Samantha Bosshart, executive director of the Saratoga Springs Preservation Foundation, has published an excellent piece on the history of historic preservation in Saratoga Springs. In the article, which appeared in the Saratogian, she presents details from a study her organization did in partnership with the City Council. The study makes a slew of comparisons in terms of real estate values comparing property in the historic districts with those outside them. Well worth the read.
[JK: From Saratoga Springs City School District web site]
SSCSD Community Safety Forum on December 17
11/26/2018-12/19/2018
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On December 17, the Saratoga Springs City School District will hold a Community Safety Forum. The event will be held in the Saratoga Springs High School Teaching Auditorium from 7 – 8:30 p.m and include the following:
Prior to the forum, we invite you to complete a survey to provide feedback on safety and security. The survey will be open until December 14. Thank you for taking time to give us your feedback.
As a school community, safety is on our mind all of the time and we continue to evaluate how we can make improvements in this area. We invite you to visit the school district safety page anytime to learn more about safety.
[JK:This is an email sent out by the Preservation Foundation]
PRESERVATION ALERT
53 PUTNAM STREET
Tonight at 7PM the Design Review Commission will do a sketch plan review of the application for new construction at 53 Putnam Street. This is a preliminary review with non-binding discussions about the basics of the project prior to the submission of a formal application. This project will be reviewed by the Design Review Commission again in the future. To review the application; the Foundation’s letter, including historic photographs and Sanborn Maps; and any additional correspondence submitted thus far, please CLICK HERE.
The project site is located in the local historic district. It is immediately adjacent to the Broadway Historic District listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and is within the viewshed of Congress Park, a National Historic Landmark.
The existing circa 1905 one-story building has been vacant for many years and housed a dry cleaning business for decades and later served as a storage facility for waste hauling vehicles. The Foundation does not object to the demolition of this structure and supports a new use for the site. The Foundation appreciates the time and investment that the applicant is making in the development of this site. However, the Foundation has significant concerns about the project as it is currently proposed.
The Foundation objects to the height, scale, and mass of the proposed structure. It is not compatible with the neighboring structures and the character of the historic setting. The submitted application provides the context of the buildings behind the project site on Broadway. However, the Foundation does not agree that this is the context in which the height of this structure should be reviewed as the buildings located on Broadway have a 30’ grade change from Putnam Street. The height of this structure should be reviewed within the context of the existing buildings located on Putnam Street and historic documentation.
The Foundation recommends that to fully understand the visual impacts of the height of the structure, an assessment of various viewsheds should be provided – including Congress Park, Henry and Circular Streets. The Foundation is strongly recommending that the height of the structure be reduced. In addition, the Foundation finds that the architectural details and materials of the proposed project are inconsistent with the surrounding buildings.
If you wish to provide any comments regarding this project you may do so at the Design Review Commission meeting this evening at 7pm at the Saratoga Springs City Center, 522 Broadway, or you may submit written comments addressed to Tamie Ehinger, the Chair of the Design Review Commission, via email bbirge@saratoga-springs.org.
Thank you for taking the time to read this preservation alert and
your continued support of our mission!
The Saratoga Springs Board of Education rejected a resolution at its October 9 meeting to allow the district’s grounds monitors to carry firearms. The grounds monitors, who are mostly retired police officers, patrol school campuses and buildings, assist in student arrival and dismissal and provide security for after-school activities. Apparently they have been carrying arms for the last approximately thirty years in violation of state law.
Here are two articles from area newspapers regarding the controversy.
Not surprisingly the issue has become quite contentious. In order to better understand the controversy I have asked two people with differing views to write for this blog.
Speaking in favor of arming the monitors:
Kara Rosettie is a mother of 3 boys, two of which are in the largest elementary school, Dorothy Nolan and one son that is in Maple Ave. She have been in the Saratoga Spring school district since 2012.
Speaking in opposition to arming the monitors:
Shafer Gaston is a retired submarine officer who has lived in Saratoga Springs off and on since 2006 while serving in the US Navy. He settled here with his family in 2016 and works as a project manager/industrial engineer. He has four children, three born in Saratoga Springs, all of whom attend the excellent schools in The City in the Country.
Full Disclosure
My wife Jane, a retired teacher, and I enjoy shooting skeet. For those of you unfamiliar with skeet, there are two “houses” that hold devices that launch disks known colloquially as birds. There are a series of “stations” in a semi circle between the two houses that participants rotate through attempting to break the birds. I also shoot something called sporting clays.
