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Thread: Almost 8 months into Mayor Szymanski's term

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    Almost 8 months into Mayor Szymanski's term

    With almost 8 months into his term as mayor, I see no change, nor difference from Norman Polanski. His whole campaign was how he "wasn't" going to do as the prior administration has done, but all i see is Norn jr. I kind of regret now voting for Szymanski. On the other hand i believe the council is doing a great job, espically not allowing those 4 dpw workers to be in the budget, so Geoff can give them to the people who supported him. I recently herd Jon Haux was fired by Geoff, with no reason?? I believe Jon was doing a great job fixing up the 2nd ward playground as soon as it was brought to his attention. He just took the office less then 4 months ago. He has been around in the Recreation department for a long time, and it is a shame to see an honest person in this city who actually cared get fired. Personally i cant wait for 3 years to get Geoff out of office, he is doing more harm then good. Can anyone name anything positive Geoff has done besides take a few saturday mornings and put in some elbow grease to clean up the 1st and 2nd wards? bc i can't.

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    The question is why did the playground HAVE to be brought to his attention? As Director shouldn't he be aware of the playground? After all they would fall under "recreation" wouldn't they?

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    How about as the former 2nd ward councilman, why did Geoff let the playground fall into disrepair under his watch?

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    Talking Joke!

    Quote Originally Posted by stonecold View Post
    The question is why did the playground HAVE to be brought to his attention? As Director shouldn't he be aware of the playground? After all they would fall under "recreation" wouldn't they?
    Exactly!
    One of my first fights with the rest of the Council in 2006 was to get money for the playgrounds, finally after my relentless stand for help they reluctantly agreed to vote for........$10,000 was appropriated in the 2007/08' City Budget for each Ward to total $40,000.
    The next year, 2008/09', they held their flop of a Centennial and they took away $2500.00 from each Ward playground line to pay for it!
    2009/10' they again reduced the playground monies down to $5000.00/Ward for playgrounds........and I do not know where the monies for them stand now. Probably none.

    I had to sit and argue at length to get the rest of my peers to agree to spend money for playground improvement! Can you believe it?!
    They did NOT want to, nor cared enough, about City playgrounds to buy new, safe equipment, fix the beat down-unsafe basketball courts, etc. to work with me about a plan for improving them! What a scam on their part when they were campaigning for the peoples' vote !

    Exactly.......ALL the employees who have been paid well in the Lackawanna Parks and Recreation Department over the past 10 years, should know quite well about the deplorable and unsafe situations in each of them!
    What did they do, step over them as they gathered up the left-over free lunches .....that they.......

    Thank you again jenrose and everyone else for greasing the squeaky wheel!

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    Quote Originally Posted by LAsurvivor View Post
    How about as the former 2nd ward councilman, why did Geoff let the playground fall into disrepair under his watch?
    Because Normie/Love told him to. Why would he change now? He needs that measly 40k for his patronage jobs. Even if you fixed up the playgrounds without any city money Tom Love wouldn't do jack to keep it up and running and that really is a CRIME!

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    I knew during his campaign that him getting voted in would be more of the same...people get so used to the status quo that fear of change keeps them stuck doing what they always do...we had our chance to exact change last year, what a shame...

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    People in Lackawanna are just voting based on relatives who need/have jobs and the guy who is the most popular. They never ever connect the dots and see who is related to who or who owes who. Until people start voting outside of the Democratic Party in Lackawanna there truly will never be any real change. We did get lucky with the election of Pirowski and Lewis they seem to be a big exception. You just have to wonder how the establishment will treat these 2 guys on the next go around though. My guess is not good at all.

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    Quote Originally Posted by bluethunder View Post
    People in Lackawanna are just voting based on relatives who need/have jobs and the guy who is the most popular. They never ever connect the dots and see who is related to who or who owes who. Untill people start voting outside of the Democratic Party in Lackawanna there truly will never be any real change. We did get lucky with the election of Pirowski and Lewis they seem to be a big exception. You just have to wonder how the establishment will treat these 2 guys on the next go around though. My guess is not good at all.
    That depends. They did the tax shift, which obviously isn't popular with homeowners...then they agreed to restore the comptrollers salary...so there are two strikes. I can swallow the tax increase if they find the money they promised for playgrounds and actually *gasp* use it for playgrounds and if they work on the flood insurance issue. Really as a council, that should be a no brainer...even South Buffalo got rid of their requirement and Caz gets way higher than our creek.

