Ken Runion

A new Ken Runion website is now online.

To catch up on some old Guilderland news.  Ken Runion was endorsed by the Albany Times Union in his 2009 re-election bid for Guilderland Town Supervisor.  Read the endorsement here.

Warren Redlich was unhappy with the endorsement from the comments he posted.  The public and media, however, see through the deception and untruthfulness of Warren Redlich.

Guilderland News

At last months January 19, 2010 Town Board meeting, the team of Mark Grimm and Warren Redlich voted against hiring an appraiser so the Town of Guilderland Assessor could defend a lawsuit challenging the assessment of the Metro 20 Diner.

At the February 2, 2010 Town Board meeting, Mark Grimm interrupted the meeting to present an agenda item to hire an appraiser he had solicited.  Mark Grimm had sent out a copy of the bid from his appraiser by e-mail to the other town board members at 3:56 PM on the day of the Town Board meeting.  The bid proposal submitted by Mark Grimm was addressed to Mark Grimm and dated Sunday, January 31, 2010.  Neither Pat Slavick nor Paul Pastore had seen the bid proposal submitted by Mark Grimm by e-mail.  Mark Grimm never discussed with the Assessor or any Town Board member, other than possibly Warren Redlich, that he was soliciting bids.  Of course, Mark Grimm was fully aware of the other bids solicited by the Assessor.  This clearly was an attempt by Mark Grimm to secretly under-cut the low bidder.

At the meeting, Town Supervisor, Ken Runion, indicated that he could not be sure that the secret bid submitted by Mark Grimm was less than the low bid received by the Assessor.  The secret bid submitted by Mark Grimm had charges for travel expenses, an hourly rate to review other appraisals and a higher hourly rate for court preparation and testimony.  Town Supervisor, Ken Runion, contended that Mark Grimm's solicitation of secret bids to under-cut the low bid received the month before could place the Town at risk.  Mark Grimm's secret bid could appear to be collusive, unethical and possibly illegal.

In an interview of the Assessor by the Altamont Enterprise, the Assessor stated that what Mark Grimm had done here reeks of public bid rigging.  Mark Grimm in response claimed "he did not solicit any bids".  That is odd, as all of the Town Board members received a copy of the bid addressed to Mark Grimm and sent to Town Board members by Mark Grimm by e-mail.

Mark Grimm loves to state a famous quote of a US Supreme Court Judge that "sunlight is the best disinfectant".  This quote stands for the principle of open and transparent government.  We have noted in the past that Mark Grimm "does not practice what he teaches".  Here is a prime example.  In this situation, Mark Grimm secretly and "under the cover of darkness" solicited bids in an attempt to under-cut the low bidder.  This type of hypocritical, collusive and unethical conduct on his part should not be tolerated.  His denial of soliciting bids is preposterous.  The bid he solicited is in writing.  In addition, the Town Supervisor received a letter from another appraiser which Mark Grimm apparently solicited upset about the bid process.  Again, this was due to the deceptive and duplicitous activity of Mark Grimm.

Guilderland News

At the January 19, 2010 Town Board meeting, Councilperson Paul Pastore was absent due to being sick.  This caused an interesting vote to occur.

Metro 20 Diner had commenced litigation against the Town Assessor several years ago challenging the tax assessment on the property.  The assessment is approximately 1.6 million dollars and the Metro 20 diner is seeking to reduce its assessment by approximately 1 million dollars.  The Judge in the litigation has ordered the town to get an appraisal of the property to justify the town's assessment.  The assessor solicited several bids from appraisers to provide the court ordered appraisal.  The low bid was $5,000.

Mark Grimm and Warren Redlich abstained in the motion to hire the appraiser (basically an abstention is the equivalent of a no vote).  Ken Runion and Pat Slavick voted to hire the appraiser.  Because this was a tie vote, the motion to hire the appraiser was defeated.

Mark Grimm and Warren Redlich stated that they did not have enough information or time to make a decision on hiring the appraiser.  They claimed they were unaware of the litigation.  Whether they were aware or unaware of the litigation is irrelevant in that the Court ordered the town to obtain it.  It is also strange that they were unaware of the litigation in that Mark Grimm and Warren Redlich are the liaisons to the Town Assessor.  Well, while it may appear strange, it is not surprising in that neither one of them have met with either the former assessor (Carol Wysomski) or the present one in the two years they have been town board members.  As for the excuse that they did not have time to make a decision, the materials were hand delivered to their homes five days prior to the meeting.  Neither Mark Grimm nor Warren Redlich contacted the Assessor or any other town employee prior to the meeting with questions about the agenda item.

