Hull pushes safe streets plan

PHOTOGRAPHER: Kathleen Moore

Mayoral candidate Roger Hull endorsed an old but ignored anti-crime plan Tuesday in a joint appearance with state Assemblyman James Tedisco.

Tedisco ran most of the press conference, in which he explained the “Safe Schenectady Safer” plan that he first rolled out just before Mayor Brian U. Stratton, a Democrat, took office as mayor in 2004.

The plan calls for the city to heavily advertise its crime tips line and offer rewards. It also asks Metroplex Development Authority to pay for someone to monitor the tip line and apply for police grants, as well as funding a graffiti-removal team.

Hull said Stratton ignored the plan because Tedisco is a Republican.

“It sat for eight years because someone who happened to be of a different party proposed it. That is absolutely criminal,” Hull said, adding that he would accept all “good ideas,” regardless of politics. Hull is the founder of his own party, the Alliance, and has been endorsed by the Republicans.

He said a well-advertised crime tips line could have helped police solve the murder of 15-year-old Eddie Stanley more quickly — although Public Safety Commissioner Wayne Bennett said Monday that many of the witnesses talked to police soon after the incident and identified the shooter. The man charged in connection with Stanley’s murder was tracked down in New York City on Sunday night, 29 days after the murder. Bennett said there could be more suspects.

Although the tips line may not have been needed to solve that case, Hull and Tedisco argued that it could prove essential for many other unsolved cases — if anyone knew the number.

“You don’t know what it is, because it has not been published,” Tedisco said.

The number is not listed on the city’s website or the Police Department’s site — although there is a way to send in crime tips via an anonymous email on the site. The phone number is 788-6566.

“Put it on billboards. Buses. Bus stations,” Tedisco said, predicting that if the city offered rewards, drug dealers would turn each other in to get rid of their competition.

“The rats are gonna squeal on the rats,” Tedisco said. “But guess what? So is the other rat gonna squeal on him!”

Acting Mayor Gary McCarthy, the Democrat running for mayor, said the city should “perhaps” advertise its crime tips line.

But, he said, most tips come from criminals who are debriefed after they are arrested.

“Information is flowing,” he said. “People who want to come forward, they clearly know how to get information to police.”

He acknowledged that an advertised tips line could generate help from witnesses and residents who aren’t involved in crime.

But he said rewards usually aren’t necessary, and should be offered only in “difficult” cases. In Stanley’s murder, for example, he said many people offered information for free.

As for Tedisco’s idea of getting Metroplex to pay for a Police Department grant writer and a graffiti cleanup crew, Metroplex Chairman Ray Gillen said his agency won’t get involved in police matters.

“Metroplex is an economic development agency. We are not a crime-fighting agency. With all due respect to Mr. Tedisco, if he wants to fund billboards, he has every opportunity as the former minority leader of the state Assembly to provide funding through the state budget process to fund these efforts. We at Metroplex will continue our efforts to create jobs and build the tax base countywide,” Gillen said in an email.

McCarthy agreed, saying, “Why don’t we just get our state assemblymen and state senator to give us some money?”

Tedisco argued that businesses would prosper if more customers felt safe in Schenectady.

“Crime is an economic development issue. If people don’t feel safe … they’re not going to come here to buy goods and services,” he said.

McCarthy is working on the same principle, but wants the city and county industrial development agencies to fund graffiti cleanup and other revitalization efforts.

“Metroplex money has to be used in a targeted area,” he said.

Metroplex is supposed to focus on commercial corridors. The IDAs don’t have the same restrictions on spending in residential areas.

Hull said Metroplex should work within its restrictions to bring revitalization to the neighborhoods as much as possible, calling that the next step for the agency.

“I’m not looking to Metroplex to solve all our problems,” he said, but added that the agency should move out to the city’s “arteries and veins” to bolster economic development in the neighborhoods.

McCarthy said Hull should instead help the city by pulling strings with his former employer, Union College. Hull was the college’s president.

“It might be simpler if Roger could get Union to pay its fair share of taxes,” McCarthy said, criticizing Hull for the college’s decision not to make a payment in lieu of taxes to the city. Many colleges in other cities make such payments, although they are all tax exempt.

Under Hull and other Union presidents, the college has offered services and occasionally paid for certain projects, but steadfastly refuses to give the city cash.