11 seek five Schenectady City Council seats

Oct. 31—SCHENECTADY — Voters in Tuesday's election will select five candidates for the seven-member City Council.

The election features a six-person race for three available full, four-year terms, and a five-person race to fill two unexpired terms, each with two years remaining on them.

Vying for full terms on the Democrat line are incumbents John Mootooveren and Marion Porterfield, along with Damonni Farley who won the spot in June primary.

Karen Zalewski-Wildzunas shifted from the Democratic to the Conservative Party line after her defeat in the June primary.

Two Republicans, Kevin Hammer and Brendan Nally, are also on the ballot.

The race for the pair of unexpired terms includes two Democrats — Doreen Ditoro and Carl Williams, also winners of the June primary.

Haileab Samuel has resurfaced as a Conservative Party candidate after an unsuccessful Democratic primary bid.

Then, Republican Vivian Parsons and Thearse McCalmon, running on the Working Families Party line, round out the list.

The election comes at a pivotal time in the Electric City.

Like many communities in New York, Schenectady is dealing with a police reform effort that has at times grown contentious in the face of Black Lives Matter activism that encompasses a school board member's call to defund the police and BLM members who have accused city officials and law enforcement of trying to silence the movement.

The city is also grappling with how it should prioritize its $53 million infusion of coronavirus relief funding from the federal government.

Other concerns in the city include a debate about whether neighborhoods have been given their fair share of public dollars, and bouts of gun violence, including the recent homicide of an Albany man for which no arrest has been made.

The candidates were asked why they're running and what their top priority would be if elected.

Farley, 40, is director of community outreach for the Schenectady City School District. He also owns a small education and nonprofit consulting firm. Farley sits on a number of boards in the city, but he's never held public office.

He said he's running because he was born and raised here and remembers the city's heyday, when it benefited from being a world leader in innovation and technology.

"I watched as businesses started to pull out and we stopped having that sense of community," he said. "I just want to make sure that we are making friends with people, getting that sense of community back in Schenectady."

Farley noted that the city has made various improvements, but added that those efforts are for naught if they're not felt by the average citizen.

He said his top priority is using pandemic relief funds to invest in neighborhoods.

"We do that by expanding access to safe, stable housing for all residents, increasing programming to support youth and building an economy that benefits workers, families and small businesses," he said. "The city can also expand the impact of future development by incentivizing developers to use local, union contractors to support sustainable jobs that pay fair, living wages to Schenectady's workers."

Mootooveren, 49, who lives near Schenectady High School, is a project accountant who's served eight years on the City Council and is its current president.

Mootooveren said he's running because he's seen the transformation that's happening in Schenectady. He said he wants to continue to provide his expertise to build on the city's progress.

"I will continue to focus on building Schenectady for future generations by renewing our infrastructure, supporting neighborhood revitalization, new investment opportunities, new housing projects, high-paying jobs, and at the same time expand our tax base to ease the burden on taxpayers," he said. "The many years of my involvement in the community has equipped me with the experience to work on improving our quality of life."

Mootooveren said his top priority if elected would be to continue to work with Mayor Gary McCarthy and council members to make sure the city has an operational budget that reflects the needs of the community.

"Public safety is highly important to me, and as such I will continue to support our first responders by providing adequate funding so that they can continue to provide services to our residents," Mootooveren said. "I will also maintain my focus on how we can work with our intergovernmental agencies as we look at ways to allocate the stimulus funding so that residents receive full benefits."

Porterfield, a consultant, said she's running to continue to keep balance on the council in terms of ensuring that there is community participation when there are opportunities. She said she's consistently remained connected with residents and is often considered their liaison.

"This has always been important to me since being elected to the council, and I believe I have empowered, enlightened and brought different perspectives to the table by staying engaged with residents," she said.

Porterfield, who declined to state her age, said her top priority would be to work closely with McCarthy and fellow council members and city residents to ensure it spends the American Rescue Plan Act funds in a way that is most beneficial to Schenectady, has the best possible long-term impact, and addresses various issues and concerns identified by the community in meetings that were held and surveys that were submitted.

Zalewski-Wildzunas, 61, who lives near Central Park, is a commercial real estate broker. She said she's running for re-election because the city is at a crossroads.

"We have made a lot of progress but we are at a plateau, and where we could easily regress as a city, many issues need to be addressed, primarily quality-of-life issues such as noise, litter, bad roads, snow removal and a disregard for traffic laws, Zalewski-Wildzunas said.

"We have come a long way, but there is still more work to be done. I want the opportunity to continue influencing positive change for all city of Schenectady residents."

If elected, she said, her priorities would be to fully staff the Police Department; reduce taxes; and make sure the city's ARPA money is spent on infrastructure problems with roads, sidewalks, curbs, and parks throughout neighborhoods.

Zalewski-Wildzunas points out that Schenectady is walkable and bikeable, and has several amenities, including great parks that feature public pools, tennis courts and baseball, soccer and cricket fields.

