Council race a study in contrasts
County legislator looking to unseat GOP incumbent
TROY, N.Y. » When voters go to the polls next month to determine who will lead the City Council for the next two years, they face a choice between two very different politicians.
Beyond the obvious difference, incumbent Republican Carmella Mantello and Democratic challenger Gary Pavlic come from very different political backgrounds and also have opposing outlooks on the job and its role in city government.
For Mantello, the race offers the opportunity to win a re-election bid for the first time in three separate terms on the council dating back two decades.
“We came into just total mismanagement, a fiscal mess,” Mantello said during a recent interview of her first term as council president, which she frequently described as serving as “checks and balances” on the administration of new Democratic Mayor Patrick Madden. “People were frustrated. Government was just not at its best, and it was dysfunction junction. … I think setting that tone from day one was something different, something people weren’t used to, something the executive branch wasn’t used to.”
To Pavlic, the race is an opportunity for him to move from the Rensselaer County Legislature and into a position where he feels he can do more immediate and direct good than in the Legislature’s minority, where he has spent his nearly six years in office.
“I don’t want to be mayor, I don’t want to go anyplace else,” Pavlic said during a recent interview, “I just want to be council president. That’s all I want to be.”
Pavlic, 70, who holds a bachelor’s degree in human development from Empire State College and is a retired administrator for the state Department of Health, is a 30-year city resident. He also served as secretary to the City Council before being elected to the county Legislature in 2012, joining fellow Democrat Cynthia Doran in upsetting a pair of Republican incumbents, former mayor Harry Tutunjian and former judge Hank Bauer.
“I am more of a community activist than a politician,” Pavlic said. “I’m not really comfortable with politics as usual. It’s not me. I’m more comfortable doing things in the community and getting them accomplished.”
Mantello, meanwhile, is the daughter of a longtime city police officer and a lifelong city resident. Mantello, 51, has worked in and around state government for the bulk of her career, serving as executive director of the state Canal Corp. under Gov. George Pataki, and currently works as legislative director for state Sen. Betty Little, R-Queensbury. She previously served on the council from 1998-99 and 2010-11, both times passing up re-election bids to instead run unsuccessfully for mayor.
“We have been those sticklers,” Mantello said of her role in city government over the past two years. “We have been — whether you agree with our style or not — the checks and balances that are required of the legislative branch. … I think that has totally benefitted the people.”
The two agree on many of the main issues that will require the council’s attention over the next two years, from continuing to get the city’s finances in order after more than two decades of problems to maintaining the city’s ongoing economic renaissance. They differ, though. on how to achieve many of those objectives.
Pavlic said he backs changes made by Mayor Patrick Madden, a fellow Democrat, to city budgeting and accounting practices that had led to the city receiving stern criticism from the state Comptroller’s Office for routinely underestimating expenses and overestimating revenues, as well as draining the city’s savings to artificially minimize — or even eliminate — property tax increases.
“I’m still going to represent the citizens of the community, of course. That’s my main priority,” said Pavlic, who was critical of what he sees as a combative relationship between Mantello and Madden, “but we
also have to work with the mayor to get things accomplished.”
Mantello, meanwhile, believes more can be done to improve the city’s finances without putting too much of a burden on taxpayers. One area where she believes Madden has failed is in exploring the sharing of services with other municipalities, including Rensselaer County, whose current executive, Kathleen Jimino, also happens to be the mayor’s sister.
“I’m told there’s a working group between the city and the county, but I’ve seen nothing from that,” she said. “It’s happening in little, tiny pockets; I want to see it happen more.”
She credited those checks and balances with taking a 2017 city budget in which Madden initially proposed a 28.4 percent property tax increase and whittling that increase down to 14.5 percent. In his proposed 2018 budget, Madden is proposing a tax increase of about 1.17 percent, below the state tax cap — as had been suggested by Mantello — though he has proposed the addition of a $190 annual solid waste disposal fee per city housing
unit that would raise an estimated $3.5 million in revenue to help cover a proposed 5-percent spending increase.
“I think I set that tone as a fiscal and government watchdog,” Mantello said of her role in often-tense fiscal debates with Madden and his fellow Democrats. “You might not agree with everything I stand for, but you have to agree that I’m working very hard to keep those checks and balances, to ensure that we are that watchdog.”
When it comes to the growth that has brought countless new residents and businesses to the city over the past decade, Mantello said the city needs to do more to encourage developers to look beyond the downtown area and into North Central, South Troy and Lansingburgh neighborhoods badly in need of new life.
“I want to see the downtown momentum spread into the neighborhoods,” she explained. “South Troy,
Lansingburgh. North Central is making a tiny comeback; they’re doing better at this point because of [spillover] development. Somehow, Lansingburgh has to get more attention. South Troy, it’s a ghost town.”
Pavlic said he believes the immediate downtown area is nearly built out,
with developers already starting to move their attention into the adjacent North Central and South Troy neighborhood. He expects that to continue organically as the city continue to build on its recent resurgence.
Whoever wins the race will take the reins of a newly configured council, thanks to changes to the city charter approved by voters in the same 2015 elections in which the current council was chosen. Instead of a nine-member council with three at-large members, the council president will be the sole atlarge representative on a seven-member body.