This Week’s Feature Stories:

Positions, Please
A voters’ guide to candidates in the November elections

Newsfronts

Who Will Run the Electric City?: Proposed changes to Schenectady’s charter stir up debates about the division of power in city government

Housecleaning: Attorney general draws criticism for initiative to crack down on drug dealers’ landlords

Trailmix:
Old Name, New Challenge and Oily Politics

FYI:
Other area news...Case Dismissed, Birth of BirthNet, Upwardly Mobile, Field of Dreams, TV Guide
and Don't Bank on It

Profile:
John Recco

Who Will Run
the Electric City?

Proposed changes to Schenectady’s charter stir up debates about the division of power in city government

This November, residents in the city of Schenectady will vote on a proposal to revise the city charter. City Council members who are critical of the proposal fear that, if approved, the new charter will strip away many of their powers and create an undemocratic form of government. But some residents, who’ve had enough of Schenectady’s political gridlock, believe the proposal might improve the city’s situation.

“Basically, we’re against the charter,” said Joseph Allen, president of the all-Democrat Schenectady City Council. The council members’ main contention, Allen said, is that the proposal—drawn up this summer by a nine-person committee appointed by Mayor Al Jurczynski—would extend the mayor’s power to override council decisions, especially during the yearly budget process. The proposed charter also does not provide the reforms needed to make Schenectady’s government more efficient, Allen said.

When the council passed a recent annual budget, he explained, funds for City Hall’s administrative needs were provided to the tune of about $25,000. But Jurczynski, whose current job description includes preparing the budget, increased the figure to $45,000, thereby “usurping” the council’s role, Allen said.

“He does that all the time,” he said. “If we put more power in [Jurczynski’s] hands, who knows what he is going to do? It’s going to be a one-man government, and I don’t think that’ll be good for the citizens of Schenectady.”

Jurczynski did not return calls for comment.

At present, the City Council is responsible for approving the contracts and agreements that Schenectady enters into, including those related to municipal projects, the provision of goods and services, and labor negotiations. But under the new plan, those responsibilities would shift to the mayor.

Another element to the council members’ opposition, Allen continued, is that Jurczynski has neglected to alter the part-time corporation-counsel position, which is currently held by Michael Brockbank. The council passed a resolution in 1998 that would have made the $50,000-a-year position a full-time job, but Jurczynski defeated the measure and has kept it down ever since, according to Allen.

Brockbank—who works an average of two days per week—is often late in drawing up legislation prior to council meetings each month, making it difficult for the council’s seven members to review what they are expected to vote on, Allen added. “It’s a constant battle between the council, the corporation counsel and the mayor,” he said.

Dolores Hutton, president of Schenectady United Neighborhoods, agreed with that analysis. “There’s no spirit of cooperation,” she said. “None.” The constant tension between the members of city government, she said, “creates a spirit of negativity, just around everything.”

The SUC, a grassroots group formed in the 1970s to represent the interests of residents in Schenectady’s 11 neighborhoods, opposed a previous plan by former Mayor Frank Duci to revise the city’s charter. That proposal, which voters defeated by a margin of nearly 70 percent, would have threatened the political autonomy that each neighborhood enjoys, since a central administrative office would have been created to control the neighborhoods, according to Hutton.

The current proposal, she said, does not contain such provisions, so the SUC has taken a lower-profile role. She could not gauge at this point whether Schenectady’s 33,000 registered and eligible voters would support it. Still, the need for reform in Schenectady is long overdue, Hutton said, and a new charter might help that effort along.

“We’re constantly in a state of getting nothing done,” she said. “I think that may be the impetus behind it.”

—Larry Goodwin
photograph by Leif Zurmuhlen

NEWSFRONT

Housecleaning

Attorney general draws criticism for initiative to crack down on drug dealers’ landlords

The house at 64 Alexander St. in Albany’s South End is all boarded up now, a fact that the children laughing noisily in a playground around the corner hardly even notice. While the building has a reputation as a den for marijuana dealers, critics say that Attorney General Eliot Spitzer’s legal maneuvers to force the landlord to evict suspicious tenants have brought New York state’s war against drugs into potentially unconstitutional territory.

In the last several years, Albany law-enforcement authorities have made dozens of marijuana-related arrests at the Alexander Street property, which is owned by Deborah Landy. In February, Spitzer filed suit against Landy and five of the building’s tenants in state Supreme Court, the first such suit to be filed under his new “Clean Sweep” initiative.

“Known drug houses must be swept clean from our neighborhoods,” Spitzer said in a statement announcing the suit. “Drug dealers cannot be permitted to plant a flag in a neighborhood, claim it as their turf, and proclaim that they are open for business. And landlords have a responsibility to be aware of their tenants’ actions.” The initiative, according to the statement, “is a cooperative venture with local law enforcement to target sites identified for notorious and repeated drug activity.” It seeks to utilize a 20-year-old section of the state’s Real Property Law in making landlords liable for unlawful activity on their properties.

Last week, Supreme Court Judge Stephen Ferradino validated a key portion of Spitzer’s suit, ordering Landy to evict any tenant who is a known drug dealer. The judge also barred the former tenants—Charles, Edward, Mark and Steven Robinson and James Farmer—from being within 200 feet of the house. According to a report in the New York Law Journal, however, Ferradino said it was “patently unenforceable”—and most likely a violation of Landy’s free-speech rights—to force the landlord to contact the Albany Police Department when there is evidence of suspicious activity on her property.

Landy “may very well be as much a victim as the people in the neighborhood,” said Albany attorney Eugene Grenz, who represented the landlord. “It was never her intention to run a criminal enterprise.”

Landy is “being economically oppressed . . . because of this decision,” Grenz added, noting how—although Landy’s building was nearly destroyed by a fire earlier this year—the chances of her being able to rent it out once it’s renovated have been lessened by Ferradino’s ruling.

