Majority leader: City must work for all residents
KINGSTON, N.Y. » The city has accomplished a lot of good over the past two years but must ensure that it works for all of its residents, the Common Council’s majority leader says.
“Let us all dedicate ourselves to ensuring that the city works for all of our residents,” Reynolds Scott-Childress, D-Ward 3, said during his State of the City address Tuesday night. “Wealth doesn’t trickle down, it bubbles up.
“If we ensure that the least among us can find good jobs, opportunities for self-improvement and a simple sense of well-being, then we will all find ourselves doing well,” he said.
Addressing an audience at City Hall, Scott-Childress said Kingston is thriving in many areas because of the good work of the city’s employees and its many volunteers. He added that just over a year ago, the council adopted “one of the most important items in our recent history: the Welcoming and Inclusive City Resolution.”
“We carefully reviewed it to ensure it was consistent with state and federal law and, after a healthy debate, we passed it,” said ScottChildress, who became majority leader in January. “We understood that new business and new residents are crucial to both our economic health and our cultural vitality. And since the passage of the resolution, we have seen our local economy grow.”
Scott-Childress also lauded diversity among the members of the Common Council, noting that the different ages, genders and backgrounds of the members gives the group its power. He said council members believe “wholeheartedly in the power of active listening, no matter your political party, your personal background, your wealth.”
“We dedicate ourselves to listening and working with all our constituents,” he added. “We cannot promise perfection, but we do dedicate ourselves to pursuing it.”
Going forward, the city’s challenges include repairing its Cooper Lake dam and the Uptown sidewalk canopies known as the Pike Plan, Scott-Childress said. He said the city also has to work to improve stormwater runoff, as well as find creative ways to encourage development without suffering the pitfalls of gentrification.
Scott-Childress said the city also needs to drive out the drug dealers and heal those people who are addicted to illicit drugs.
Also, he said, the city needs to improve the way it communicates with its residents. He said the city should improve its website and better publicize the what the Department of Public Works does.
Scott-Childress said Kingston also should consider citywide broadband, as well as a city-supported mediation service so neighbors can civilly address disagreements. The city also should do a better job of explaining the tools and practices of local government, such as payments-in-lieu-of-taxes, or PILOT, agreements, he said.
The city also must create sound housing policies that ensure all residents have decent places to live, ScottChildress said. And it must create the conditions for a growing economy that ensure an improving job outlook and new developments that increase Kingston’s tax revenues while avoiding tax hikes, he said.
“We know we can meet difficult challenges because it is our history,” Scott-Childress said. “Politics may be the art of the possible — but what is possible depends on the size of our dreams.”