I am an avid upland bird hunter with my English Setter, Miss Kate. I trained Kate and we pursue ruffed grouse and woodcock. I also enjoy cooking and I am quite partial to these game birds.
Neither Jane nor I are members of the National Rifle Association. We are both deeply troubled by gun violence in this country. Neither of us sees any simple solution to the issue. The friends I enjoy shooting with run the gamut from teamsters to neurosurgeons. We need to find a way to better protect the public while allowing responsible gun owners to pursue their sport. My hope is that this blog will help to foster a civil conversation that can move us forward in that direction.
The School Board made the right decision when it decided not to re-arm school monitors this fall. This is not only my opinion on the subject based on what I have read; it is based on the authority and responsibilities of a school district to its community.
First of all, I am not someone who is afraid of or hates firearms. But I do understand that weapons should only be introduced when the risk of accident is outweighed by the needs of security.
I spent the majority of my adult life in the US Navy. Sometimes I carried a sidearm or a rifle, as did others around me. Every time we armed out, it was because of a specific need, and as soon as we were done, back into the locker all weapons went, because firearms are inherently dangerous – at a rate of about 500 deaths per year due to accidents. These aren’t just irresponsible owners; these include trained, proficient law enforcement officers, and it happens right here in our own community.
We, as a military organization, elected not to take unnecessary risk. I would appreciate the same consideration in our schools.
Every additional weapon on campus increases the risk of accidental discharge. Comparatively, the risk of a student being killed in a mass shooting at a school in the USA is fairly low: 100 in the last ten years, or ten per year. Of those 13 incidents of mass shooting that specifically targeted children (vice workplace employee-on-employee violence), 5 perpetrators were students or recent students who entered the school without challenge. 6 perpetrators committed suicide – presumably undeterred by the prospect of armed resistance.
Compared to 500 or so accidental discharge deaths a year, 3000 auto fatalities a year for teenagers, or 5000 suicides per year for those under 25, it seems like there may be better areas to direct our efforts.
Nonetheless, parents are concerned about school security, probably because we feel like it is the one place where we have little control over our children, and our gut instinct is to turn to the police. Reliance on regular law enforcement in schools isn’t without controversy, and organizations that promulgate current best practices advocate for methods that include a combination of training and physical access control, as well as mental health.
While there have been instances of law enforcement in schools preventing incidents, there are just as many success stories from the passive methods. Most importantly, by paying attention to warning signs, providing community intervention services, and other “soft” techniques, we have stopped many of these tragedies before they occur – the measures taken at the outbreak of violence should be a last resort.
Note that the entire debate discussed above is about whether School Resource Officers, who are by definition active, sworn law enforcement officers, are effective. Nowhere do armed guards, no matter what their background, appear in the literature.
All of the information above has been studied, restudied, debated, and used to enact policy. However, chances are, if you have been caught up in the local debate, you are not an expert on what makes a good school, and certainly not a safe school. I am not either. I can secure a pier, I can secure a boat, but I have never been trained in securing a school, and I have certainly never participated in any comprehensive study on school security. Neither has anyone on the school board, as far as I know.
Luckily, the New York State Education Department, from which all School Boards derive their authority and their mandate, provides guidelines for school systems on how they should operate.
NYSED is not a law enforcement organization. Neither they, nor any of the school boards over which they have authority, are in the business of arming and training security personnel. That is why in their guidelines they state that “if a school determines that it needs to have an armed professional on school grounds, SROs are the only school personnel of any type who should be armed.”
School Resource Officers are so much more than a “good guy with a gun”, or even regular law enforcement. They are trained to deal with psychological issues faced by teenagers, to work with faculty and school staff, and to support the learning environment. Most importantly, they derive their authority and ongoing training from a commissioned law enforcement organization. Their selection is determined by law enforcement, and they participate in continuous education and certification. This protects the school system from unneeded liability by leaving law enforcement to the police.
From my background in submarining, I know sometimes there may be situations that require you to put aside doctrine for immediate needs. However, you must be able to explain, after the fact, what exactly you knew that meant you needed to disregard studied, proven expertise by people who were hired to give you the right answer. My anecdotal evidence is that most naval officers haven’t been vindicated when disregarding established doctrine.
Additionally, I know that a response to being challenged of “well, we’ve always done it that way” or “well, nothing bad has happened yet” is a poor way to operate in a world that changes – especially when the well-being of our children is involved.