The Landy case reveals, Grenz said, that New York state is attempting “to use their civil powers to achieve a result they cannot achieve in criminal court.” In June, he noted, Justice Arthur Lonschein of state Supreme Court in Queens County ruled against the city of New York’s legal attempt—similar to Spitzer’s—to keep members of the notorious Bloods gang from congregating in a spot underneath the Queensboro Bridge, where they were allegedly running a prostitution ring. The Law Journal quoted Lonschein as stating: “I believe the city’s conception of the law is fundamentally unsound. . . . As a legal matter the city has failed to demonstrate that the proposed injunction is a constitutionally permissible response.”

“I take issue with defense counsel’s claim that we’re trying to circumvent the law when the law has been on the books for 20 years,” said Paul Larrabee, a spokesman for Spitzer, referring to Section 231 of the state’s Real Property Law. “Each case stands on its merits,” he said, explaining that the attorney general’s office had not reviewed the New York City case cited by Grenz.

The goal of Clean Sweep is to “improve the quality of life” in New York state’s communities, and many residents readily welcome the effort, Larrabee said. “We think it has a significant impact on reducing the drug trade,” he said.

“A landlord does have control over their property,” offered Louise Roback, director of the Capital District chapter of the New York Civil Liberties Union. While landlords are especially liable when their property has become a “public nuisance,” Roback said police agencies must prove to judges that criminal activity is occurring at any given location for Clean Sweep to be legitimate.

On the larger questions surrounding the war against drugs, Roback said civil liberties advocates are distressed by the fact that the “overwhelming” number of those arrested for marijuana, cocaine and heroin offenses continue to be people of color. “What we liken it to is Prohibition,” she said, referring to the criminalization of alcohol in the 1920s. “We would advocate that it be treated as a health-care issue.”

—L.G.

TRAILMIX

Old Name, New Challenge

The challenger in the race for New York state’s 44th Senate District, Brian Stratton, expressed confidence this week that voters are eager to see a new face representing them. Constituents, he said, not only want their state senator to open an office within the district’s boundaries (which he is prepared to do), but are mindful of the possibility that they could help shift control of the state Legislature to the Democrats for the first time in many years.

“It is time for a definite change,” said Stratton, the son of late U.S. Rep. Sam Stratton.

The Schenectady Democrat an nounced in July that he would run against Sen. Hugh Farley (R-C-Niskayuna) in the 44th District, which covers Fulton, Montgomery and Schenectady counties and part of Saratoga County. It is one of over a dozen races that Democrats are hoping will tip the balance of power in the Republican-dominated state Senate on Nov. 7. The Democrats already control the Assembly.

Stratton, who was first elected to the Schenectady City Council in 1992, said Democrats have long advocated for legislative measures that Republicans began supporting only in recent months, such as a patients’ bill of rights and a gun-control law. The Republican Party in New York state, he added, has been “driven to the center by the Democrats, and by the overwhelming sentiment of the voters.”

Having made a number of house visits in the district, Stratton said he plans to cite voters’ concerns during a series of debates with Farley that have been scheduled on radio stations in Montgomery and Fulton counties beginning in mid-October.

Many of the district’s constituents, Stratton said, believe Farley does not possess the “energy, commitment and enthusiasm” needed to keep the job he’s held since the mid-1970s. Another factor is that Farley does not maintain an office within the district. Stratton argued that it’s “unconscionable to serve a geographic area as large as that and not have a district office.”

When contacted for comment, Farley, the Senate’s majority whip, painted a different picture. “My office is my car, which I get no expenses for,” he said. To demonstrate how much his “office” is used, the senator said he logged more than 365,000 miles on a Toyota Camry he owned a few years ago, mostly for senate-related traveling.

According to David Smingler, Farley’s chief spokesman, there are roughly 300,000 votes at stake district-wide, only half of which are expected to be cast. Farley said it was a positive indicator that he’s received between 3,000 and 4,000 requests for his promotional signs—the ones that supporters stick on their front lawns—and about 500 small contributions from district residents in recent weeks. In general, he continued, the campaign has “really generated my base.”

Farley boasted that parts of the 44th District, when compared to state averages, have low unemployment and higher wages for workers. And he took credit for economic-development efforts in Fulton County, saying the county is experiencing “an economic miracle” with the recent arrival of a Wal-Mart distribution center and various other large companies.

“I’m very proud of my record,” Farley said.

But Chris Gardner, chairman of the Schenectady County Democratic Party and an advisor to Stratton, charged that the 44th District is lagging behind others because of Farley’s “lackluster performance.” Stratton said he would seek to highlight evidence showing that is the case.

“Senator Farley just hasn’t come up with a new vision to bring economic development to the area,” Gardner said.

—L.G.
photograph by Joe Putrock

Oily Politics

Environmental activists are keeping public pressure on Vice President Al Gore to renounce his family’s financial involvement in an oil company that has planned a controversial drilling operation in Colombia on land claimed by a small indigenous tribe.

On the morning of Sept. 19, more than 100 activists opposing the plans of California-based Occidental Petroleum started occupying Democratic National Committee offices in Olympia, Wash., about 15 miles south of Seattle. According to the city of Olympia police department, 10 demonstrators were arrested and charged with trespassing and resisting arrest.

In a statement released the same day, the San Francisco-based Rainforest Action Network—which began organizing demonstrations at Gore campaign stops earlier this year—reported that the vice president’s family holds approximately $1 million in Occidental stocks. (Occidental has proposed drilling on land claimed by Colombia’s U’wa tribe.) Environmental groups nationwide have demonstrated against Gore’s financial ties to the company, staging nonviolent protests and sit-ins at various Gore events. Several hundred protestors carried out actions last week in Des Moines, Iowa, and in Portland, Ore.

“Al Gore is remaining silent, and we’re asking why,” said Lauren Sullivan, a spokeswoman for RAN. “What is needed is a public statement on behalf of the U’wa people. Human rights are being continually violated.”

In an attempt to intimidate the U’wa from opposing Occidental’s proposed Gibraltar 1 project, according to Sullivan, the Colombian Army is conducting military maneuvers near their territory in the rainforest of central Colombia, firing upon farms and buildings. “The U’wa are in a very precarious situation right now,” she said. “The zone is heavily militarized.”

