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| Don’t
fence me in: dog and owner in Washington Park. Photo:
John Whipple |
We
Can Still Let the Dogs Out
A proposed ordinance requiring that canines be leashed
within Albany city parks has dog owners howling—and city lawmakers
dragging their paws
Dog
owners turned out to bark down a city proposal that would
require owners to leash their dogs within city parks, and
city politicians obeyed, unanimously deciding to table the
legislation for further review.
The Albany Common Council’s Public Safety Committee held a
public hearing Tuesday (Aug. 12) to discuss a sweeping package
of legislation that would alter the city code pertaining to
animal regulations and behavior. Some of the proposals would
increase fees for redeeming pets from the city pound and stiffen
penalties for owners who fight dogs for sport, but every resident
at the hearing addressed the proposed amendments to the Albany’s
leash law, with the majority of speakers hailing from the
Center Square neighborhood.
“I’m
very happy that they decided not to vote. I just hope they
continue to let us bring our dogs to the park,” said JoAnne
Alessio, who lives on Hamilton Street in Albany with her dog
Ozma, a terrier mix. “The dog parks they are proposing now
are so far away, [and] if you don’t have a car, it’s not that
easy to get there.”
Currently, dog owners are required to leash their canines
at all times unless in a city park or on their own private
property. The new proposal, drafted in response to a spate
of dog attacks last summer, would force dog owners to bring
their pets to one of the city’s four proposed “dog parks”
in order to have them unleashed.
Two of the fenced-in plots currently exist on Erie Boulevard
near the Department of General Services complex and off of
Hartman Road near the Albany municipal golf course. Two additional
parks may be built in Westland Hills Park, off of Colvin Avenue,
and at the Normansville Farm, near Graceland Cemetery. But
many citizens who attended Monday’s meeting said these sites
don’t work for them. A number of citizens said they chose
to live in the Washington Park area so that they would have
a place to exercise their pets and would consider leaving
Albany to find a more dog-friendly home.
Officials in Saratoga, Troy, Schenectady, Syracuse, Rochester
and Buffalo said their cities all have leash laws, even in
parks. Only Buffalo has a dog park, a city official said,
and only one. There also is a leash law in Ottawa, Canada,
although there are certain parks where dogs are allowed to
run free.
The public safety committee decided to hold the proposal until
the next council caucus meeting to see if any other Common
Council members have any fresh ideas.
“I
guess we’re undecided and we’ll have to come back [to the
issue],” said public safety committee chair Joseph Igoe (Ward
14). “The same issue keeps coming up, and it’s Washington
Park, and we’ll have to address that.”
But, Igoe said, an even bigger concern is safety and lessening
the number of dog bites within the city. “One less dog bite
on a kid’s face is worth the law to me,” Igoe said.
The chairman said there were 153 reported dog attacks from
January 2002 through April 2003, with 30 of those incidents
occurring in Washington Park. But there was some debate at
Tuesday’s meeting over the relevance of those numbers, which
didn’t specify whether attacks were dog-on-dog or dog-on-human
and whether said attacks occurred while the attacking dog
was on- or off-leash.
Joseph Sullivan, chairman of the city’s Republican Party and
owner of two dogs, said the city should not enact a broad-brush
solution, like the leash law, that would affect every dog
owner in the city for problems caused by a few irresponsible
dog owners.
“I
find it ironic that we are here tonight in front of the body
that called for the repeal of the Patriot Act . . . that is
now looking to place restrictions on law-abiding citizens,”
Sullivan said. “Go after the people who are causing the problems.”
—Travis
Durfee
 |
| No
more passengers: the train station in Altamont. Photo:
Leif Zurmuhlen |
Where
Trains Once Rolled
A local rail line seems slated to become a bike
trail, but are other transit options being overlooked?
Albany
county residents may soon gain another recreational trail
for biking and hiking. They may also, however, lose the opportunity
to explore commuter rail service between Albany and its southwest
suburbs.
On June 16, the Delaware and Hudson Railway, a wholly owned
subsidiary of the Canadian Pacific Railway, filed a request
with the U.S. Department of Transportation to abandon its
9-mile-long line between Albany and Voorheesville. Part of
the former Albany Main Line from Albany to Delanson, this
section of track is in a state of disrepair and has not been
used for years.
Though Canadian Pacific is considering selling off the entire
D&H (as repo- rted on July 24 in the Toronto Globe
and Mail), observers note that this is not a factor in
the abandonment. According to the filing, there is no longer
any business along the line; any remaining business in Voorheesville
has been rerouted through Delanson to the D&H main line
in Schenectady. Also, as Jim Bachorz, vice-president of the
Bridge Line [D&H] Historical Society explained, the bridge
over the Normanskill Creek has been determined by the railway
to be unsafe for the movement of heavy freight cars. Bachorz
says that if bridge repairs are undertaken, they are “not
going to be cheap.”
The Albany County Legislature has filed a grant application
with the New York State Department of Parks, Recreation and
Historic Preservation for the initial funds to acquire the
line. Both the legislature and CDTA have indicated that the
preferred use of the line would be as a recreational hiking
and biking trail.
“I’m
not against trails,” said public-transit advocate Thomas Coates,
“but I think it’s stupid not to consider rail transit options.”
Coates, a Voorheesville resident, pointed out that it now
takes 45 minutes to take a CDTA bus from Albany to Voorheesville.
When the D&H was operating passenger service along the
line, the trip took half that time. “It’s a more direct route,”
he explained.