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    Eventually the tax shift will after a period of time even out or even lower taxes for everyone. The taxes have been raised on businesses for years and hardly ever touched the homeowners,all in the name of getting votes come election time. Now that there are hardly any small businesses left something drastic had to be done. Will this work only time will tell. Furthermore the mayor is 100% behind this or he was until he could easily blame the council for it. Don't let Szymanski fool you he is a master manipulator just like the previous mayor.

    As far as the flood insurence goes talk to Assemblyman Kearns he is diligently working "himself" to get Lackawanna off the FEMA flood map. He did this in South Buffalo and is the only one who knows how to do so. Don't listen to the propoganda spewed by others about this issue.Szymanski did nothing while 2nd Ward councilman to address this problem. He just wrote proclamations to every Tom,Dick and Harry whining about it. It went nowhere. His record on this issue speaks for itself. For someone who is close to Congressman Higgins you think he could have got this done he had 7 years to do so.While were on this subject of Higgins I wonder when Higgins is going to get Lackawanna federal funding for South Park Ave./US62 or Ridge Road?
    Last edited by bluethunder; July 29th, 2012 at 08:44 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by jenrose66 View Post
    That depends. They did the tax shift, which obviously isn't popular with homeowners...then they agreed to restore the comptrollers salary...so there are two strikes. I can swallow the tax increase if they find the money they promised for playgrounds and actually *gasp* use it for playgrounds and if they work on the flood insurance issue. Really as a council, that should be a no brainer...even South Buffalo got rid of their requirement and Caz gets way higher than our creek.
    No jenrose you are missing the big picture here. This is a one party town, it has been and until we vote differently it always will be. The real people in power place a couple candidates up for election. Both of them are backed by the same people and it doesn't really matter which gets elected because the same people in control stay in control. This goes from Higgins to Symanski to the dog catcher. The reason that nothing gets done is because they don't have to do anything.

    Take Route 5 recontruction that ended at the LA city line. Why? What is wrong with doing something for South Park/Route 62. It is a mess and should have been fixed years ago. Higgins won't do anything because he is not going to use his politicial capital in an area that he knows he will get their vote no matter if anything is every done. We elect these guys and they are told what to do by the party goons and their special interests. It is always about them an not the citizens.

    No politcial party should feel safe that no matter what they don't do they still get the vote. Change is needed in this town and area. The problem is that the democrats are so entrenched here with patronage jobs that voting the party out is almost impossible. We need people with new ideas and are not restricted by any political party or their special interest backers. Tell them that we have had enough and want changes. The bottom line is that they work for us and they need to be held accountable for their actions. Look at your candidates and ask who is backing them because that will tell you if you are going to see changes. We don't need the old time politics here anymore because we know what that has gotten us. How many people have to leave the area before something changes?

    My kids have left the area and laugh at us for staying. When they come back to visit they say nothing has changed and we deserve what we get. The worst part of it is that they are right. There is no reason for them to return and there is no reason why it should be that way. No jobs, no businesses and no hope for change.

    Home values in this area have not changed much over the years. Why? Could it be because of bad schools and an unresponsive city government that only look at the taxpayers as a source of income. We have lost over 25% of the students in the Lackawanna School District and we are still adding more patronage jobs. We have to beg to get people to do their jobs.

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    Post Right On!

    Quote Originally Posted by getalife123 View Post
    No jenrose you are missing the big picture here. This is a one party town, it has been and until we vote differently it always will be. The real people in power place a couple candidates up for election. Both of them are backed by the same people and it doesn't really matter which gets elected because the same people in control stay in control. This goes from Higgins to Symanski to the dog catcher. The reason that nothing gets done is because they don't have to do anything.