Activists are also critical, Sullivan said, that Occidental is “financing Al Gore and the Democratic Party.” According to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group in Washington, D.C., that tracks campaign financing, the Democrats have received tens of thousands of dollars in contributions from Occidental executives, including CEO Ray Irani, during the current election cycle.

Moreover, Sullivan said, Gore’s request last week that President Bill Clinton release petroleum from the U.S. Strategic Oil Reserve to counteract high crude-oil prices was an example of how the vice president is not living up to his record as an environmentalist. She also asked why Gore hasn’t advocated for renewable energy. “This is truly an opportunity for him to talk about other energy sources,” Sullivan said. “We need to look to the future.”

—L.G.

F.Y.I.

Case Dismissed

Trespassing and assault charges against a number of anti-sweatshop activists from the University at Albany have been dropped.

Albany County District Attorney Sol Greenburg’s office was pursuing 17 trespass charges against the demonstrators for their attempts to enter an administration building in violation of police orders, and a misdemeanor assault charge against graduate student Victorio Reyes for an alleged physical confrontation with campus officer Douglas Kern.

But on Friday (Sept. 22), Judge Stephen Herrick granted adjournments in contemplation of dismissal for all the charges. Herrick’s motion effectively ends the court battle, assuming that the students do not get arrested again within six months. A separate assault charge brought against Kern, who was alleged to have punched UAlbany student Thora Gray during the April 4 incident, was dismissed by Herrick over the summer.

—L.G.

Birth of BirthNet

Several area midwives and more than a dozen mothers-to-be attended the birth of BirthNet in Albany two weeks ago, at the Albany Free School. The event also served as a fundraiser to help underwrite the expense of sending local activist Maureen Murphy to a Washington, D.C., conference last weekend.

Murphy is regional representative of Citizens for Midwifery, a nationwide organization that promotes the midwifery model of care “as the optimal kind of care for pregnancy and birth,” according to its mission statement, and seeks to make the practice “available to all childbearing women and their families.”

The conference, Strategies in Motion II: A Legislative Conference for Midwifery Advocates, focused on effective use of the media to promote more realistic images of childbearing and birth and more balanced coverage of natal issues.

Midwifery is regulated on a state-by-state basis, and although New York is surrounded by states that allow women to choose midwifery for both home and hospital deliveries, state law severely limits midwifery through the 1992 Midwifery Practice Act; New York refuses to recognize the Certified Practicing Midwife and requires obstetricians to be involved in all birth events.

“We need to educate people as to what their options really are,” said Murphy. “What you see on television—in which childbirth is portrayed as an emergency medical event—just isn’t true. We see too many images of women screaming with their feet in stirrups. We want to be a thorn in the side of that image. . . . Many women don’t know that there are other options, and some don’t even know what a midwife is. And even when they do know and want to pursue the midwifery model, insurance companies often get in the way.” Three years ago, after using the services of a midwife to assist in the birth of her son, Murphy joined Citizens for Midwifery and a related group, New York Friends of Midwives.

“We’ve been holding events under those banners, like our International Midwifery Day celebration in May, but we decided that it would make more sense to have one organization to handle our educational mission. That’s why we started BirthNet.”

Its mission is to present birth “as a normal, natural experience” and to offer information about the various alternatives. Among the items cited in BirthNet’s introductory flyer are this country’s alarming infant mortality rate—much higher than that of countries that use midwifery care and support home births—and an estimate that the U.S. could save up to $20 billion a year in health-care costs if birth were taken out of the hospital, and midwifery care and breastfeeding were encouraged.

For more information about BirthNet, contact Maureen Murphy at 465-5087.

—B.A. Nilsson

Upwardly Mobile

Today, Robert McEnrow can leave his house. The Colonie resident, who is stricken with Alzheimer’s disease, was the first recipient of a new modular ramp from the Capital District Center for Independence’s new Ramps 2000 program. This program strives to provide freedom and mobility to disabled people who cannot afford the high cost of a ramp for their homes.

CDCI has received a two-year grant from the state Development Disability Planning Council to fund the ramps program. The $100,000 grant will help the center purchase building materials for the ramps, but the program is still lacking manpower to physically assemble them. Volunteers from Sears, in conjunction with the company’s National Volunteer week, constructed the first ramp.

According to Laura Hagen, executive director of CDCI, “ this is a project based on community support, so we are looking for more corporate sponsors, like Sears, or volunteers with building experience. And even if volunteers have no experience, we can assist them in the construction of a ramp.”

To receive a ramp, there is an application process that the family of the disabled individual must complete. The family is expected to financially contribute what it can and, if possible, assist in the ramp’s construction. For more information on Ramps 2000, or to volunteer in the building of a ramp, please contact Joe Sluszka, the CDCI Ramp Project Coordinator, at 459-6422.

—Amy Siverson

Field of Dreams

Sometimes if you want some-thing done, you have to do it yourself. That’s was Colin McKnight’s mindset when he decided to beautify Albany’s Lincoln Park. Last spring he had a vision of Lincoln Park’s hills ablaze with flowers, and this fall he’ll begin phase one of his plan to make the vision a reality—but he needs some help.

McKnight seeks volunteers to help him plant a hillside of daffodils on one of the park’s steep south slopes. Planting day is Oct. 14—meet at the bathhouse at 9 AM—and if all goes well, another slope will receive plantings next year. McKnight’s dream of a field of daffodils may become a reality.

Tools will be provided, and planting takes place rain or shine. Come on, get your hands dirty. If you have questions, call 434-6106.

TV Guide

Although public-access TV is often satirized as a slum of geeky amateurism—Wayne’s World, anyone?—advocates of public access regard it as an important outlet for free speech. One such advocate, Californian Sue Buske, will be in town on Saturday (Sept. 30) to inform Capitalanders about the opportunities offered by taking to the airwaves. From 2 to 5 PM on Saturday, Buske will lead a discussion involving community media advocates and members of the public at the studios of Schenectady Access Cable Council (115 N. Broadway in downtown Schenectady). A veteran of public-access programming who now runs her own company, the Buske Group, Buske was involved with the beginning of community television back in the 1970s; her visit comes at a time when efforts are underway to nurture public-access programming in Troy and Albany. For more information, call 346-3181.

