|
Sign on to receive E-mail updates:
|
|
I envision an Albany where citizens have confidence in an open and responsive city government, where taxpayers benefit from and understand how their tax dollars are spent, and where political connections do not buy special privilege and advantage. As a councilmember, I have worked to make city government accountable to the people. As mayor, I will take decisive steps to ensure that city government begins to run efficiently and starts working to benefit Albany residents, not special interests.
As mayor I will work to restore the people’s confidence in local government.
- Audit all city agencies – Conduct an independent audit of all Albany government agencies to eliminate inefficient and wasteful spending to ensure that the city utilizes your tax dollars efficiently and productively.
- Limit borrowing and cut spending – We cannot afford another four years of budget mismanagement; simply put, with a $20 million deficit, Albany government cannot afford to continue to spend more money than it has, and cannot continue to increase the taxpayer liability to make up the difference.
- Revise tax assessment methods – Eliminate inconsistent property tax assessments and implement a fair and consistent tax assessment process.
- Improve city infrastructure – Create long-term systematic programs to replace and/or repair inadequate and decaying infrastructure, such as our sewer system, and ensure its maintenance for future generations.
- Expand bidding for city contracts – Encourage more businesses and vendors to compete for city business contracts to ensure the highest quality work at the best price.
- Create a transparent budgeting process – Provide Council members and citizens with greater access to information about how tax dollars will be spent.
- Residency requirement – Ensure that top city officials live in the city of Albany.
- Ensure a citizen-friendly city government – Organize and modernize city departments to be consumer-friendly and increase taxpayer satisfaction.
How can we begin to restore public confidence in local government?
- Address the city’s budget problems
As mayor, I will make balancing the city’s budget my top priority during my first term. Albany cannot afford four more years of an administration spending more money than the city has. As a councilmember, I voted “NO” to the last two city budgets because they were not balanced and neither showed where and how the money was to be spent. We are currently suffering from a $20 million budget deficit resulting from sixteen years of political cronyism, fiscal mismanagement and unnecessary waste.
- Audit all administrative departments
It is time to trim the fat from city departments that have become bloated and inefficient over the past sixteen years. As mayor, I will hire an outside agency to conduct a top-to-bottom audit of every city department to identify inefficiencies and waste. I will use those findings to streamline city government and pass those savings along to taxpayers.
- Demand accountability and openness from all city departments
As a councilmember, I led efforts to investigate the long-standing practice of issuing no-fine “ghost tickets” to individuals with political connections. When other council members tried to shut down that investigation, I resisted and succeeded in getting the Common Council to exercise its subpoena power for the first time in more than 90 years. The Times Union editorial board repeatedly recognized those efforts to uncover the truth for the people of Albany.
As mayor, I will continue to fight to ensure that the citizens of Albany begin to receive the benefits of their tax dollars. For too long, the mayor’s office has been used to benefit those who make large campaign donations in return for lucrative contracts and business opportunities. My plan is to aggressively pursue new investment and development projects for the benefit – and not to the detriment – of Albany taxpayers.
|
|
