Build, build, build.

It is not often that I get really surprised. Yesterday, walking Broadway, I ran into a gentleman that at some time in the past I could talk to, but who has become intractable in more ways that one. He also posted a comment to this blog with a very surprising argument: that the Democratic ticket in his year’s election for City Council could not win a single seat because it was committed to building police facilities and fire stations.

He was stuck in the 2009 election, when a Public Safety building was indeed an issue. Not one of the Democratic candidates in 2011 has mentioned building anything; on the contrary they have all committed to look carefully at the long-term needs of the city of Saratoga Springs and find affordable solutions that can ensure our future.

The only candidate committed to build, build, build is Scott Johnson, the Republican incumbent: he pushed to build a Recreation Center in the midst of a community that was not clamoring for it, and that has not, and will not cover its costs or the debt repayments because the needs and the mission of such a building were not examined.

Scott Johnson, in electoral mood, has also offered a half-baked solution to a real problem, by building a fire station on the Eastern plateau on land bonded as recreational open space. What the community there is demanding is better emergency response in case of sudden illness, reducing the EMS response time that is now around 12 minutes in the best of cases.

And again, Scott Johnson has put forward a grandiose project for a large scale reconstruction of the Woodlawn parking lot, touting it as a triumph of public-private partnership planning. One of the projects contemplated by Ron Kim, then Commissioner of Public Safety and candidate for Mayor in 2009, was precisely such a public/private partnership to build this parking lot, including a Public Safety building.

When I pointed out to my Republican friend that the incumbent Mayor had fallen prey to the build, build, build syndrome to cement (pun intended) his place in posterity, he responded by saying: “I do oppose Scott Johnson on that too.” Consistency does not seem to be a Republican virtue any more.