1. Current county hiring policies would be laughable if they didn't cost you money and lead to lower-quality hires. Multiple candidates should be interviewed, party affiliation should be irrelevant and rank-and-file legislators - especially Democratic legislators - should be allowed to interview adequately the Democratic leadership's choices so they can make informed votes.
2. Neither a Breslin nor Jennings man, in the county legislature I'll be nobody's man but yours, providing eyes, ears and a voice for ordinary citizens too often ignored in the seemingly zero-sum game of government expenditure allocation.
3. Ever since I was six years old, I've spoken truth to power. In the county legislature, I'll do the same.
4. I will not "rubber stamp" the policies or appointments of the county executive. From observing our national government, we know how important for policy it is to have legislators who think independently of the executive and who are willing to articulate freely and publicly their thoughts.
5. In a representative democracy, the only way to refocus government to serve the ordinary citizens is to provide the citizenry with information so they can make informed decisions. Treating ordinary citizens like mushrooms - covering them with manure and keeping them in the dark - is no way for government officials - whether they be national, state, county or municipal government officials - to treat their countrymen or neighbors. Whether it be through this website or my door-to-door visits, I will keep you informed of the matters before the county legislature and their significance to you. Do you know who your county legislator was for the last four years? If you elect me, I will not be a stranger.
6. Government officials' glowing, self-congratulatory press releases would hardly be worth mentioning if it were not that are being printed or rebroadcast as news and as a replacement for expensive investigative journalism. No one is getting rich working on a newspaper salary or being a newspaper owner. The intractable problem of how to finance investigative reporting while maintaining independent journalism - a problem that affects us nationally but is a more serious problem locally - is one for which I have no easy answer but, if elected, would work with the Albany Times Union and The Spotlight to solve.
7. If I had $50 for every time I've heard County Executive Breslin complain about his impotence in reducing the county's burdensome obligation under Medicaid, I could buy a new car. Medicaid's mandates are both federal and state, but they are not God's law; they are manmade and can be changed by cross-party political action. The ordinary citizens of Albany County - including rank-and-file Democrats - desperately need their county executive to lead them in this battle. When "Colonel" Breslin is ready to lead, "Captain" King and what's left of the Albany County GOP are ready to follow.
8. Although not within the scope of county government, the same cross-party political action could be used to address the burdensome and often inane federal mandates placed on schools such as the No Child Left Behind Act that are causing school taxpayers such anxiety. How did this country survive, if not prosper, for two hundred years without a U.S. Education Department?
9. Conservation of open space is a losing battle unless we create the economic incentives necessary for landowners to preserve it. County and town governments' need for property tax revenue to feed their insatiable need to spend are forcing landowners to develop their land to highest and best economic use. I will sponsor common-sense legislation to address both of these causes of open space loss.
10. If elected, I will represent and communicate with all the citizens of the district, regardless of party affiliation and regardless of whether I think they will vote for me in the future or not. For at least the last four years, those county legislators representing the 34th District have not shared this commitment. I'd like to raise the standard of what is expected of a county legislator, regardless of who in the future he or she is.