Well La-Di-Da. The ambitious plan of the mayor of our fine city to derive dollars from the installation of traffic light camera’s to snatch red light runners is coming to fruition. For you out of town readers, let me bring you up to speed. Last year, our newly crowned Mayor Sheehan came up with the brilliant plan to install up to 64 camera’s on intersections where accidents and light running occur frequently. That’s not a bad idea. These areas do occur, and people have been seriously hurt or killed. Thing is, the mayor included $2 million dollars into the city budget in anticipation of fines gathered from these errant drivers. Now, one-half of the year has gone by, the number of cameras to be installed has dropped from 64 to 36, and the rent money the contractor installing and owning the equipment will hopefully be a wash for any city expected revenue. Hopefully, the first camera will be installed by the end of the month. Goodbye $2 million bucks. That Ms. Mayor, is bad business. It’s no surprise that the councilperson from the 10th Ward is responsible for introducing this legislation.……….And while on the topic of Western Avenue, They are installing new traffic lights from up by the U-Albany campus to past Brevator Street. While they might be just using technology to install “Smart Lights”, I noticed recently on a recent trip both up and back Western/Madison Ave’s, I caught every light. You used to be able to drive almost non-stop down to Swan Street. And the new lights are not even operational yet.……….While it’s been written, re-written, broadcast-ed, and over broadcast-ed, I feel I must weigh in on the subject of the infamous prison escape. Now, I couldn’t care less what happens to the remaining escapee, other than the fact that it will cost the taxpayers of New York zillions of dollars to take care of this low life, the state could have saved some money by not flying the governor up to Clinton County everytime they found a piece of clothing in the woods. Firstly, I can’t believe that Mr. Cuomo would want to even be associated with that moron who ran that prison playground. He works for you Andy.……….Bomb Trains, Bomb Pipelines. While I am totally against the presence of tanker cars full of a gooey, extremely flammable substance traveling through the confines of the city in suspect railcars, I have no problem with the installation of a natural gas pipeline through the area. I know from personal experience, the construction of a pipeline is a highly monitored, precisely engineered undertaking that the companies involved not only take pride in the manner which they respect the properties they cross, they also provide local jobs to the area, whereas a Bomb Train only lines the pockets of the companies moving the oil.……….It’s a great city visitors. You can find anything you want to do on albany.com. Follow me on Twitter @jonmazur.
A Day Late And A Dollar Short
And that is “The Daily Take”