Don’t Bank on It

On Wednesday, dozens of demonstrators gathered on the corner of State and Pearl streets in Albany, in front of the offices of Salomon Smith Barney Inc., to protest the policies of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. “Defund the fund. Bankrupt the bank,” they chanted.

The Capital Region Alliance for Fair Trade, a coalition of local activist groups, organized the rally, which was held in solidarity with several thousand demonstrators in Prague, the Czech Republic’s capital city. Similar demonstrations were held in more than 60 U.S. cities. While World Bank and IMF officials are holding their annual meeting in Prague this week, the streets there have turned violent, as protestors have attempted to block access to the meeting and police have responded with force.

According to C.R.A.F.T., Salomon Smith Barney (a division of Citigroup) is heavily invested in World Bank bonds, which critics have assailed as instruments used by multinational corporations to fund environmentally destructive development projects in Third World countries. The coalition called for the forgiveness of the debt burdens that many developing countries face, as well as an end to the economic “structural adjustment programs” that are imposed on them by the World Bank and IMF.

—photograph by Will Waldron

FEATURE

Positions, Please

A voters’ guide to candidates in the November elections

By Erin Sullivan

Maybe you don’t have the time to extensively research the backgrounds of the candidates running for public office this year. Maybe you saw Vice President Al Gore attempting to sell his message to twentysomethings on MTV’s Choose or Lose 2000 the other night, and didn’t find him half as compelling as you found Bill Clinton on the same show in 1992. Maybe you switched over to CNN and found you weren’t moved by the soft-spoken, humble, family-values spiel that Texas Gov. George W. Bush (with his wife Laura by his side) fed to Larry King. Maybe you noticed that all the prime-time news programs were peppered with ads featuring Hillary Clinton and Rick Lazio lambasting one another on education, health care, welfare, you name it. (And no matter where you looked on mainstream, prime-time TV, you couldn’t find any mention of third-party candidates Ralph Nader, John Hagelin or Mark Dunau.)

With election day just a scant five weeks away, there’s no time like now to start cutting through the political grandiloquence and campaign testimonials, and get to know the real candidates. Yes, they’ve all got skeletons in some closet or another, and no, none of them is perfect. But here’s a rundown on who’s who and what’s what to keep in mind when you go to the polls on Nov. 7.

President of the United States

• Vice President Al Gore (D)
— photograph by Erin Sullivan

Running Mate: Joseph Lieberman, U.S. Senator from Connecticut

Sure, you know he’s the vice president, but do you really know who Al Gore is? Son of former U.S. Sen. Al Gore Sr., Gore Jr. was raised in Carthage, Tenn. He represented Tennessee in the House of Representatives from 1976 to 1984, before becoming a senator in 1985. He held the seat until 1992, when he was elected vice president under President Bill Clinton.

Health Care

Gore supports expanded health care and a patients’ bill of rights; where most patients’ bill-of-rights proposals suggest giving individuals the right to sue their HMOs when the organizations make decisions that adversely affect health, Gore suggests taking medical decisions out of the hands of insurance companies and putting them back in the hands of physicians. Defends a woman’s right to choose, supports Medicare funding for abortions and opposes laws that require minors to obtain parental consent before having abortions.

Education

Opposes distributing taxpayer-funded vouchers so that families can send their children to private schools; instead, Gore would like to revamp and improve the public-education system by decreasing class sizes, providing incentives for college grads to teach at inner-city schools, and setting standards for teacher tenure based on student performance.

Crime

In 1994, he was instrumental in expanding the federal death penalty to cover more violent crimes, including the killing of law-enforcement officers. Gore is in favor of limited gun control, including requiring photos for gun registrations and limiting gun purchases to one per month. He also wants a federal study done on racial profiling by law-enforcement agencies.

Energy/Environment

Is Gore an ally or enemy of the environment? It’s tough to say—he proposes limits on logging and road building in national forests, but he doesn’t want to threaten the health of the logging industry; he wants to ban offshore oil drilling, but he owns tons of stock in Occidental Petroleum, which is poised to begin a controversial oil-drilling operation in Colombia that threatens lands claimed by a small aboriginal tribe called the U’wa. Gore talks the talk—he wants to use part of the U.S. budget surplus to protect clean air and water, rivers, forests and public lands, and to promote clean energy technologies—and he has backed some environmentally friendly programs as vice president. But some of his ties to big businesses make some observers wonder if he walks the walk.

Gay and Lesbian issues

Gore supports the legal recognition of same-sex couples; he also supports the employment nondiscrimination act and passage of hate-crimes laws.

Foreign Policy/Trade

As is Clinton, Gore is a proponent of free-trade agreements that environmentalists, labor leaders and human-rights organizations around the world over have been protesting. He lists among his accomplishments as vice president a role in establishing the North American Free Trade Agreement and the World Trade Organization, and support for the International Monetary Fund and G-8 global economic strategy. Under NAFTA, numerous companies have moved their operations from U.S. soil to Mexico, where labor is cheap and environmental regulations are less stringent; many blame NAFTA for depressing the standard of living for Mexico’s poor and for paramilitary violence against its indigenous people. Critics say the WTO would allow corporations to run roughshod over workers’ rights and environmental protections in the name of free trade. The G-8 strategy makes poor and developing nations subservient to the demands of corporations and more powerful nations.

Other

He likes Napster, but says we have to find a way to “reconcile” the disagreement between its users and the industry. He doesn’t believe in censorship, but says he doesn’t like music that puts down women or condones violence or contains graphic sexual imagery. “I’m against censorship, but I’m also against racism, homophobia, mysogynism,” he explains. Meanwhile, the Gore-Lieberman campaign has taken more than $5,000 from the same Hollywood moguls that have brought us Natural Born Killers, Fatal Attraction and rap artist Eminem, who writes songs about robbing elderly women and having sex with minors.

