blog even had readers?), we can now report another instance of Plattsburgh Mayor Colin Read having undeclared business interests that could conflict with his mayoral duties.

Today's winner: Champlain Telephone Co., the parent company of PrimeLink--the city's internet provider. Every month, PrimeLink earns a decent chunk of change (more than $5,000 a month) through its contract with Plattsburgh taxpayers, a contract the company won in an open bid before Read took office in 2017:

Mayor Read, as of December 2016, following his election, was listed as a director of the company. The readily available information on Read's role with Champlain/PrimeLink is less extensive than for Arrow Financial Corp., the parent company of city contractor Glens Falls National Bank. That's because Arrow is publicly held and discloses more.

But deep investigative reporting (which involved Googling "Champlain Telephone Company and Colin Read") led to this from Champlain's 2016 filings with the State of New York:

No compensation amounts were reported on the company's 2016 filing, but Read appears to have been paid $5,000 as a director in 2011 (line 7 on the second screen shot):

Just as with his role at Arrow Financial, which coincidentally has another director, Bill Owens, to whom--at Read's behest--the city is now paying money, Read has not documented this potential conflict of interest for the Common Council or the citizens. Article 18 of the state's General Municipal Law says public officials are required to disclose personal financial interests in government contracts.

Read has multiple academic degrees, so maybe he knows clever loopholes in the letter of the law. But this is not a good look. Makes you wonder what else he's failing to disclose.

Our mayor is not conflict averse

UPDATES! As of 1:30 p.m. on Jan. 17, 2018, here and here...

The City of Plattsburgh government rang in the new year in the same way it rang out 2017--full of conflict. Councilor Mike Kelly lived up to his nickname, Hot Mike, when he melted down during the Jan. 4 meeting, accusing fellow council members who might disagree with Mayor Colin Read of insurrection bordering on treason.

Their heinous act? Some councilors didn't want to elect Read's choice as mayor pro tem. They didn't want to last year, either. It made Kelly sad.

Calling the democratic process, in which people get to vote on things, "a stunt," Kelly grew teary over the fact that not everyone in the city wants to accede to every Read whim. "The goal was then, and now, to disrupt city business," Kelly said.

That, or to put a governmental check on a mayor who likes to move fast and break things. And leave them broken.

Anyhow, Kelly literally wagged his finger at his opponents, which Councilor Becky Kasper took issue with. "Oh, I'll point fingers, Becky, as long as you keep being a divisive force on this council," Kelly answered. "You can count on that." The acrimony didn't quite rise to Korean Parliament level, but for a quiet little out-of-the-way 'burgh, it was kinda ugly.

But that was just round one. A few days later, Read announced he was hiring, at taxpayer expense,  former Congressman and current high-powered attorney Bill "Billable Hours" Owens, to shore up the mayor's legal flank in his war on the Town of Plattsburgh.

Phew. At least an older, cooler political head like Owens will step up and resolve this nonsense, right?

Owens says this process could take years and there is no guarantee it won't result in a lawsuit.

Right.

Thing is, amid all this ridiculous fighting, there appear to be some actual conflicts--of interest. Read sits on the board of directors of Arrow Financial Corporation, a company that owns a bunch of North Country businesses, including Glens Falls National Bank. The mayor is paid quite handsomely for this, according to Bloomberg.

And Glens Falls has a contract with the city that predates Read, but continues to this day, in which the bank is paid to hold city receipts in a lockbox. Once a month, the payment, usually around $1,500 to $2,000 a month, shows up on the city website, like so:

Of note? Bill Owens also serves on the Arrow Financial Board of Directors. Owens, like Colin Read, is now making money off the city and Arrow simultaneously, while Arrow has ongoing business with the city. Certainly, in small towns, people wear multiple hats. But New York State law explicitly states that government officials such as Read must disclose when those hats come into contact with each other and could influence the public's business.

With certain limited exceptions, if you or your spouse has, will have, or later acquires an interest in a contract with your municipality, you must disclose the nature and extent of that interest in writing. You must make the disclosure as soon as you become aware of the actual or prospective interest. The disclosure must be made publicly, to your immediate supervisor and to the governing body of the municipality, which must include the disclosure in the official record of its proceedings.

I did a FOIL request a couple of weeks ago to see if the city had any documentation of Read revealing these or other potential conflicts of interest. The city clerk responded that no such documentation exists.

Let's review:
-Read, scourge of those who sit on the back of garbage trucks, is paid $50,000 to sit on the board of a company that does banking business with the city.
-Read just hired an attorney to fight what looks like a quixotic legal battle, and that attorney is also paid to sit on the board of the same banking company.
-The mayor has not revealed how much the city is paying this attorney, who claims his lawyering on the quixotic case could go on for years.
-In fact, the mayor has not revealed any of this, even though, likely by law, and definitely by any ethical standard of public transparency, he should reveal it all, and probably step down from the Arrow Board, if he actually wants to build trust with his constituents and the council. Because the situation, to borrow the mayor's own hot-mic phrase, "stinks to high heaven."

No doubt the mayor is conflicted about it.

"Garbage guys" and efficiency

"That guy sitting on the back of a garbage truck--is he getting more productive? Probably not..." Colin Read, Mayor Plattsburgh, Dec. 15, 2017

In that infamous hot mic video (the money quote is around 9:35 on the link), the mayor and Councilor Mike Kelly muse all intellectual-like on whether public workers, with their cost of living increases and unions and junk, are really as "efficient" as their private-sector brethren, and whether labor without optimal financial efficiency is "sustainable."

Propublica.com produced some data points on that one last week.

In New York City overall, private sanitation trucks killed seven people in 2017. By contrast, city municipal sanitation trucks haven’t caused a fatality since 2014.

Pedestrians aren’t the only casualties, and Action isn’t the only company involved in fatalities. Waste and recycling work is the fifth most fatal job in America — far more deadly than serving as a police officer or a firefighter. 

So, yes, the private sector in this case is far more efficient, if your metric is killing cyclists, pedestrians and workers. Defining sustainability depends on what you actually want to sustain: your money, or someone else's life.