Flying pigs beneath the falling sky

Mark Monday down in your calendar: Ron Kim has made a valid point. The shoot-from-the-lip Public Safety commissioner sensibly griped about Mayor Scott Johnson’s effort to hire a private lawyer to bare-knuckle box a band of obstructionist semi-residents that have sued the city over the proposed recreation center.

The City Council narrowly passed a resolution authorizing a Glens Falls law office to spend up to $20,000 litigating a virtually frivolous Article 78 challenge filed by landowners abutting the proposed facility’s site off Vanderbilt Avenue. Kim, who is better known for his mindboggling ability to speak before his neurological impulses can move from dendrite to axon, objected to the hire under the reasoning that the city already pays its own legal staff, which could just as easily make a court appearance in an attempt to work things out.

“I think we should go to court and negotiate,” Kim told the Times Union. “Why immediately reach for a wallet and throw money at it, especially during these difficult economic times?”

For once, Kim’s knee-jerk assertion seems somewhat reasonable. Why is the city spending even more on this boondoggle of a recreation center? Aren’t there better uses for that cash?

Now, loyal readers of this blog are probably checking the sky to make sure it’s not falling; at the very least, they’re looking out the window for a migratory flock of flying pigs, headed south before hell freezes over. Kim seldom exudes even a hint of rationality when it comes to city politics, the public safety department or anything tacitly associated with them. His inability to grasp the basic tenants of government are legendary, and perhaps second only to a certain vapid one-term mayor who once served as his lone ally.

In this case, the commish has a very good point, even though it’s likely driven by politics instead of the aforementioned sensibility. Taxpayers already in the hole for $6 million and change and still lack even a foundation for the building, which is no closure to completion than it was when it was proposed more than a decade ago. Making matters worse, the city now faces a looming deficit that could balloon up to $3.4 million once the state Legislature is done whittling away at the Video Lottery Terminal aid.

Given all this, wouldn’t this money be put to better use if it went toward finding a way out of the recreation center quagmire; one of the last failed legacies of the Keehn Administration? The city can’t support a new recreations center anymore, especially if there’s any consideration for a new public safety facility. Simple logic dictates that the addition of close to 100,000 square feet of additional building space will be cumbersome for taxpayers to fund.

Sure, any decent attorney should be able to quash the flimsy argument offered by this band of landowners, which showed up at the planning table a dollar short and a day late. The whole premise of their suit is bonkers and will likely be thrown out of court after six months of litigation. Then the city can build and pay upkeep for a structure that was needed during the 1990s before a state-of-the-art YMCA facility was built within walking distance of most neighborhoods within the city proper. Sure. That makes sense, right?

In truth, Kim’s motives in criticizing the hire are probably more rooted in his own political ambition than any sense of rationality. The recreation center has become a political lightning rod for Mayor Scott Johnson, who has largely escaped intense public scrutiny over his first year in office. Interestingly enough, his ally –former Mayor Valerie Keehn –was the first to lob a stone at Johnson over the recreation center during a town hall-style meeting on the Westside last spring. Several weeks later, a vocal opposition swelled among the Southside neighborhoods.

Johnson has done an adequate job of defraying this dissent and has moved the project further toward completion than any of his predecessors. However, there seems to be a void of reason for completing the project, other than to ‘stop the bleeding’ so to speak. In other words, the city has already spent more than $500,000 on the project, so why not spend another $5.5 million and get something out of it. Try pushing that logic on an antsy investor after squandering a half-million dollars on a Ponzi scheme.

The other side note to be garnered from Johnson’s rec center push is that the city’s new mayor seems a bit over-eager to toss money at private law firms. Perhaps this is merely perception, or perhaps political enemies like Kim are simply making a bigger deal out of such allocations and thus garnering press attention. It’s still hard to ignore the fact that Johnson’s council has hired private attorneys on three occasions over the past month, each for about $20,000 and twice from the same law firm.

To say these issues are the first dings in Johnson’s otherwise unblemished armor is exaggerating both. However, don’t be surprised if they arise as campaign flash points if the newly installed Democrats For Change live up to a nasty little rumor that has circulated since they took over the city party. As the rumor goes, Kim will be their candidate for mayor this year, while a certain former mayor will be resurrected as the new public safety head. While the mere notion seems laughable, the fact that the rumor hasn’t dissipated seems offer it legs.