Money In the Bank

Raised: $126,646,594

Spent: $60,883,864

Cash on Hand: $55,642,328

Biggest industry contributors: law firms, retirees, real estate companies, securities and investment firms

• Texas Gov. George W. Bush (R)

Running Mate: Richard Cheney, former Secretary of Defense under President George Bush

When George H.W. Bush was running for president in 1988, Ann Richards, then governor of Texas, uttered the famous jab that Bush was born “with a silver foot in his mouth.” During the 2000 presidential election campaign, current Texas Gov. George W. Bush—who unseated Richards in 1994—has lived up to his father’s legacy. There is no denying that the Bush known as “Shrub,” son of former President George Bush, has lived a privileged life. Educated at Phillips Andover Academy, then Yale and Harvard, Bush worked as an aide and speechwriter on his father’s campaign and staff from 1987 to 1992. He was elected governor of Texas in 1994 and reelected in 1998.

Health Care

Bush advocates tax credits for low-income families to help defray the cost of health insurance. In general, he would like to see more privatization of health insurance, rather than expanded government programs. Bush would increase funding to community health centers and clinics, which he calls the “safety net” of the health-care system. As do all good conservative Republicans, Bush favors a ban on all abortions, except in cases of rape or incest, or when the mother’s life is in danger—however, even in those cases, Bush would like to make it illegal for women to obtain a late-term abortion.

Education

Bush supports taxpayer-supported vouchers so parents can choose to send their children to private schools. He supports “character education,” to teach kids morals and values by expanding the role of faith-based organizations in the classroom, spending $30 million to recruit former military personnel to teach in public schools, and doubling the number of charter schools across the country. For college students, Bush would make merit scholarships available for students willing to follow certain curricula and would expand annual maximum contributions to tax-free education savings accounts.

Energy/Environment

Bush would like to increase local control of environmental policies. He advocates for decreased oil drilling off the coasts of Florida and California, but increased drilling in Alaskan nature preserves. He also would like to see more cooperation between the federal government and corporate polluters.

Crime

Given the fact that more people have been executed under Bush than any other governor in the nation, there is no need to expound on his death-penalty stance. Bush doesn’t believe people need to be read Miranda rights when confessing to a crime, approves of increasing police searches and would like to limit (if not eliminate) parole. He also supports a “two strikes, you’re out” policy for sex offenders, a ban on automatic weapons, and distributing (but not requiring) trigger locks for guns.

Gay and Lesbian issues

He doesn’t support same-sex unions, gay adoption or including gay, lesbian and transgendered individuals under potential hate-crimes laws. As for gays in the military, Bush is a “Don’t ask, don’t tell” man.

Money In the Bank

Raised: $177,124,847

Spent: $121,482,519

Cash on Hand: $64,762,831

Biggest industry contributors: Retirees, law firms, real estate companies, securities and investment firms

• Ralph Nader (Green)
— photograph by Gigi Cohen

Running Mate: Winona LaDuke, Native American environmental activist

Probably the nation’s most prominent consumer advocate, Ralph Nader has been in the U.S. Army, worked as attorney, written books and founded various consumer-interest groups, including the Center for Auto Safety, the Center for the Study of Responsive Politics, the Center for Women’s Policy Studies, Public Citizen and the Public Interest Research Group. Nader, the son of Lebanese immigrant parents, ran for president on the Green Party line in 1996, though even he admits the goals of that campaign were mainly symbolic. This time around, his campaign is much more serious. He’s got the Green Party line again, and he even made a bid—albeit, unsuccessfully—for New York state’s Independence Party line, running against Pat Buchanan and John Hagelin.

Health Care

Nader embraces the philosophy of universal health care, “from the cradle to the nursing home.” He proposes recasting the U.S. health-care system into a nonprofit industry and enforcing price restraints on prescription drugs developed using taxpayer dollars (especially AIDS drugs, which reap tremendous profits for drug companies). Nader also proposes giving licenses on newly created drugs to numerous companies, instead of one (his Web site says this would “create competition and bring prices down”). As for abortion, Nader doesn’t believe the government has the right to interfere with a woman’s right to choose.

Education

Rather than support charter schools or vouchers, Nader suggests pumping money and resources into the cash-starved public-school system. Nader also would like to kick advertising out of the classroom.

Energy/Environment

More money for mass transit and nonpolluting fuel sources are at the heart of Nader’s environmental program. He also supports a ban on toxic chemicals, stricter control of vehicle emissions and further study of genetically modified organisms before they are marketed as safe to the American public.

Gay and Lesbian Issues

Nader supports civil unions for same-sex couples, and thinks “Don’t ask, don’t tell” is a discriminatory policy.

Crime

Nader does not believe the death penalty is a crime deterrent. He supports some gun-control measures, including a ban on some types of guns, trigger locks and stronger enforcement of licensing of gun owners.

Foreign Policy/Trade

Nader would like to see the U.S. redefine its foreign policy to help solve Third World scourges, such as hunger and disease. He supports social and economic justice in trade and policy relations, and would subordinate corporate rights to human rights, fair labor practices and sound environmental practices. Nader opposes the structure of the WTO and NAFTA, which he says are detrimental to human health and safety.

Money in the Bank

Raised: $3,224,539

Spent: $3,086,910

Cash on Hand: $270,964

Biggest industry contributors: Retirees, education, entertainment, law firms

• Pat Buchanan (Reform)
— photograph by Will Waldron

Running Mate: Ezola Foster, former typing teacher; founder, Americans for Family Values

Over the weekend, loyal right-winger Pat Buchanan lost the support of New York state’s Independence Party, which voted on Sunday (Sept. 24) to break ranks with the national Reform Party. The former aide to presidents Nixon and Reagan was not even nominated this weekend at the state Independence Party convention, and received the vote of only a single delegate. Still, he remains the chosen candidate of the national Reform Party, which selected him over competitor Larry Hagelin, who walked away with the Independence Party’s vote.