The line runs from Albany through Delmar, Slingerlands and
New Scotland to Voorheesville, through densely settled suburbs
served mostly by crowded two-lane highways.
The CDTA, Coates said, seems averse to projects involving
commuter rail. The authority was unable, he noted, to find
a way to take advantage of a recent federal grant for a test
program involving commuter rail service between Albany and
Saratoga Springs.
Coates also pointed out that once the tracks are removed,
the chance that they would ever be put back in—a longterm
option alluded to by CDTA planning director John Poorman in
the Times Union—is very slim. The cost of restoring
the rail bed and putting in new track is much higher than
rehabilitating an existing line, Coates said.
The most important thing, argued Albany County legislator
Herbert Reilly (D), is keeping the line intact. Breaking the
line and selling it into segments, Reilly warned, would be
“awful.” He said the proposed recreational uses would be extremely
worthwhile, and suggested other possibilities for the right-of-way:
“It’s a great opportunity to bring some infrastructure out”
to Delmar and Voorheesville. Reilly was referring to fiber-optic
cable, and the possibility of tapping into Albany’s water
system, purchasing water from the city, and running a water
main under the trail.
No decision on the purchase and future use of the line can
begin to be finalized until the state Department of Transportation
rules on the application for abandonment, which should be
issued within weeks.
—Shawn
Stone
At
Least California Has Celebrities
With voters slated to head for the polls in a month, there’s
no sign of a settlement in Albany County’s redistricting debacle
With
primary elections less than a month away and Albany County’s
39 voting districts still unsettled, the fate of this fall’s
legislative elections seems to lay firmly in the hands
of federal judges. And though negotiations between county
legislators and citizen advocates have yielded little shared
ground, the parties have agreed on at least one matter: The
protracted legislative redistricting fiasco is nearing the
level of political farce.
Preceding its monthly meeting Monday (Aug. 11), the legislature
was to hold a public hearing on the latest changes to the
county’s voting maps, but the comment period was canceled
due to lack of speakers. Legislative chairman Charles Houghtaling
Jr. (D-New Scotland) adjourned the public-comment period minutes
after its 5 PM start time. The decision angered the few citizens
who trickled into the County Courthouse minutes later who
said the meeting time made it difficult for people who work
9-to-5 jobs to attend.
“How
anxious are you to hear what people have to say if you cancel
the meeting five minutes after it starts? Don’t they know
people work?” said Carolyn McLaughlin, 2nd Ward Albany alderwoman
who had come to speak at Monday’s meeting. “They just think
people don’t care. This just speaks of the whole process.”
“Way
to run a democracy, chairman,” barked Aaron Mair, a lead plaintiff
in the federal case challenging the county’s maps, as he entered
the legislative chambers minutes after the hearing had been
called. “This only makes you look like asses.”
Maps amended by the county over the past few weeks during
settlement negotiations were sent back to the legislature’s
redistricting commission at Monday’s meeting, but commission
chairman Sean Ward (D-Green Island) didn’t know when the body
would meet next. Though Ward is hopeful that the matter will
be settled in time for the November elections, he said the
issue is now in the federal judges’ hands, and that much of
what has stood for debate on the issue amounts to little more
than political rhetoric.
“The
judges aren’t going to rush into decisions, and we wouldn’t
want that anyway,” Ward said. “We just have to wait and be
patient for a decision, as we know that time is of the essence.”
Mair, also president of Arbor Hill Concerned Citizens Neighborhood
Association, and Anne Pope, president of the Albany County
chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People, continue to assail the county legislature
for gerrymandering its 39 legislative voting districts down
racial and political lines.
Their charge was supported by U.S. Magistrate David Homer
in a recommendation issued on July 7 stating that census data
justified the creation of a fourth legislative voting district
consisting of a majority of ethnic minorities. County Democrats
previously said creating a fourth minority-majority district
was impossible, but have done so at the judge’s request.
Now the issue is whether or not the four districts give the
county’s ethnic minority population sufficient political power.
The plaintiffs claim that the new legislative districts created
by the county still dilute minority voting strength by crossing
communities of interest and combining voters in Albany’s South
End and Arbor Hill neighborhoods with more affluent constituents
in Delmar and Loudonville.
“One
population is asking for a better free lunch program in school
and the other is asking for tax relief from the free lunch
program,” Mair said.
A different federal judge, U.S. Magistrate Randolph Treece,
had been mediating settlement discussions between the plaintiffs
and the county for the past few weeks, but talks broke down
over the past week.
“I
spent four days of my life wasted in settlement talks,” said
Miriam Mair, Aaron’s wife and also a plaintiff in the case.
“The county attorney came to the table and said he had no
power to negotiate. Why go through the farce of working toward
a settlement when you send someone to the table who says they
can’t negotiate?”
“Obviously
I disagree with what was said in the chamber tonight,” said
Albany County Attorney Michael Lynch, who is representing
the county legislature in federal court. “I feel that the
county has negotiated in good faith throughout settlement
talks.”
Though the plaintiffs and county legislators have adopted
a wait-and-see attitude toward the fate of the county’s voting
maps, some wonder how the process will affect voters scheduled
to head to the polls this fall.
“When
the district lines are finally drawn out and settled, then
I think we’ll see the people get more interested in the process,”
said Annette De Lavallade, an Albany resident who came to
speak at Monday’s meeting. “[But] this is not going to look
good to the public who will be coming out to vote.”
—Travis
Durfee
|
Columns
& Opinions
