Schenectady acting mayor McCarthy has long day making rounds

PHOTOGRAPHER: Kathleen Moore

It’s just one day into the new administration and City Hall workers are already joking about whether their new acting mayor will get to sleep more than one night a week.

Council President Gary McCarthy, who took on the mayor’s duties without pay on Monday, started his first day at the stroke of midnight.

At police headquarters, he told officers that they should be viewed as community leaders. He urged them to get out of their patrol cars and walk their beats. And he promised to proclaim their triumphs as loudly as their misdeeds have been trumpeted.

Then he greeted the trash collectors on their way to work, met the city’s infrastructure crews, and went back to the Police Department to give the same speech to the next shift.

At 9 a.m., he went to the job that pays his salary. As soon as the work day ended, he was back at City Hall, where he had marshaled engineering support to start his administration with a major policy shift. He wants the city to stop replacing sidewalks and curbs when the roads are repaved.

At 9 p.m., he headed to the Fire Department. He wasn’t sure when he’d be getting home — but he joked that he loves starting work at midnight.

In all seriousness, he added that his years as an investigator for the District Attorney’s Office have accustomed him to working all night.

“Look, I’ve been doing this for 30 years,” he said. “Yeah, today’s a little bit longer than normal — but we’re going to make things happen.”

In one of his first official acts, he asked the City Council at Monday night’s meeting to hire a night crew out of the rest of the mayor’s salary, which he legally cannot touch.

They agreed to hire a chief of staff, William Winkler, for $48,000, as well as paying Deputy City Clerk Chuck Thorne an additional $7,200 to work late with McCarthy.

“The oddity of this shift is I’m going to do things at different hours,” McCarthy said. “I need some staff support.”

Winkler, who worked with McCarthy on the Schenectady Municipal Housing Authority board, will start in two weeks. Stratton’s chief of staff, Sharon Jordan, will stay on as director of operations until June. Then Winkler will take over her responsibilities.

Winkler is a retired professional engineer. McCarthy said he chose him because of his work on the MHA board and because he will be focusing on paving and other engineering issues this year.

“He brings that skill set,” McCarthy said. “I believe it’s a good deal for the city.”

The city will still have about $14,000 left in the mayor’s salary line, which McCarthy said he doesn’t plan to spend.

McCarthy, who still won’t say whether he’s running for mayor, had said his campaign would gain little if he took over for the mayor so close to the election. The budget is already set, so there’s no money to fund new policies. As he put it in February, when Stratton announced that he would be leaving, “There’s a lot of potholes that need to be filled. Whoever’s in there may not be able to pick up a lot of good will.”

On Monday, McCarthy offered the beginning of a solution to the city’s road woes: paving just the city’s streets.

The city needs to pave 10 to 12 miles a year, or it won’t be able to get back to the streets before they start to fall apart 20 years later, City Engineer Paul Cassillo said.

Since 1985, the city has paved 1.5 to 2 miles of road a year, including sidewalks, he said. Now Schenectady is facing the results of that choice.

“The roads are in critical condition,” Cassillo said. “It’s really impossible to do the roads, curbs and sidewalks. You’re not keeping up. It’s just going to get worse.”

The city could pave 5 to 10 miles this year if it stops doing sidewalks and most curbs, Cassillo said.

McCarthy urged the council to approve the proposal quickly.

“It’s a major policy decision,” he said, but added, “Some people are going to be disappointed and irritated no matter what we do.”

In a more symbolic gesture, he also asked the council to put the mayor’s car up for sale.

The 2005 Grand Jeep Cherokee was bought for Stratton when the previous mayoral vehicle, a Chevy Lumina, broke down. The city fixed it — its head gasket blew — and put it back in the vehicle fleet.

The city has provided its mayor with a car, but McCarthy said he will use his personal vehicle instead to cut costs. He also uses that car at work; he does not get a county vehicle through his job at the District Attorney’s Office.

“We have got to switch things and be cost-conscious at a level we have not been before,” McCarthy said of the sale.

He also wants the council to approve a new policy for selling cars and other government items. He wants to turn to Ebay and other online auction sites.

“Use this vehicle as the first test case,” he said.