Health Care

Buchanan opposes universal health care, but would like to see that every family willing to pay can obtain catastrophic health insurance. Buchanan makes no bones about his staunch anti-abortion position. He wants to give unborn children constitutional rights, and if elected, promises to appoint pro-life justices to the Supreme Court.

Education

Buchanan would like to reduce the role of the federal government in schools and would like to pass education issues off to the states. He is in favor of voucher programs and private investment in public schools, prayer in the classroom and making creationism a part of school curricula. Buchanan has also gone on record as saying that multicultural curricula should not be a part of a child’s education.

Energy/Environment

Not one of his strongest suits: Buchanan puts the rights of landowners before environmental conservation. In general, he believes it should be up to municipalities, not the federal government, to create environmental regulations.

Gay and Lesbian issues

Not only does he not support equality for gay individuals, he also would like to ban gay Americans from becoming government employees.

Crime

Buchanan is so strongly in favor of the death penalty that he’d like to speed up the execution process so convicted murderers do not linger on Death Row. He does not support any gun-control measures.

Foreign Policy/Trade

Isolationist.

Money in the Bank:

Raised: $14,342,384

Spent: $14,355,819

Cash on Hand: $-11,401

Biggest industry contributors: Retirees, textiles, health professionals, miscellaneous businesses

• John Hagelin (Natural Law, Independence)
— photograph by Will Waldron

Running Mate: Nat Goldhaber, retired president and CEO of Silicon Valley hi-tech firm Cybergold

Until last weekend, Hagelin, a Harvard-trained physicist and founder of the Natural Law Party, was competing with Conservative stalwart Pat Buchanan for the national Reform Party’s nomination for president. When the national party nominated Buchanan for the spot, despite allegations that he had illegally padded his list of party supporters with Republicans, New York state’s Reform Party branch, the Independence Party, broke ranks and threw its lot in with Hagelin. Now Hagelin is running with the backing of New York and the Natural Law Party, on a platform of harnessing Natural Law and entrepreneurship to institute broad reform of the federal government. First and foremost, Hagelin says, he would end special-interest control of Washington.

Health Care

Hagelin claims that the U.S. spends 70 percent of its health-care dollars on disease treatment, while only 1 percent is spent on preventative medicine. He proposes increasing cost-effective, prevention-oriented health care that will, presumably, prevent disease and save money. Savings would be used to finance health plans for the uninsured.

Education

Proposes to harness the most innovative and effective programs to boost student achievement; supports school vouchers for students attending chronically underperforming schools; supports charter schools.

Foreign Policy/Trade

Supports “balanced” foreign trade that would provide markets for U.S. goods and protect American jobs and investments; would eliminate funding for the IMF and World Bank; supports trade policies that respect U.S. labor standards, human rights and product-safety standards. Hagelin supports a shift from the current military-based foreign intervention policies to ones that would promote economic development, entrepreneurism, education and sustainable agriculture in developing nations. He also supports beefing up U.S. military defense and peace-promoting technologies.

Taxes

Hagelin proposes eliminating all taxes for individuals earning less than $25,000 per year, reducing taxes for those earning $25,000 to $150,000, and maintaining the tax rate for those earning greater than $150,000.

Energy/Environment

Supports an energy self-sufficiency program through the development of renewable, nonpolluting energy sources.

Gay and Lesbian issues

Does not believe the federal government should play any role in legislating morality; as a result, Hagelin will neither support nor oppose same-sex unions, and believes moral decisions on gay rights rest with the people.

Crime

Hagelin says the “tough on crime” approach does not work, and advocates for a program that would focus on rehabilitation and prevention, rather than punishment.

Other

In favor of legalizing marijuana for medical purposes, and decriminalizing the production and use of industrial hemp.

Money in the Bank:

Raised: $343,374

Spent: 338,170

Cash on Hand: $5,204

U.S. Senate

• Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-L-WF)

Though Hillary Clinton has been lauded by labor groups for her strong support of working families and organized labor, some critics point out that for six years, she served on the board of Wal-Mart, a company known for busting unions and utilizing sweatshop labor. She also supports the death penalty and was a great fan of President Clinton’s welfare-reform movement. Regardless of her past shortcomings, she has adopted a relatively well-balanced platform that is carefully tailored to address middle-class New Yorkers.

Health Care

Clinton proposes making prescription drugs more affordable by allowing American pharmacists, health-care institutions and distributors to import FDA-approved prescription drugs from Canada, where most drugs are cheaper. She also supports the Patients’ Bill of Rights, which would give consumers protections against HMO abuses. Clinton is pro-choice and has indicated that she will vote against anti-choice Supreme Court nominees.

Energy/Environment

Clinton rails about rising energy costs in New York, but where she could use this opportunity to move forward with a strong plan to promote new, renewable energy sources, she instead focuses on “increasing competition” and restructuring the utility industry so that New Yorkers have more choice. Clinton does call for more renewable fuels, and would like to see that a certain percentage of all energy be derived from renewable sources (an exact figure is not provided). As for the environment, she plans to continue Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s work to curb acid rain and smog by limiting the number of tradable pollution credits, which companies will be able to “sell” by limiting their emissions. She also proposes a cap on nitrogen-oxide emissions, promotes cleaner technologies and alternative fuels, supports tax incentives for promoting the purchase of energy-efficient homes, and wants to ensure that New York gets a greater share of mass-transit funding.

Education

Clinton believes that vouchers weaken the public-school system by diverting much-needed funds; she proposes revamping the system by reducing class sizes, addressing the teacher shortage and extend home-learning programs.

Crime

Supports gun-control and hate-crimes legislation. In favor of the death penalty.

Gay and Lesbian issues

Supports extending domestic partnership benefits to same-sex couples, and insists that military service should be based on conduct and ability, not sexual orientation.

Foreign Policy/Trade

Clinton says she believes that globalization should not substitute for humanization, but does not speak specifically to whether she supports the WTO, IMF or World Bank programs.