The Town is in a tough position due to the conduct of Mark Grimm and Warren Redlich.  We are unable to comply with the Court's order and we are placed at a disadvantage in our ability to defend the litigation and support the assessment.  In the end, this could result in the Taxpayers having to refund over $70,000 in taxes and a loss of approximately $25,000 a year in future taxes all because Mark Grimm and Warren Redlich refuse to act like town board members and do the jobs they were elected to.  This is not good news for the Town of Guilderland.

The Guilderland Town Board Organizational Meeting held on January 1, 2010 is now online.  You can watch the meeting by clicking on either of these sites:

Guilderland Town Topics or Ken Runion for Guilderland

Both sites provide Guilderland town residents with accurate Guilderland news, information and events.

During the 2009 Guilderland Town election campaign, most of my websites were taken offline.  Now that the elections are over, we are slowly placing the sites back online.  Guilderland Town Topics is now back online and it offers accurate information on news and events affecting the Guilderland Town Board.  The site is moderated by Ken Runion.  The site can be found here and provides Guilderland residents with accurate Guilderland news.

We want to thank the residents and voters of Guilderland for convincingly re-electing all of the Guilderland Democratic candidates in the 2009 Town Election.

At the July 7, 2009 Guilderland Town Board Meeting, we will be discussing a number of important issues affecting the quality of life of Town residents.  A brief synopsis of the issues is contained below:

1.  The Town adopted a Comprehensive Plan in 2001.  The plan called for a series of neighborhood studies and a review of the Town's Zoning Law.  We will be finalizing the last neighborhood study, hopefully in September.  At this Town Board meeting, I will be asking the Town Board to approve the formation of a Zoning Law Review Committee.  I had discussed this Committee at a Town Board meeting several weeks ago.  This will be a bi-partisan, non-political committee made up of residents, business members, and community representatives.  No one political party will have a majority on the committee in order to insure that it is non-political in nature.

2.  Flooding and poor storm drainage has plagued several areas of town over the last couple of years.  In the Curry Road area, a subdivision and neighboring properties have seen a rising water table and poor storm drainage.  This has caused flooded streets and basements.  In McKownville, a deteriorated private system has caused flloded basements, sink holes and flooded back yards.  At this meeting, I will be asking the Board to retain an engineering firm to conduct preliminary engineering to alleviate the storm darainage issues.  As I wan to insure that the engineering is meaningful, I will be asking the Board to commit to bonding these projects in the future.  We will continue apply for grants when available.  We will also look at a 3-5 year plan utilizing town workers in order to reduce the costs of the projects.

3.  Over the last several years, we have worked with the State and private enterprise to come up with a plan to control, to a certain extent, the flooding on Route 20 near Stuyvesant Plaza.  Currently this area floods several times a year.  We are looking at a project which will reduce the flooding and make it less frequent.  This fix will not eliminate flooding completely.  We will be receiving and awarding bids at this town board meeting.

4.    For the last several years, we have been looking at alternatives to depositing solid waste at the City of Albany Landfill.  Most alternatives involved trucking to the Syracuse area which would require a large investment of capital and expensive trucking costs.  Recently, we were able to negotiate an agreement with the Town of Colonie to bring our solid waste to their landfill.  Their landfill has a longer life than the City of Albany's and the town will not be contributing to the complaints many have had with the Albany landfill.  The cost to take our solid waste to Colonie is comparable.

Submitted by Ken Runion

The Albany County Independence Party has named the candidates it intends to endorse in the 2009 Guilderland Town Election.

The candidates are:

Ken Runion for Supervisor

Pat Slavick for Town Board

Paul Pastore for Town Board

Denise Randall for Town Judge

Rosemary Centi for Town Clerk

Jean Cataldo for Receiver of Taxes

If you would like to watch re-runs of the Guilderland Town Board meetings, stop by this site.

This site hosts Guilderland Town Board re-plays of Board meetings since May 19, 2009.   You can also click on the date of the Board meeting you would like to watch contained in the menu located on this page.  The site is hosted by Ken Runion.