    Take Route 5 reconstruction that ended at the LA city line. Why? What is wrong with doing something for South Park/Route 62. It is a mess and should have been fixed years ago. Higgins won't do anything because he is not going to use his politicial capital in an area that he knows he will get their vote no matter if anything is every done. We elect these guys and they are told what to do by the party goons and their special interests. It is always about them an not the citizens.

    No political party should feel safe that no matter what they don't do they still get the vote. Change is needed in this town and area. The problem is that the democrats are so entrenched here with patronage jobs that voting the party out is almost impossible. We need people with new ideas and are not restricted by any political party or their special interest backers. Tell them that we have had enough and want changes. The bottom line is that they work for us and they need to be held accountable for their actions. Look at your candidates and ask who is backing them because that will tell you if you are going to see changes. We don't need the old time politics here anymore because we know what that has gotten us. How many people have to leave the area before something changes?

    My kids have left the area and laugh at us for staying. When they come back to visit they say nothing has changed and we deserve what we get. The worst part of it is that they are right. There is no reason for them to return and there is no reason why it should be that way. No jobs, no businesses and no hope for change.

    Home values in this area have not changed much over the years. Why? Could it be because of bad schools and an unresponsive city government that only look at the taxpayers as a source of income. We have lost over 25% of the students in the Lackawanna School District and we are still adding more patronage jobs. We have to beg to get people to do their jobs.
    Well said getalife123!
    The politicians step in line and use each other for photo ops, and resolutions that are never followed through on.
    I called Kennedy's office to ask why South Park revitalization ended at our City-Line last year and was told our Mayor (past one) and Council never pushed for it to continue on down through Lackawanna to Blasdell.
    South Park is like a race track.....they blow the lights and make it two lanes when it was always one. Shame. My own family got into an accident on South Park at Martin recently.
    We have NO street scape, and, sadly, the road surface after this winter will probably be another mine field like Ridge Road at the Library had been for years!

    You hit the point well getalife.....Higgins knows he has the family and friends of " Lack " awanna vote so he does not need much action seen here and critical BUDGET MONEY$$$$ spent on us......so he spends the bucks on So. Bflo. more or less, his voter base. In order to keep filling/feeding the people with how great he is through visual progress.

    The past State Senator for appr. 30 years gave us his crumbs too, even though the family and friends religiously got on the knees to praise him and pay him homage! It is/was always for self-serving party jobs, not something for the betterment of all in LA.

    Lackawanna is what it is......a City of lack because unsuspecting--innocent voters keep electing the party people they are told by their neighbors "is a good guy". The "good guy", once they "get in", will step in line with the rest, to receive their self-serving agendas reward. And the neighbor will stop voting due to apathy because nothing ever changes in LA!
    It is ALL part of their plan to eliminate their opposition by whatever means it takes! So they can count on their weighted voters on election day.
    Real American democracy isn't it?!

    The meeting on July 19, 2012 was a prime example of it.....cut a position and then restore it when the guy quit, took his ball and went crying all the way home!
    Where is their backbone?!......at the bar they are leaning on when they make their self-serving deals?!

    My son left in 98' and said he will never come home for the same reasons.

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    I love how as soon as the mayor's budget got voted down everyone started crying about how the rat problem is out of control and the money was for totes etc to help curb that problem. Funny thing is, I am pretty sure the rats didn't move in AFTER Geoff was elected. He didn't care but were suppose to thing he cares now?

    I can't see the 2nd ward being in the flood zone much longer considering the 2nd ward is running the city and the school board. WOW.

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    I may be wrong though but this flood insurance issue stays in effect as long as you have a mortage. Once our mortage was paid off we no longer had to carry flood insurance.

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    Quote Originally Posted by getalife123 View Post
    I may be wrong though but this flood insurance issue stays in effect as long as you have a mortage. Once our mortage was paid off we no longer had to carry flood insurance.
    You are correct. But having it mandatory as long as you have a mortgage is ridiculous. No way the 2nd ward should be in a flood zone.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Same Old, Same Old View Post
    You are correct. But having it mandatory as long as you have a mortgage is ridiculous. No way the 2nd ward should be in a flood zone.
    Has that area ever flooded in the past? At least the last 100 years I guess?

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