Money in the Bank

Raised: $21,735,261

Spent: $14,627,662

Cash on Hand: $7,107,598

Biggest industry contributors: Law firms, retirees, securities and investment firms, entertainment

• U.S Rep. Rick Lazio (R-C)

Despite his campaign’s claims that he’s a lightweight, fighting for his life against the heft of First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton’s “Washington insider” connections, there’s nothing lightweight about him. Lazio, recognized by some downstate liberals as a protégé of former U.S. Sen. Al D’Amato, is actually the biggest fundraiser of all the New York members of the House. He is also listed on the Center for Responsive Politics’ list of politicians with the worst disclosure of campaign-finance information—Lazio raised nearly $5 million in individual contributions but only reported 67.7 percent of it.

Health Care

As a member of the House, Lazio voted against the Patients’ Bill of Rights, which would have given consumers an opportunity to seek damages from HMOs in instances where the companies make decisions that adversely affect health. Lazio would stress a focus on preventative medicine, and supports tax-exempt medical-savings accounts and prescription-drug coverage under Medicare.

Energy/Environment

Though Lazio claims that protecting the environment is of paramount importance to New Yorkers, as U.S. Representative, he voted to cut funding for the Environmental Protection Agency by a third. Lazio has, however, teamed up with U.S. Rep. Sherwood Boehlert (R-Utica) to encourage the development of clean, renewable energy sources. Lazio would also support oil drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Preserve.

Education

Lazio supports relaxed teacher certification for professionals who would like to take on teaching as a second career. In other words, if an investment banker wanted to teach economics to children, he or she could do so without the stringent education requirements normally required to become a teacher. Lazio is in favor of charter schools and a limited voucher system.

Crime

Lazio is not only in favor of the death penalty, he would also like to reduce death-row legal challenges. As are alpha-Republicans Gov. George Pataki and former Sen. Al D’Amato, Lazio is in favor of more prisons and stricter sentencing. He also supports the tort-reform movement, which seeks to limit the liability of product manufacturers for products that harm consumers. He is against gun registration, and he voted to reduce the waiting period for purchasing guns from three days to one. But on the other hand, he would like to ban assault weapons and supports trigger locks and background checks at gun shows.

Gay and Lesbian issues

In 1999, he voted against the Employment Nondiscrimination Act, and he does not support hate-crimes prevention measures. He would ban gay adoption and prohibit gays from serving in the military. He does not support gay marriage, but he has voted in the past to allow municipalities to pass domestic-partnership benefit laws. Lazio committed a major faux-pas early on in his campaign by using the anti-gay epithet “it doesn’t mean you’re a pansy” during a broadcast of CBS Evening News. His handlers later insisted that Lazio was making a reference to a flower.

Foreign Policy/Trade

Lazio has voted against Third World IMF debt reduction. He unequivocally supports NAFTA, GATT, WTO and fast-track authority for trade agreements.

Money in the Bank

Raised: $17,881,835

Spent: $9,499,049

Cash on hand: $10,236,621

Biggest industry contributors: Securities and investment firms, law firms, real estate companies, insurance

• Mark Dunau (G)

Mark Dunau is an organic farmer from Delaware County. In 1998, he ran as a write-in candidate for Congress, and his campaign focused on food-safety issues and the plight of the self-employed in New York. Dunau has worked closely with U.S. Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-Binghamton) to address the problem of chemical-treated food imported from other countries, and with the New York Farm Bureau to represent the rights of organic farmers.

Health Care

Dunau promises that if elected, he will lobby for the passage of the Public Hospitals Act, which would establish a federal public hospital in every Congressional district in the United States. The act would also provide for 100 new regional hospitals in the country. Dunau also supports the legalization of marijuana for medical purposes and the establishment of a national cancer registry.

Energy/Environment

He supports protection of all of the nation’s resources and ecosystems. Dunau proposes the establishment of an Alternative Energy Administration, which would fund research and development of renewable fuel sources. Dunau also would work to prohibit the involuntary spraying of homes with toxic chemicals such as pesticides, and to prohibit the spraying of sewage sludge on farmlands.

Foreign Policy/Trade

Advocates for U.S. withdrawal from the WTO and NAFTA.

Other

The rest of Dunau’s platform consists of plans to protect freedoms of speech, mandate the labeling of genetically modified foods, establish a five-year moratorium on the marketing of genetically modified foods for human consumption, reduce the self-employment tax, protect collective-bargaining rights, legalize hemp for industrial purposes, and repeal marijuana prohibition.

• Jeff Graham (I)

Jeff Graham, former mayor of Watertown, earned the Independence Party nomination after running against energy advocate Jeff Beller. Graham was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1992, representing former California Gov. Jerry Brown. He is a founding member of the Independence Party and currently serves as an executive committeeman.

Health Care

He is pro-choice.

Energy/Environment

On energy, Graham says market forces should be allowed to prevail.

Education

Beyond support for the National Endowment for the Arts, Graham does not believe that education should be governed at the federal level.

Crime

Graham does not support any gun-control laws. He supports a repeal of marijuana prohibition and a ban on the war on drugs, in favor of drug policy that emphasizes treatment rather than incarceration.

Other

From Graham’s campaign Web site: “Marijuana: Legalize It.” “Industrial Grade Hemp: It’s fine with me. Whatever . . .”

Races to Watch

• New York, 22nd Congressional District

U.S. Rep. John Sweeney (R-C), successor to the conservative Gerald Solomon, faces off against Ancram resident Kenneth McCallion (D-G-WF). McCallion, a lawyer with a strong environmental record, is one of the few New York Democratic candidates cross-endorsed by the Green Party this season. He proposes a zero-tolerance program for all polluters of the Hudson River, holding polluters responsible for the environmental damage they create. He also proposes that nations engaging in free-trade agreements establish international labor standards to protect jobs and ensure fair labor practices. Sweeney has spent his first term in office addressing oil prices, lower airfare prices for upstate New York and finding ways to fight acid rain. For more information on this race, see www.mccallionforcongress.com and www.house.gov/sweeney.

• New York, 21st Congressional District

Republican challenger Thomas Pillsworth takes on U.S. Rep. Michael McNulty (D-Green Island).