Like it or not, unless we think there is something particularly dangerous about Saratoga Springs, there is no reason to introduce unnecessary risk. The school system exists to raise the knowledge, skill, and opportunity of all people in our community, and that is exactly what the school board is doing by following recognized, holistic best practices for the school environment. Keep doing things the right way and we will stay at the forefront of educational practices and success stories.
6 minutes. For some of us, this is the time it takes to shower or to hit the snooze button on our morning alarm. For some it is the wait in line for coffee or the time it takes to scramble an egg. For some, it will be the time it takes to read this article. Most importantly, it is the minimum wait time for emergency response in the event of a school shooting. These precious minutes are something we at Saratoga Parents for Safer Schools have agonized over since late September.
Saratoga Parents for Safer Schools wholeheartedly believes the solution to school violence is multifaceted. We support a comprehensive approach to school safety, which includes mental health counseling and services, family support on a multitude of levels and additional soft measures that increase safety in an educational learning environment. SPSS, in conjunction with other professional organizations such as National Association of School Resource Officers, are in support of train, armed personnel on our school campuses. It is the 6 crucial minutes referenced above that prompts this support. It is essential that we have the proper protection in place to mitigate response time in the event of an emergency. This can only happen when we place armed protection on our campuses.
At this time we are asking the Saratoga Springs City School District to place at least one SRO in each district elementary school and 2 within the High School and Maple Avenue Middle School. To not have armed protection within each building is a gross inequality that should not exist within our school system. Additionally, Officers such as LT. Briscoe need to be allowed to work security and carry concealed while working. We are fortunate to have the expertise of NASRO and would urge the District to take full advantage of the SSO training for retired police officers. These SSOs are an invaluable line of defense and work alongside SROs in making schools safe nationwide. Further, we would like to see Saratoga adopt an 8 point plan similar to that put in place after The Parkland Tragedy. More information on the plan can be found at americansforclass.org Like the 6 minutes mentioned above, time is of the essence. Every day that our children are at school unprotected is a day in which the Saratoga Springs City School district is operating with careless negligence. We all want to believe that this couldn’t possibly happen in our community, but the sad reality is that we have no guarantees that it will not. What we can have however, is preparedness, shorter emergency response times and the assurance that if a tragedy were to befall is, the protection we seek would be readily available on our campuses. As taxpayers and parents we demand this. More importantly, our children deserve it.
Here are the results broken down by district of the November, 2018, election ( 2018-General-Election-Results-by-TownDistrict ). The document includes all the municipalities in the county. It is organized first by the elected office and then by the municipality. They are in alphabetical order so the first item is the results for the town of Ballston for the Governor’s race. If you scroll down to page 11 you will see the results for the Governor’s race for Saratoga Springs. Page 23 has the results for Saratoga Springs for Comptroller, etc. The results for Question 1 for the Saratoga Springs charter update are on page 140 and for Question 2 on page 142.
I have also provided a pdf file of the city of Saratoga Springs showing the districts ( C_Saratoga_Springs_Elect_2012 ). If you use the telescope option (+) you can drill down to better view the boundaries for each district.
At the November 20th City Council meeting Mayor Meg Kelly announced that a number of vacancies will be occurring on the city’s boards in the coming months. She encouraged those interested in serving on any of these boards to use the application form available on the city website. This is a welcome move towards transparency in alerting the public to the many volunteer opportunities to serve the city as members of its boards. Past administrations have merely announced new appointments without ever giving members of the pubic the opportunity to consider putting themselves forwards as possible candidates to serve on these boards.
I know that many of the people who follow this blog are aware of my criticisms of the makeup of the land use boards. On December 31 Keith Kaplan will finish his term on the Zoning Board of Appeals and Cliff Van Wagner’s term on the Planning Board will end.
Hopefully, Mayor Kelly will have a pool of candidates to consider for these two important positions beyond the usual members of the development community.
Here is a link to the city website with a list of boards that will have vacancies in the next 3 to 6 months and the application form.
The Boston public radio station WBUR in cooperation with the Boston Globe Newspaper has posted a set of podcasts on the history of the infamous theft at the Gardner Museum in Boston. The theft included a Rembrandt and a Vermeer along with eleven other pieces. They have never been recovered.
While the podcasts sometimes have a breathy eEntertainment quality to them, they are still a lot of fun. The story includes some very colorful players.
As it turns out, one of the suspects had previously attempted to rob the Hyde Collection in Glens Falls. One of the podcasts/episodes (No. 8) focuses on this attempt.
