ALBANY: Shawn Morris, candidate for Common Council President
spoke at the July Save the Pine Bush dinner at the First
Presbyterian Church. Four candidates are running in the Democratic
Primary for Common Council President; all were invited to
speak, but only Shawn Morris attended the dinner.
Shawn began by describing the Common Council President’s
roll in city government. The President has three functions:
1) to preside at the Common Council meetings, 2) sit on various
City Boards and 3) to succeed the Mayor in case the office
becomes vacant. Noting that, “these tasks do not take
up many hours in the week,” Shawn feels that the role
of Common Council president is what the person holding the
position makes of it.
The Common Council president, according to Shawn, should
lead a change in the priorities of the city: “so that
we are focusing on a livable city, on an affordable city,
on making it a city where people want to live, not just commute
in and out of.”
Representing the seventh ward, which includes the neighborhoods
around Delaware Avenue and New Scotland Avenue, Shawn has
been a member of the Common Council for twelve years. During
her time as a member, she has been a very strong neighborhood
advocate. She has been focused on making sure the communities
in our cities are good places for people to live. “Sound
simple? But this has not been a priority for quite a while,” she
said. As Common Council President, Shawn would lead a change
in priorities.
As an elected official, Shawn has always considered herself
environmentally friendly and feels environmental conservation
is important.
Shawn has been a resident of Albany since she came here
to attend college in 1975, and feels she “grew up” with
Save the Pine Bush and has followed Save the Pine Bush’s
activities and has admired the commitment of Save the Pine
Bush. As a legislator, she felt that it took a little bit
of a process before she really understood all of the nuances
that the Save the Pine Bush really pushed for. She confessed
that if you dig really deep into her voting record, you would
find a few early votes that “maybe weren’t quite” what
her votes are now. She explains that it took a process for
her to understand about the Pine Bush; and it was because
of Save the Pine Bush coming to the Common Council and repeating
over and over about the importance of Pine Bush preservation
that she understood. She compared this process of talking
to politicians to be much like talking to teenagers (she
has two), that sometimes you have to repeat yourself again
and again for the message to sink in. Shawn emphasized that
she understands importance of preserving even small parcels
in the Pine Bush.
Also part of Shawn’s political education was the carelessness
that some people and businesses treat the environment and
the City. Too many businesses operate on the assumption that
it is easier to ask for forgiveness than ask for permission,
so, for example they go ahead and pave part of the Pine Bush,
without the proper approvals. Since its already, paved, well,
what can the City do? The developers may say, lets move on,
its done. Well, according to Shawn, “This is not OK.” And
it is time for the City to begin to enforce its laws, whether
its in the Pine Bush, or our neighborhoods, or absentee landlords.
The people who violate these laws just can’t say they
are sorry, they need to make it right.
She clearly sees a relationship between suburban sprawl
and the Pine Bush, saying, “The more we are building in
the Pine Bush, the less we are building downtown. . . The
more we are spreading out, the more we are losing in our
City. . . We need to have a strong, living presence in the
urban areas of the City.”
Of course, no dinner is complete without a grilling of
the speaker by the attendees. The questioning was begun by
Gene Damm who inquired about the Pine Bush landfill. Shawn
responded by saying that she needs more information, but
the people in the City who have the information, are not
sharing. The City has put all of its eggs in one basket,
proposing to build a landfill in the Town of Coeymans. Also,
the City keeps finding more little crevices to fill in the
current landfill in the Pine Bush. The landfill issue puts
the City in a critical situation, because not only does the
City make money on the landfill, but if the City can no longer
operate a landfill, it will lose the revenue, and have to
pay to have the City’s garbage disposed.
Lynne Jackson asked Shawn directly how she plans to vote
on the proposed hotel in the Pine Bush that is proposed to
be built on land that Crossgates illegally bulldozed and
made into a parking lot. Shawn firmly stated that she would
vote against the hotel in the Pine Bush. Besides the Pine
Bush issues, she feels that this is another case of the City
not enforcing its laws.
Lynne then observed that the current Common Council president,
Helen DesFosses, welcomes the public to the Common Council
meetings, unlike other municipalities that Lynne has visited.
Lynne asked if Shawn would continue this tradition. Shawn
replied, “of course”. Currently, she is on a
committee that is reviewing the rules of the Common Council.
One of the things that she and the other committee members
agree on is preserving the public comment period, and to
continue to make it welcoming to the public. Sometimes, she
observed, people come to the Common Council with a question,
but Common Council members are not permitted to speak during
the public comment period. She and the committee are looking
for ways the Common Council can address questions raised
by the public during the comment period.
In response to a question from John Wolcott, Shawn observed
that all of those hotels out on Washington Avenue Extension
in the Pine Bush, were supposed to increase the City’s
tax base, but she certainly has not seen an increase. The
way to increase the tax base is to re-build parts of the
City, and to do more code enforcement, according to Shawn.
Tom Ellis and Jim Travers raised the issue of the landfill
proposed for the Town of Coeymans. Tom Ellis noted that the
citizens of Coeymans have held up the landfill for 10 years,
and that there is no way that a landfill will ever be built
in Coeymans. He also suggested that the City charge to pick
up trash and garbage, and pick up the recyclables for free.
Shawn explained her strong support for open government.
She feels that citizens should not have to use the Freedom
of Information Act for every little bit of information — the
information citizens seek should simply be on the City’s
website.
One of the issues on the Common Council is that more independent
Common Council members are needed. Shawn suggested that people
should find out if there is a contested Common Council race
in their ward this year, and carefully consider the candidates
and if they will be independent. There are a lot of things
that the Common Council could do, but that does not do because
there is not a majority of independent members. To pursue
issues, a majority of the members must agree. For example,
there need to be enough votes not to approve the budget until
the Council receives the information it requests.
“I want to thank you for helping me to develop a good
perspective on both conservation issues and urban issues
and really realizing that these two are really intertwined
issues . . . and that they are both an important part of
our life,” said Shawn.
Printed in August/September 2005 Newsletter
