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How can we set up a forum where people can be civil? Would you be willing to post under your real name? Why or why not?

As everyone has heard by now, Jim Tuffey has resigned as police chief. This comes on the same day I had heard that Jennings’ numbers aren’t looking so good in the mayoral race. Connection?

Live blogging. Scott Mannarino and Susan Tobin no-shows at council debates. Rep says “Mannarino not capable of addressing an audience.” Dominick Calsolaro and Cathy Fahey address concerns and questions of ward residents.

Update: First and Seventh Wards residents watched in surprise as League of Women Voters’ representative removes Mannarino and Tobin name cards from front of candidates’ table at the Sheehey Palmer VFW post  on Delaware Ave. Scott Mannarino and Susan Tobin were  “unable to make it”, while residents of their respective wards arrived, some with difficulty — some using walkers — to hear a conversation between the pairs of Democratic candidates from the two wards.

Update 2: We now have audio of the entire “debate”. First and Seventh Ward residents, take the time to listen. You already have two terrific council members. Keep ‘em!

Listen Here

Apparently Mannarino and Tobin used the excuse that this was not their “audience”. Unfortunately, they do not understand how things work. It was their audience. The gathering was hosted by a number of Neighborhood Associations as well as the League of Women Voters so that residents of the First and Seventh Wards could be there.

The residents were there. Mannarino and Tobin were not.

Thank to Dominick Calsolaro and Cathy Fahey for coming and intelligently responding to many questions and concerns.

Oh, and Mr Mannarino and Ms Tobin: If you can’t talk to a neighborhood association that you’re afraid isn’t behind you, you sure as heck aren’t going to take any positions for your constituents if you think the mayor might not like them.

Dominick Calsolaro and Cathy Fahey next to empty seats of Scott Mannarino and Susan Tobin.

This is from Salon.com The Huffington Post and, this Observer thinks that everyone  in Albany — all of us — should take a long, hard, honest look at what it says. Comments, anyone? The link is at the bottom.

The Other Albany

by Sheryl McCarthy
Former Newsday Columnist and member of USA Today’s Board of Contributors

If New Yorkers are pissed off about Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s end run around term limits, think of how Albany residents must feel about Mayor Gerald “Jerry” Jennings.

The product of a political machine that rivals the one created by Chicago’s Mayor Richard Daley, Democrat Jennings is now in his 16th year in office, and is running for a fifth term. His predecessor, Thomas Whalen, was mayor for 10 years, until 1993. And before him Erastus Corning 2nd served a 42-year term lasting from 1941 until his death in 1983, the longest sitting mayor in United States history.

It would be one thing if Albany, the capitol of one of the most powerful states in the country, were benefiting from this political longevity. But like our current state government, Albany is in dire straits. A city of fewer than 100,000, its population is declining. While Jennings has thrown his support behind a number of downtown development projects, an estimated 900 city buildings remain vacant and abandoned, and he has paid scant attention to the city’s poor neighborhoods. The public school system, like many others, faces many challenges. A large chunk of Albany residents are poor, and random violence, already the norm in the poorer neighborhoods, has been spreading to more affluent sections of the city.

Shockingly, while 33% of Albany’s residents are people of color, not a single person of color serves as a commissioner or deputy commissioner of any city department. Only the district attorney, David Soares, is African-American. Meanwhile , Mayor Jennings’ political appointees —including the heads of the department of general services and his brother, the commissioner of parks and recreation, tend to be old cronies who don’t even have college degrees.
Jennings’ current term has been marked with scandal, including a scam in which the police officers’ union distributed color-coded car decals to its members and to other favored VIPS giving them immunity from traffic fines. In another scandal, the police department purchased dozens of machine guns and assault weapons that are legal only for police use and gave them to police officers for their private use.

All of this has some Albany residents hoping that Corey Ellis, a young, African American newcomer to the city’s Common Council, will be able to make inroads against Jennings seemingly perpetual term as mayor. An Albany native, Ellis graduated from Fordham University in New York City and worked as a union organizer before returning to Albany in 2004 to work on District Attorney David Soares’ successful campaign. He won a seat on the Common Council in 2005, focusing on the issue of vacant buildings and the city’s failure to address the problem. He and others on the Common Council prodded the body to exercise its subpoena powers, and as a result the council conducted an investigation in the parking ticket scam that required those being questioned to testify under oath.

While Mayor Jennings has a substantially bigger campaign chest than Ellis, the Democratic primary on September 15 — which will essentially determine who will be mayor — offers the chance to bring fresh blood and a more progressive approach to the state’s capitol city.

It’s a race worth watching.