Politicians in Oneida County, particularly among the Republicans, are a bunch of puppets. We had heard that Mr. Picente would be the County Executive pick a month before prospective candidates were screened. This past week, Mello Testa, who had been quite obvious that he wanted to be Utica's next mayor, announced that he will be running for Common Council President instead -- because "his good friend Anthony Picente asked him to reconsider."
Now we have the New Hartford Republican Chairman telling a prospective councilman candidate that he could screen for the position if he wanted to, but that the candidate had already been picked. More of the same old same old -- but more blatant and out in the open than ever. Listen to the voicemail message on New Hartford Online Blog.
So far the local Democrats haven't proven to be any different, at times seemingly working hand-in-glove with the local Republicans (e.g., no one ran against Ralph Eannace for City Court Judge). Our "leaders" work for the well connected few -- and the result is that jobs and a quarter of our population have departed.
Only the voters can put an end to this nonsense. Cut the strings by saying "no" to these people at every opportunity.
3 comments:
I think your time line is a bit off on Tony Picenti. He was hand picked the day Mr Meir announced he was going to run for congress and Mr Griffo announced he would run for the state senate.
So what's the answer to this? It might be a problem, but how do we solve this?
The first step is to heighten awareness of what is happening and who might be benefiting at public expense. (In a small way, that is what many local bloggers are trying to do). Greater awareness will hopefully bring about step 2: increased networking and sharing of information ... and it may be starting to happen now with the sudden appearance of multiple forums and blogs spreading and analyzing information ... some members of the public are becoming watchdogs and others are becoming analysts ... Step 3, hopefully, answers to/plans for attacking our problems will emerge from the regional conversation and people will become mobilized to get involved with the political process and force change. But this will go nowhere without knowledge first. Does this make any sense, or am I just rambling?
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