Hopefuls discuss issues
Spa City voters to pick new mayor on Nov. 7
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. » Both Saratoga mayoral candidates are touting their experience of working with city government as a reason for voters to choose them.
Meg Kelly, the Democrat candidate, serves as the deputy mayor for Mayor Joanne Yepsen, who decided not to seek re-election. Mark Baker, the Republican candidate, served as City Center executive director for 33 years before his retirement at the end of 2016.
Kelly has focused her campaign on five things: preserving the city in the country as her top priority, the issue of parking, creating more work force housing, finding a permanent home for Code Blue and her position in favor the proposed charter which will also go before voters Nov. 7.
Baker said his business experience coupled with leadership skills in consensus building, honesty and integrity make him the best candidate. He said some of his goals deal with honoring and respecting seniors and veterans, having an EMS and fire station available for residents in the Eastern Plateau, continuing to maintain the downtown core and looking at water infrastructure, but Baker’s opposed to going into Saratoga Lake for reserves.
Parking has been a discussion point for both candidates. Kelly isn’t in favor of building any parking garage. She wants to implement the parking task force’s recommendations. “By re-striping the city, we will be adding more spaces. By using smart technology it will give a visitor or a resident the opportunity to know by looking at their phone what spaces are available,” Kelly said. “A lot of people come here and they just go up and down Broadway, and that’s all they see, but we do have parking on the side streets, so if we can show people that, that’s a big piece of parking.”
Baker said there’s a multifacet element to parking.
“I’ll be looking at all of the options and all of the alternatives. Parking is a part of the component. Transportation systems are part of the component, and how you get people to park,” Baker said. “Will parking structures be a part of it? I think it may. I think it may, but it’s not the only solution. And we need to look at all the components of that location, parking capacity, transportation systems.”
Preserving the Greenbelt has been another popular discussed topic during the election period.
“In the [2015] comprehensive plan it is saying that the Greenbelt is for low-density, agricultural type of building which is okay. It’s not OK to put hotels, strip malls and all of that because that will change our downtown Broadway, because once you start building out there, all of the sudden all of the people that live out there are going out to this little strip mall. We don’t want another Exit 15 at Exit 14, because that will be a tragedy, and it’ll wreck Broadway,” said Kelly. “In order to keep the city in the country we have to protect the Greenbelt.”
Baker said the Greenbelt is part of the comprehensive plan that should be reviewed periodically to see if it’s still meeting the right criteria and the community’s primary hopes and direction.
“There is a balance. You have to have a balance of what you have. Everybody, myself included, has elected to be in this town because we want to nurture and maintain the culture and spirit that makes this community special. Part of that specialness is the uniqueness of what Saratoga is, where we are, the green spaces, the developed spaces and where we were able to come back to be a vibrant, fiscal responsible community. 40 years that wasn’t quite the case,” Baker said. “I’m always interested to see what it is we should be doing and how we can be looking with unbiased eyes at what would become before the land-use boards. The lands-use boards, I believe, are a huge component for this. They should be able to receive applications for projects, address them efficiently, use best practices to promote the decisions, following the criteria set.”
As far as their experiences that qualify their candidacy for mayor, Kelly sees her time as deputy mayor as readying her for the position of mayor.
“We have a great office staff that would be ready to make that transition. I think the biggest problem is probably the functioning of city hall,” said Kelly. “We have to get it to function together. In any kind of form of government, we have to work together, and that will be probably be my biggest challenge.”
Kelly explained how she’s improved efficiencies in the mayor’s department since being appointed as deputy mayor in July 2016. The mayor’s department oversees building, planning, human resources and recreation.
“In our building department we are creating new processes each day because we were inundated with building permits and inspections, so in order to streamline that we had to create processes, meaning going right from OK, somebody drops their plans off. What do you do? You have a checklist,’” Kelly said. “None of these were written down. There’s no process or policy and procedure books in the departments, so when I walked in there were no policy and procedures written down for anything, so I’m creating those in every department [in the mayor’s office].”
Baker said his business sense will enable him to help operate the city in an efficient and effective way to build consensus among commissioners.
“I know I have the ability to build consensus. I’ve done it for 33 years. I’ve worked with eight mayors and 20 commissioners since 1984. The City Center never had a place at the table. We had to work through the one those offices, usually the mayor’s office, and to get anything done like expanding a building, increasing our services, we had to work collectively to help to have public safety help us when we had large events,” Baker said. “Those are things I know I can do because I’ve done them. I know how city hall works. Not just for a year, but for 33 years. And the proven success is what I know I can do.”
As for the proposed charter, which would change the city from a commission form of government to a councilmanager form of government, the candidates differ in opinion.
Kelly has endorsed the charter.
“It’s about internal operations of city hall that’s the key. Saratoga is going to be vibrant, we’re going to be a strong city, we’re moving in the right direction, but it’s about the internal operations of city hall and getting it to function in the 21st century,” Kelly said. “We’re dated in there.”
Baker said he wishes the charter review commission offered to modify the current charter to give voters another option. He has plans to tighten up the agenda so the city council doesn’t have three-hour meetings, but as far as the proposed charter, Baker said he couldn’t support it.
“The commission form of government, the fiveweighted votes, as imperfect as it can be, I’ve seen it over 33 years work brilliantly when you have the right people in office. I’ve also seen it when it’s been challenged, when you don’t have people that are willing to work collectively in the spirit of cooperation to do what Saratogians need them, not what they need to do,” Baker said. “I can’t see where the proposed change is a better form.”