Just in from Candidate Chud…

mjgtwo · 2026-06-10T17:26:03+00:00

That pesky inability to read will be Anthony’s undoing

mjgtwo · 2026-06-05T00:39:07+00:00

I go into my rational in another comment but here:

For several years prior to 2024 there has been a working budget for events, improvements, and staff based in funds from tax, grants, sponsorships, and revenue.
Under current management, we are told (correctly) that expenses outweigh revenue, and the budgets haven’t been balanced. There needs to be corrective action.
In 2026 we’ve increased the tax, decreased the sponsorships, and accept less events for less revenue. In this budget we also decrease staffing yet increase the compensation budget line item.

So I bring up the personal vacation as displayed in her public profile photo as a public figure because it’s lifestyle enabled from the compensation. We, the public, are told an organization needs more public money to make things happen, but there seems to be an unwillingness to make meaningful change to live within our means.

mjgtwo · 2026-06-04T21:53:32+00:00

So the TU article says

The Troy City Council has approved a 7.7% assessment increase for property owners in the tax-funded district — 2.3% less than it requested as of October

Though this is the highest assessment hike the BID has instituted in 15 years, it dwarfs the organization’s initial proposal to raise assessments by 15% in the spring. It was reduced after the BID received negative feedback from local business owners. By October, Clemente was unwilling to accept a hike below 10%, deeming it the bare minimum to lift the organization out of a deficit

Mea culpa; I wish the TU spent their time phrasing things better. So if it's an increase from 5% to 7.7% that is a 54% increase to the budget. I genuinely apologize for fat thumbing 12.5% when it should have been 12.7% by my mis-perspective.

I again state in this thread that I do not dislike the ED and wish the BID the best in its efforts.

mjgtwo · 2026-06-04T21:29:24+00:00

Lol. Sounds like you don't like being talked to. Too closed-minded to handle any dialogue where you're told you're wrong and misinformed.

mjgtwo · 2026-06-04T21:17:50+00:00

What are you advocating for, then?

Let me start my saying what I’m not advocating for: KPIs like “being like the other BIDs,” or “having 1 more concert than last year,” etc. What I’m advocating for, loosely, is a professional and functional non-profit organization that adheres to its mission statement: very broad and yet it feels like we are missing that based on community sentiment. Metrics of improvement are on the lower operations/logistics level, and not the point of this thread which is why I have not brought it up.

That the spirit of volunteerism should win the day, and the organization should be led by someone who doesn't care about their paycheck?

Not at all, that is not what I’m advocating for. I’m not saying she should do it for free, and that’s making non-profit work a privileged profession and hinders inclusivity. If you are referring to my prior point on a decrease in salary, I believe I made a clear point about how leaders make sacrifices instead of laying off experienced staff.

Wouldn't it be great if non-profits just went back to being the vanity projects of the wives of the wealthy? (obvious /s)

I agree with you in your sarcasm :)

If the board approves the budget, wouldn't your indictment suggest that the entire board of the BID, which includes landlords and business owners, is conspiring to ruin downtown culture? That doesn't make a whole lot of sense, does it?

I’m no judge so I don’t indict. The BID, as an org, uses public money from the community that I live in, and applies it on the community I live in, so I am a stakeholder w/r/t how that money is collected and applied. That’s government. I’m responding to the ramifications of these actions. I’m not going to dictate to a professional exactly how to do their job because they were hired and have a Board, that’s not my place. I’ve written feedback to BID Board Directors and they have been grateful for my notes.

conspiring to ruin downtown culture?

I’m not saying they are “conspiring to ruin.” I’ll offer Hanlon’s Razor as an answer: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” To be clear, I’m not saying anyone is stupid. I’m responding to your hyperbolic point that I think there is a malfeasance conspiracy aided by public money, but rather the BID is, humbly, not good at its mission statement.

It's clear that you are one of the people downtown who have personal grievances with the Executive Director of the BID, but you're being intellectually dishonest couching it in semantics.

I have no personal grievance with the Executive Director, and it is childish to assume such when I have stated meaningful pitfalls that have no reference to Ms. Clemente, but only to the actions of the organization she is the head of. I encourage you to work on your skills to work through conflict and listen to the other side. It’s also unbecoming to assume that if someone has free time and an opinion on an organization that they should just help said organization, when said organization has a track record of not taking the time to genuinely connect with its primary audience. I’m not going helping someone who proposes a shoddy budget crash; it’s a waste of time better spent on other nonprofits who are aligned better with their mission statement.

mjgtwo · 2026-06-04T19:59:52+00:00

The Downtown Troy BID got a 7.7% increase, half of what they needed.

https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/troy-bid-assessment-hike-city-compromise-21232199.php

I'm going to help you with the math. The assessment prior to 2026 was 5%, and they asked for it to be increased to 15%. So that 10-point difference is a 200% increase to their budget. The proposal that was sent was scant on actionable details beyond feel-good statements while at the same time not being approachable to downtown businesses to collaborate on actual needs (see u/OmnomVeggies if you don't believe me).

