Dereliction of Duty

When you are Chairman of a City Committee, and your candidate performs in a public debate, you ALWAYS congratulate your candidate and proclaim how well he or she did.

Yet, according to an article in the Kingston Times, Republican City Chair, Tony Sinagra, refused to compliment the Republican Mayoral candidate.  When asked, he just said, "I'll get back to you."

This gives the public the impression that the City Chair is not backing the party's candidate. Very poor politics.

I'm not surprised though.

Speaking of Conflicts

Mayor Gallo eliminated Steve Noble's job in the 2016 budget.  The Alderman who have been solidly anti-Gallo basically stated that they will restore the job when they get the budget.

However, the Alderman at Large needs to be careful.  If he advocates or even comments about this issue, he better bring his checkbook because that would be a clear conflict.

Chamber Debate

So, people want to know who won the Chamber debate.  Each candidate's supporters claim their man won.

As the man who won the Chamber debate 4 years ago, I have my own opinion.  I think Ron Polacco clearly won.

The first rule of any debate is to know your audience.  Polacco spoke about pro business positions while Noble spoke out in favor of bicycle paths.

As a result, the majority of the Freeman coverage dealt with the bike path and that makes Noble look really bad.  If an extremely liberal paper writes an article about a debate that makes a left wing candidate look bad, then that candidate lost the debate.

Fined for Ethics Violation

Alderman Brad Will has been fined $1000 for violating the city ethics law based upon his votes concerning the Pike Plan.  The Ethics Board also instructed the Alderman at Large to issue a written reprimand.

Basically, the Common Council was reviewing questions of whether repairs were needed to the Pike Plan canopies or whether there were problems with its construction.

Alderman Will is an architect and he designed the plan for reconstruction of the plan.  So, he voted on a review of his own work.  This is a clear and obvious conflict.

Will's defense was basically that he did know any better.  However, it is clear and obvious that you cannot ethically do an independent review of your own work.

To my knowledge, this is the first major finding by the Ethics Board.

The Return of Sottile

Apparently, if elected, Steve Noble plans to create a Deputy Mayor position and pay said position $110,000.00 plus benefits.

Basically, he plans to spend enough money to raise taxes by 1% on its own.  This person will do the job of Mayor because Steve is not capable.

To make things worse, word is he plans to hire Jim Sottile.  Kingston thought they were done with the drink thrower.  Looks like he is coming back.

I can think of no better reason to vote Polacco than this news.

Let's see if Freeman explores this story.

Your Bias is Showing

Now the Freeman is printing stories advertising political events being held by Steve Noble, ie his "listening tour".

I am aware of some events held by Ron Polacco.  I did not, however, see any stories in the Freeman about those events.

It is clear and obvious bias.  If you do not think there is a left wing bias at the Freeman, just check out some of the things posted on numerous online sources by their various editors.

I exempt Paul Kirby from my comments.  I have always found him to be very fair.