• New York, 26th Congressional District

U.S. Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D) faces Republican challenger Bob Moppert of Binghamton, regional director of Empire State Development Corp. Moppert supports the usual Republican stances: lower taxes, increasing job development and decreasing violence. For more information on the candidates, visit www.bobmoppert.com and www.house.gov/hinchey.

• Massachusetts, Senator

Sen. Edward Kennedy (D) has several challengers this year—most notable among them, Republican Jack Robinson III, Libertarian candidate Carla Howell and Dale Friedgen (Natural Law).

• Massachusetts, 1st Congressional District

Nine-year incumbent John Olver (D-Amherst), supporter of labor and consumer issues in the House, and Republican challenger Peter Abair go head-to-head in western Massachusetts.

PROFILE

John Recco

Written by Amy Halloran • Photographed by Teri Currie

A red fire truck is parked in the yard of the Hoosick Bed & Breakfast. The shiny 1956 tanker sits where old Route 7 ran a hundred years ago. The Hoosick Volunteer Fire Department knows where it is, and the keys are in the ignition, in case the truck is needed. For now, though, it serves as a model for John Recco’s work, and it will return to the Hoosick Firehouse in October, when Recco will present a slide show and lecture, hold a drawing workshop and display the drawings and paintings that he’s made this fall.

The project has been funded by a New York State Council on the Arts Community Connection grant, administered by the Troy-based Arts Center of the Capital Region. “There has to be a community component to that grant,” Recco says in his unshakable Lowell, Mass., accent. “The proposal I put forth was through the firehouse because I thought, in Hoosick, if you’re going to gain access to the community in a very nonpolitical way and a very secular way, the best place is the firehouse. Everyone, no matter what their political bent or religious beliefs, has a certain amount of respect for the firehouse in rural communities.”

John and Maria Recco live on 14 acres of land they bought 13 years ago. They renovated their home, parts of which are 200 years old, to make a bed-and-breakfast to subsidize the rural life they wanted for themselves and their children. Prior to Hoosick they lived in New York City, where Recco received his MFA at Columbia University. (He got his bachelor’s degree at Massachusetts College of Art in Boston.) Now they have two daughters, Jana and Gia, and keep chickens, ducks, goats and sheep in one of three barns on their property. Another serves as John’s light-filled studio.

“I always wanted to be an artist,” says Recco, “or a farmer.”

The declaration is matter-of-fact, not grandiose—like Recco. But did he want to be a firefighter? No. Still, he became one, for a five-year stint with the Hoosick VFD, in a twist that now seems synchronistic.

“I think one of the reasons I was interested in the fire department was because I was familiar with fire, only because where I grew up in Lowell in the ’60s,” Recco says. “The neighborhood I grew up in, half of it burnt down when I was a kid. Lowell had one of the biggest per capita fire rates—this is what Robin [Breese, a former Hoosick VFD Chief] told me. People would wait on any given night for a fire. So, as a kid growing up I saw a lot of fires, a lot of firemen, and that was a paid fire department.

“I remember one time my brothers and I getting a hose, squirting a house [that was on fire], right next to my mother’s house. We were just squirting it, we really weren’t doing anything. We couldn’t do anything, but not being able to do anything was very frustrating. When I moved to a place like Hoosick where it’s totally volunteer, I was blown away by that, people taking control. When I saw that, people jumping into action, I thought that was pretty neat.

“A lot of firefighting is rolling up hoses, you know,” Recco tells me, lifting his eyebrows as if I do actually know. “It’s not very glamorous. It’s really just pitching in and doing all the jobs and tasks that need to be done. I have surreal, dreamlike memories of getting up in the middle of the night and going to a fire or a traffic accident, putting on this equipment, rolling up hoses, or a particular job was standing near the pump. You were almost half asleep, watching a nozzle or a shutoff valve coming off the truck and you were fixing on that as all this noise and activity was going on around you. I can remember moments like that, and I don’t know if anyone else had them, but I did. So being able to look at the objects and ruminate on them kind of reminds me of some of those nights.”

Recco’s years volunteering as a firefighter crept into his memory bank, which funds his art, and now that art will creep back into the community. A jumble of objects sits on a piece of plywood on two saw horses in his studio. When asked about them he walks over to the stuff and touches it. The baseball glove, the plaster doll’s head, his mother’s frying pan—these things are featured in his paintings, but the way he handles them shows the arrangements are fluid, not precise.

“In recent years I’ve been setting up still lifes of objects that are literally part of my past, maybe a hat, a letter jacket, or a fruit, a vegetable,” he says, picking each piece up. “I mean these aren’t the same garlic heads that I had growing up as a kid, but having garlic, fruit and vegetables reminds me of being a kid, growing up.”

Right now, Recco is drawing realistic depictions of firefighting tools: hoses, clothing, boots, helmets. The drawings are pinned to the wall, next to a print of Jesus.

“I grew up a Catholic kid,” says Recco. “I didn’t go to Catholic school, but church was a pretty regular part of my life when I was younger, and that sacred heart pulsating there with the blood dripping out, it’s like a cartoon. It’s a very serious drawing and then you have drips coming out of the heart. . . . It animates the whole print, and that’s what happens with these, too. The things I’ve been doing with my drawings and paintings off and on for a few years, sweating, crying, dripping, it’s something being emitted from inanimate objects which gives them some kind of life.

“They’re simple objects,” Recco muses, “and I guess in my case, once I start to dwell on them and look at them and think about them, it does give me the chance to reflect on them, and I think that it creates this triangulation between the actual object, my memory, and what I actually draw. I think it’s an opportunity to make a memory which actually doesn’t exist somewhat real.”

John Recco will present a talk and slide show on Thursday, Oct. 19, at 7 PM; he will lead a drawing workshop on Saturday, Oct. 28, from 9 AM to noon; and will have an opening reception for his exhibit of new work on Sunday, Nov. 12, from 2 to 5 PM. All events will be held at the Hoosick fire station, and are free and open to the public. For more information, call 686-5875.