The podcasts are titled “Last Seen” and can be found at this link:
On Tuesday, November 20th, the Saratoga Springs City Council voted unanimously to move forward with the design phase of the Flat Rock Center Concept Plan. Below is the full text of the resolution but the key element states: “City Council recommends that the Saratoga Springs City Center Authority proceed with initial design proposals for the municipal parking structure, with such proposals to incorporate a reduction in the total number of parking spaces as originally proposed in the Concept Plan, and to present such proposals to the City Council and the public for consideration and review”
The resolution passed the council unanimously.
During the comment period there were three speakers who expressed reservations about the resolution but the vast majority, most of them from the downtown business community, spoke in support of the proposal. City Center executive director, Ryan McMahon, told the council that thirteen events had chosen other venues due to the lack of parking and another twenty-nine were looking elsewhere also because of parking issues. He estimated that this had lost millions of dollars of income for local businesses.
This is a link to an excellent story by Thomas DiMopoulos for Saratoga Today on the current plan
A video of the public comments as well as council members’ comments before voting for the resolution is available on the city website.
OF THE CITY COUNCIL
OF THE CITY OF SARATOGA SPRINGS FLAT ROCK CENTRE CONCEPT PLAN
WHEREAS, by deed dated June 25, 1986, the Saratoga Springs Urban Renewal Agency conveyed a 2.6 acre parcel of land to the City of Saratoga Springs, with such land bounded by Lake Avenue, High Rock Avenue, York Street and Maple Avenue; and
WHEREAS, since its acquisition by the City, the parcel has only included a paved parking surface; and
WHEREAS, in May 2018, a Committee was convened and included a construction expert, neighboring property owners, representatives from the Greenbelt Trail Committee, the Complete Streets Committee, the downtown business community, the Administrator of Planning and Economic Development, a County Supervisor, the Commissioner of Finance, and the Mayor; and
WHEREAS, the Committee was charged with developing a Concept Plan for the entire 2.6 acre parcel that incorporates the Guiding Principles of the City’s Comprehensive Plan as adopted by the City Council on June 16, 2015; and
WHEREAS, the Committee has since established a Concept Plan for the 2.6 acre parcel which consists of four components, including (1) the establishment of a public park (Flat Rock Park) at the southerly end of the parcel along lake Avenue and where Flat Rock Spring once existed; (2) the continuation of the Park at the easterly side of the parcel along High Rock Avenue, which will connect Flat Rock Park to High Rock Park and include the Greenbelt trail, Downtown Connector; (3) the development of a municipal parking structure; and (4) the retention of outparcels for future development; and
WHEREAS, the Concept Plan was presented to the public at a City Council meeting on July 17, 2018, together with the City’s application for CFA Grant funding for the development of Flat Rock Centre, and again at a Special City Council meeting on November 13, 2018; and
WHEREAS, public input indicated a number of ideas, including the need to consider a possible reduction in the size of the municipal parking structure as well as a possible increase and reconfiguration of the public park, green-space and outparcels; and
WHEREAS, the costs associated with the four components of the Concept Plan may require that development and implementation occur in one or more phases, with parking and the Greenbelt Trail, Downtown Connector, identified as a priority and to be included in Phase I; and the public park, green-space and outparcels to be included in Phase II; and
WHEREAS, the City intends to work collaboratively with the Saratoga Springs City Center Authority, in accordance with the provisions of the City’s Comprehensive Plan to ensure adequate parking to enable the City Center to continue to attract conventions and other events to our downtown; and
WHEREAS, the City Council envisions the collaborative effort to include the City Center providing the costs associated with the design and construction of the municipal parking structure, subject to Council review and approval;
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that, subject to compliance with the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA), the City Council intends to proceed with Phase I, including the design and development of the Greenbelt Trail, Downtown Connector, and a municipal parking structure; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the City Council recommends that the Saratoga Springs City Center Authority proceed with initial design proposals for the municipal parking structure, with such proposals to incorporate a reduction in the total number of parking spaces as originally proposed in the Concept Plan, and to present such proposals to the City Council and the public for consideration and review; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the City Council, in conjunction with the previously established Committee, shall further review the components to be included in Phase II, with an effort to increase and reconfigure the public park, green-space and outparcels; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that upon receipt of the design proposals from the City Center and the further recommendations from the Committee, the City Council will schedule a Special Meeting to present the proposals to the public for input and consideration.
Dated: November 20, 2018
Saratoga Springs Politics 