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Dear
Postmaster General: Dominick Calsolaro, Shawn Morris,
Louise McNeilly, and Diane Metz rally for the Delaware
Station Post Office.
Photo:
Josh Potter
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Going
Postal
Delaware
Avenue area residents rally to save their local post office
On Tuesday morning, residents and community leaders gathered
outside the Delaware Station Post Office to show their support
for a service they say is essential to their urban neighborhood.
The rally, organized by the Delaware Area Neighborhood Association,
was in response to an announcement last week that the United
States Postal Service will be closing or consolidating the
services of nearly 700 offices nationwide, after the agency
lost $7 billion this fiscal year. Seven Capital Region offices
were placed on a “study” list for possible closure, all of
which, like the Delaware office, are in walkable urban neighborhoods.
“City
neighborhoods, where people live and do business, are probably
the most essential part of a healthy city,” said Albany Common
Council President Shawn Morris. “That’s why it’s so important
to keep a community link like the post office open.”
The criteria by which the USPS is selecting offices for study
has not been released, but this hasn’t prevented DANA from
launching a petition and postcard campaign to pressure the
U.S. Postmaster General not to terminate their neighborhood
office. Additionally, members of the Common Council plan to
meet with Congresman Paul Tonko (D-Amsterdam) and to introduce
a resolution calling on the federal government to keep the
office open.
If the office were to close, residents argued, the requisite
travel to outlying branches would pose serious difficulties
for some members of the community.
“In
the South End, a lot of people don’t have cars. Half of them
don’t have computers,” said Councilman Dominick Calsolaro
(Ward 1). “They need the services. They need to be able to
get there.” Elanor Laing, who is 80 and does not drive, said
that the post office is “a vital part of the whole avenue
for senior citizens.” Others fear the effect the loss of accessible
PO boxes would have on those who rely on them, such as home-based
business owners and homeless people.
Battling the din of construction, some peopled feared the
proposed closure’s broader implications. “As I speak,” said
resident Laura Wells, “federal stimulus dollars are going
to the reconstruction of this very avenue. By closing this
station, services will be depleted. This could lead to a corresponding
depletion in demand to move into this neighborhood.” If the
federal government continues to fund the improvement of the
street but doesn’t support its services, Diane Metz said she
fears that Delaware Avenue will become little more than a
“thoroughfare for people in the suburbs to get to work.”
—Josh
Potter
jpotter@metroland.net
The
Signs Are Positive
Albany
Mayor Jerry Jennings unveils new All-America City signs to
an appreciative media
With the Democratic primaries less than five weeks away, Albany
Mayor Jerry Jennings gathered representatives of the media
on Broadway, at the city’s border with Menands, to unveil
one of the 10 shiny new All-America City signs. These signs
will be placed at the “gateways to Albany,” said Jennings
spokesman Robert VanAmburgh, along the city’s major thoroughfares
to alert travelers that they are about to enter an award-winning
city.
The award, announced in June, has become the focus of the
administration’s branding campaign for the city. The unveiling
of the street signs follows the mayor’s official press conference
announcing the city’s win and is only one of many events planned
in what VanAmburgh called a yearlong celebration of the award.
In September, the city will host the All-America City Jazz
Festival.
Albany competed against 300 other cities for the title, awarded
by the National Civic League. The last time Albany won the
award was back in 1991. This was the first time since that
win that the city has entered the competition, and critics
of the mayor have dismissed the award, and the celebration
surrounding it, as a campaign ploy.
“I’m
not stopping running this city just because I am running for
mayor,” Jennings said. “I have been doing this for over 15
years, and this is a positive thing that people need, to reinforce
something positive.”
The press conference was an upbeat affair. As the city now
prepares to grapple with the revelations contained in the
state comptroller’s audit of the ghost-tickets swindle, and
with Sunday’s murder on Western Avenue, it appeared the media
were hopeful for a positive story.
“This
has been a good week for Albany,” a reporter began. Albany
was named by a real-estate Web site as one of the top 10 cities
in which to buy a home, and with this unveiling, she said,
there’s been “a lot of positive news for the city.”
“I
am appreciative of you guys being here,” the mayor said. “I
know you are always inundated with the negative, but it is
always good to get out the positive. I feel good about this
community. If you don’t, you shouldn’t be the leader of it.”
—Chet
Hardin
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The
Wrong Impact
Albany
Common Council candidate calls for changes in policing policy
to fight a perceived rise in city crime
“I have
yet to see an IMPACT neighborhood come off the sick list,”
said Terry O’Neill. In response to recent violent crime in
and around Albany’s Center Square, O’Neill questions the effectiveness
of Albany Police Department’s controversial reliance on Operation
IMPACT. “It’s not the best way to deal with a small city like
Albany.”
O’Neill,
Republican candidate for Albany Common Council in the 6th
Ward, is a regular critic of Albany politics, and an expert
in criminal policy, with more than 30 years’ experience. Albany’s
city administration points to statistics that claim crime
citywide is falling. However, among many residents of Center
Square, where O’Neill lives, there is an impression that crime
is actually on the rise. And O’Neill Points to Operation IMPACT.
He said
that the program does little to reduce crime and can even
push criminal activity out of the targeted neighborhood into
adjacent, historically low-crime neighborhoods. Further, he
said, it does little on the way to long-term crime abatement.
Operation
IMPACT stands for Integrated Municipal Police Anti-Crime Teams.
Modeled after New York City’s CompStat system developed by
William Bratton, Operation IMPACT uses computer software to
map crime and quality-of-life data. It is a statewide program
designed to target high-crime zones outside of New York City.
In 2006,
Albany Police Chief James Tuffey got rid of traditional beat
cops and closed police stations on Henry Johnson Boulevard
and Washington Avenue, relying instead on the highly mobile
police response units emphasized by IMPACT. This removed accountability
to the communities they police from individual officers, claimed
O’Neill. Now, if you have a complaint or an issue, instead
of talking to an officer familiar with your neighborhood,
he said, “You’re dealing with someone several tiers up.”
“You
don’t talk to people; you respond to dots on the chief’s crime
map,” said O’Neill about the Operation IMPACT model. “That’s
where the cops go, and it doesn’t matter which cop, whichever
one is handy.” As a result, O’Neill claimed, the program ignores
the conditions that give rise to crime.
In Albany,
three high-crime centers have been designated: Arbor Hill,
South End and West Hill. The IMPACT zones, not coincidentally,
are also those neighborhoods that are most economically distressed
and with the most abandoned buildings, O’Neill observed.
In a
city the size of Albany, a neighborhood with a low incidence
of crime can easily be reached from one of the designated
IMPACT zones by bike or on foot. O’Neill cited the recent
robbery at gunpoint of two young women near Madison Avenue
and Willett Street. Two of the offenders were caught after
being sighted near the University at Albany campus, riding
bikes away from the crime scene.
On the
local political blog Democracy In Albany, O’Neill criticized
IMPACT: “CompStat has proliferated like kudzu in police agencies
across the land supplanting, in its relentless progress, the
earlier movement toward a community policing philosophy. Think
of Wal-Mart relentlessly driving out locally-owned businesses,
replacing them with something big, bland, corporate and generic.”
O’Neill
said that he would like to see a system put in place that
is responsive to community members, that takes interest in
what problems community members are having and creates solutions
with the police. “[Permanent officers] are encouraged to create
relationships with the local merchants’ association, the clergy,
the people that run nonprofits and clubs,” said O’Neill. “You
end up having a genuine relationship with the people in the
community.”
—Matthew
Connolly
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