Forget gondola, add CDTA bus route

If we need a connection between the Rensselaer train station and the Times Union Center in Albany, is the gondola proposal really the best way to provide reliable, inexpensive service? At $25 million?

Considering capital and operating costs over its hoped-for lifetime, how many hundred dollars per passenger trip would that cost? Has anyone thought about buses? Just ask CDTA to re-do a bus route, and there we have it.

The only infrastructure needed would be a few signs. It could be up and running in a few days. Dean G. Calamaras Castleton

Rep. Faso’s values are sorely lacking

I am disgusted by the hypocritical, racist and seemingly endless television advertisements being run by the GOP against congressional candidate Antonio Delgado.

Delgado is a Colgate and Harvard Law grad and decent family man. He is also black. Years ago, he spent sometime as a rap musician. That sin (apparently forgivable for rapper Kanye West, who supports President Donald Trump), supposedly means that Delgado doesn’t share “our values.” The racist appeal of these ads, the latest of which features him in a hoodie, is so thinly veiled it would be more honest to simply use an out-and-out racial epithet.

And what, exactly, are “our values”? Incumbent Rep. John Faso, R-kinderhook, Delgado’s opponent, reliably supports Trump. Trump has mocked prisoners of war and the disabled and has bragged about sexual assault. He has paid hush money to multiple paramours and described his own daughter as a sexual object. He regularly stokes hatred against minorities and immigrants. He falsely attacks the cornerstone institutions of our democracy, including a free press and law enforcement. He has given huge tax cuts to the wealthy while sabotaging middle-class health care. He praises convicted felons. He lauds brutal dictators and demeans our allies. These are not “our values” or the values of any decent people.

If Faso valued decency, he would do everything possible to disavow and stop these indecent, dishonest and dishonorable ads and engage his opponent on the issues: jobs, health care, the deficit, preserving Social Security and Medicare. His failure to do so reveals Faso’s values quite clearly.

richard Casagrande Slingerlands

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