But additional investments need to be made to maintain those features, which will help attract more families who want to purchase homes in Schenectady.

In the past year, Zalewski-Wildzunas said, the city has sold more than $3 million in foreclosed homes that have been newly renovated. Those efforts will raise the value of all city properties and help stabilize the housing market, and generate additional tax money revenue.

Nally, 29, who lives on the Northside, manages properties in Schenectady.

"I started a business right after college called Good Clean Living. I also have my real estate license," he said.

Nally ran and lost in 2019. He said he's making another bid because city Republicans asked, although he conceded he hasn't actively campaigned this year and has other business priorities.

"I'd like to get more involved in local government and hopefully have a positive influence on the community," he said. "But I also did tell [city Republicans] this time around, I have a couple of projects I'm working on with work, trying to buy and renovate some blighted properties in the Northside of Schenectady."

Along those lines, Nally said his top priority would be focusing on the housing stock.

"That's my area of expertise — to get blighted properties renovated, rentable and in the hands of first-time homebuyers," he said. "There's a lot of programs that do job-force training and I would love to combine that with getting some of these programs, working on and fixing up city-owned properties to sell them and make a profit, and get zombie properties back into someone's hands."

Ditoro, 62, who lives in the GE Realty Plot, owns and operates Rossi & Ditoro Funeral Home.

She said she's running for City Council because she loves the city.

"I have a long history of community engagement, such as St. Anthony's fundraisers, being president of the Little Italy Business Association and running the Little Italy Street Festival, just to name a few," she said.

After establishing her business and raising three daughters in Schenectady, Ditoro said she now has time to give back to the city.

Progress has been made, Ditoro said, but the city still has many issues that must be addressed. The city can easily regress if the wrong policies and financial decisions are implemented, Ditoro said.

"I believe my experience running a small business is necessary at the City Council," she said.

Her top priorities would be quality-of-life issues such as litter, noise, snow removal, traffic violations, roads, streets and sidewalks, as well as investing in parks and providing youth and senior activities.

"I am proud to say that one of the issues that I have been running on, establishing senior centers in our neighborhoods, was added to the city budget for 2022," she said. "Except for Councilwoman Zalewski-Wildzunas, no other candidate ran on this much-needed city amenity."

Ditoro also mentioned the necessity to fully staff the Police Department and a desire to reduce the tax burden on residents, and using the $53 million ARPA funding to address what she said are the poor condition of roads, sidewalks and parks.

Parsons, 37, who lives in the city's Woodlawn neighborhood, is director of human resources for a long-term care facility.

She said she's running because she genuinely cares about the city.

"I grew up here and I'm raising my kids here. I want the city to be pushed toward a much better direction than where it's currently headed, and I want to do something about it," Parsons said, adding that her lack of political experience doesn't matter "if your experience results in reckless decisions."

Parsons said her top priority would be making sure that proper funding for the Police Department is secured and not interfered with.

"We do have current incumbents and current candidates for City Council that have spoken about and are in agreement with reallocating funds away from the Police Department," she said, singling out Porterfield, Williams and Farley.

"This is not something that our city can afford, a social experiment that our city cannot afford to play with," Parsons said. Reducing the tax burden on property owners will be a focus, she said.

"Every property owner that I've spoken with across the city, in every neighborhood, the complaint is consistent across the board — and it's been that same complaint for years upon years upon years."

Hammer, 36, lives in Schenectady's downtown and is a materials handler at a local warehouse. He sees his newcomer status as an advantage and chose to run after he started thinking about having a family.

"I'm not in this to build a political career, I'm in this solely for the people of this city," he said in his written response to the Gazette.

"I realized the importance of getting more involved and invested in the local community," he said. "With my family and the community in mind, I decided to run for city council."

Safety and family are Hammer's top priorities.

He wants to address the 'actions' of those "who continually demonize and dehumanize our police," Hammer wrote. He plans to "reform the relationship between our officers and citizens."

His prism for decision making, he said, will consider how the action helps "the city build stronger families."

Williams and Samuel did not respond to The Daily Gazette, and attempts to reach McCalmon were unsuccessful.

Samuel is an entrepreneur and chief executive officer of a tech-services company. He's on the board of the Schenectady Municipal Housing Authority and the city's Housing Review Board. Samuel is married with two children.

Williams oversees practices of a general pediatric department at Albany Medical College. A married Air Force veteran, Williams was a member of the Schenectady Police Reform & Reinvention Collaborative Steering Committee.

McCalmon is running on a platform of single-payer health care, relief for dairy farmers and support of criminal justice reforms. Running on the Democratic line, she lost resoundingly in the 2020 race for 49th Senate District to state Sen. James Tedisco, R-C, Glenville.

However, McCalmon carried the city portion of the district.

In her 2019 bid for mayor, she lost the Democratic primary to McCarthy in a close race.

Contact reporter Brian Lee at brian.lee@dailygazette.net or 518-419-9766.