The genesis of a disaster

Not many people wake up in the morning saying, ‘hmm…I think I’ll pick up recreational heroin use.’ Most people have seen the afterschool specials and public service announcements. Others have witnessed the rigors of intravenous drug use first hand through an afflicted associate or family member; in a clinic or shelter. The sum total of this perception is enough to sway most rational people away from indulging in the needle.

The problem comes when someone busts out a bindle at a party and says ‘hey, why not?’ Shower some booze and some other inhibitors on the situation and you’ve got the genesis of a disaster. First it’s a line. Then it’s free-basing. Next thing you know, the needle is plunged into the arm and there’s a long perilous slide to drug rehab or the grave.

Strangely enough, the city leaders were faced with the proverbial bag of smack back in 2006, during the first 100 days of the mayoral administration of Valerie Keehn, as one poster on the Saratogian’s City Desk blog recently recounted –albeit through a memory liberally tinted with hues of rose. At the time, the funding was only going to be afforded the poorest areas hosting racinos.

The legislation raised eyebrows among the Spa City’s legislative delegation in Albany, but not enough for them to suggest they take a cut for Saratoga Springs. At the time, the city was booming and hardly anyone could envision it falling into a budget hole; everyone except. Finance Commissioner Matt McCabe. He saw a multi-million dollar gap forming in the middle of the city budget and knew there was no way to cover it up with the numbers he was juggling. The widening hole prompted him to suggest a quick fix instead of a long term solution.

At first, he suggested the city levy money on NYRA. But after he learned of the pot being provided to Yonkers through the Pataki Administration’s 2006 budget –at the behest Republican Mayor Phil Amicone –he quickly focused on securing a pot for Saratoga. Keehn and Public Safety Commissioner Ron Kim jumped aboard the effort and the three decided to lobby for it in Albany.

The effort would have been roundly dismissed by the Republican-dominated Legislature were it not for the election of 2005. Party leaders –Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno in specific –were still stunned by the crushing defeat they witnessed at the hands of the Democrats in the one-time Republican stronghold of Saratoga Springs. And they were facing a tough re-election of then U.S. Rep. John Sweeney, an oily fellow who was proving to be increasingly unelectable. They knew they needed help and were searching for any feasible way to curry favor in the city. So they offered the city a needle.

Drunk on the euphoria of being able to close a crushing budget deficit, the city leaders graciously accepted. They plunged the fucker deep into the city’s funding stream and gave the depressor a push. Suddenly, the city’s problems disappeared. Keehn later credited Shawn Thompson, a ranking legislative aid in the state Senate minority, for alerting her of the funding.

Of course the fix was temporary. As anyone with a working knowledge of hard drug use could tell you, ‘H’ doesn’t take away the problems. In fact, it usually makes them worse. But for a few glorious moments, they don’t seem that bad.

Those glorious moments came to an end for Saratoga Springs at the inauguration of Eliot Spitzer. The downstate Democrat had no love for the city or for upstate New York, and he made that know during his first spats with upstate legislators. One of them happened to be Republican Assemblyman Jim Tedisco, who was at odds with the governor over ethics reform

“Listen, I'm a fucking steamroller, and I'll roll over you and anybody else,” Spitzer reportedly told Tedisco during a cell phone conversation.

The rolling came when Spitzer targeted Tedisco’s district for cuts in his 2008 budget. His other target just happened to be Bruno. Spitzer’s distaste for these legislators manifested itself in the elimination of the VLT funding. The aid was an easy target in the shimmering brazen glow emanating from Saratoga Springs. The funding itself was a throwback to the corrupt Pataki Administration, and a simple walk down the neatly manicured streets of the Spa City allayed any real notion that it deserved such a massive chunk of the state education fund to offset its spending.

The funding would have disappeared in 2007, had it not been for a curiously vitriolic election year in Saratoga Springs. The giant schism among the city Democrats threatened the re-election hopes of Keehn, who was well aware of her tenuous situation as the fall came. In a last ditch effort to win over the electorate, Keehn called in a favor at the state level. And it was an easy one to call in, too.

Thompson was powerplaying Keehn’s re-election while simultaneously searching for ways to gain control of the senate for the Democrats. Spitzer was suffering his first bouts with unpopularity. Bruno was becoming the focus of a federal investigation. All these players had to do to look good was restore the city’s funding. Provide one more needle pinch and then boast about it all the way to the polls.

Again, it worked, but only partially this time. The funding was enough to stave off a massive budget deficit, but not enough to prevent the Keehn Administration from imploding. Five months later, Spitzer was caught with a hooker, ushering in the era of David Paterson, a downstate Democrat with even less interest in toiling in upstate affairs.

Three months after Spitzer’s fall, Bruno resigned his senate leadership and his seat. He was replaced as majority leader by Dean Skelos, who also had no vested interest in any of the territory north of the Tapan Zee Bridge. There was some hope for upstate when Thompson’s Democrats took over the Senate. But that quickly evaporated when Malcom Smith was appointed majority leader.

Paterson almost immediately ripped the VLT funding out of the budget, citing the state’s own fiscal crunch. The message to rich cities –or rather upstate’s only rich city –was clear: Cut your finances and live lean. Meanwhile in the Legislature, there was no message to be heard at all. The screams and shouts from Saratoga Spring were falling on deaf ears.

Some argue the situation as it played out last year would have differed had Keehn been re-elected, or if the City Council was again dominated by Democrats. But this is all palaver proffered by political hacks fishing for suckers among the electorate. The message from Albany is clear regarding the VLT aid: Not now, not tomorrow; never again. And rightfully so, because the whole purpose of having these ghastly machines in our community is to support education, not bloated municipal budgets.

It’s time to send the city to rehab. And that starts with cutting spending. There’s no way to maintain the level of expenditures and the ceaseless increases in spending. Sure, there are other revenue streams that could be secured –word is the feds are looking for a new Yucca Mountain –but finding them is not a long-term or viable solution. It’s kind of like Methadone: Sure it works for a little while. But eventually, you’ve got to kick the habit.