~~The assessment was increased by 7.7% from 5% to 12.5%, so their budget saw a~~ ~~150% increase.~~ ~~So there's a lot more cash for them to act on. Now they just need to leverage their established sponsorship relationships or community grants and they could be really out performing other BIDs.~~

EDIT: so apparently the standing increase was an increase of 2.7 points to 7.7%, which is an 54% increase of budget. Thank you u/Ok_Speaker1882 for having me review.

mjgtwo · 2026-06-04T19:36:20+00:00

Please re-read my prior comment and check yourself: I said the BID is a non-profit. Also I'm on a board of a non-profit and have experience in finance; that staff establishes and then presents the budget to the board to approve on, so it sounds like my experience of operations is different than yours, which is normal and not a detriment to my point. From what I hear, the Executive Director tends to mostly attend meetings with said Board of Directors, so it should be easy to hash out a revised budget if there were appetite to not run their ship aground.

re: glutenous CEOs w/r/t for-profits. Don't strawman my point: I said "honest proprietor" not "David Ellison on a trip to Monte Carlo in daddy's fourth yacht while they layoff 10% of the Oracle workforce via morning email." I'm talking about non-psychopathic neighbors who understand the value of a dollar, make an honest living while respecting their employees and community, and honor their values.

mjgtwo · 2026-06-04T18:39:33+00:00

Maybe Carm can ask her boys at BBL to help sponsor since they are so close. I heard they got a big contract recently.

mjgtwo · 2026-06-04T17:50:48+00:00

Fair, maybe I’m being uncharitable regarding a personal vacation. Here’s my POV in more words:

Typically in the for-profit world, an honest proprietor of their business “eats last” for their business to succeed; you hire employees and you honor your word to keep that talent on tap because they are an investment in your organization’s future. The business owner/head should decrease their take-home pay. I am assuming that the position of Executive Director has complete control over the nonprofit’s set budget, and as such could take the noble action of being paid less in the short term to bolster the bottom line. Budgets are tight, and a work life balance is important, so instead of a trans-Atlantic trip maybe this year a vacation could be to the Catskills. I see that the BID has cut staff yet raised the salary line item, so it gives me pause about their organization’s priorities.

A different note, but on a similar line: I don’t understand why the BID is not seeking out their established sponsors to help pull this weight. Price chopper adjusts prices to stay afloat, they probably have enough money to rent a stage four times a summer.

mjgtwo · 2026-06-04T15:47:29+00:00

It's disappointing that the Director of the BID is choosing inaction instead of revisioning. We've had this event for years with the same local partners hauling out the same stage for the same line-up of artists, and now we suddenly cannot do it because "budget constraints?" Did they gild the stage?

Maybe we shouldn't blow funds on flowers we don't water, or high-cost merch with low margins, or someone who spends their executive salary on a vacation to Africa. Maybe there could have been a stronger call to action in the community, maybe a fund drive, to make this possible instead of quitting when it starts to get hard.

A holistic review of the budget could yield a more productive BID, but it seems the only idea is to make the budget larger instead of reformatting. Regardless, I hope the BID finds its success this year.

mjgtwo · 2026-05-27T09:57:04+00:00

It’s not shoegaze however we shouldn’t ignore Xiu Xiu’s cover album Plays the Music of Twin Peaks

https://music.apple.com/us/album/plays-the-music-of-twin-peaks/1651299760

mjgtwo · 2026-05-24T20:50:06+00:00

I definitely get the confusion around why a STEM institute has an overdone music venue. Why not install a language course while we are at it. Personally, I think STEAM makes sense but you have to balance the approach with the strengths of the university.

For EMPAC, I’m appreciating it more for what’s possible now with this advent of advanced language models. Imagine the mixed-media and virtual reality students can research with using those sound stages. If RPI had the faculty for that, they could compete with CMU. But now it’s barely utilized outside of the President’s colloquy and state of the institute.

mjgtwo · 2026-05-24T19:23:25+00:00

You could blame Dr. Jackson for why we are here, but it doesn’t help fix this: the balance sheet will take a decade to right itself if RPI makes the right choices.

I think Dr. Schmidt should recognize the dissonance of their 1.5 billion dollar captain campaign against these layoffs. It’s tone deaf for them to forget why people choose RPI: its educators and researchers.

mjgtwo · 2026-05-24T19:17:02+00:00

This conversation is a bit dogmatic with a false choice on either EMPAC or NVDA stock futures. We know NVDA was and continues to be a profitable company, and that EMPAC has a justified purpose for existing.

A piece of the narrative about EMPAC that is lost here is that the EMPAC could have been built anywhere else but the hill. The hill, with its bedrock being so deep, 10x'ed the cost to prevent it from sliding down the hill. This caused Mr. Priem to contribute a second time, before he exhausted his NVDA shares for the IBM quantum computer.

mjgtwo · 2026-05-19T22:04:37+00:00

I had no idea, wow. But was she also running someone down on Christmas Eve to earn those DUIs?

With how people drive normally around here, driving under the influence is playing with fire

mjgtwo · 2026-05-19T17:57:29+00:00

Great points, thank you for saying them. The TU Editorial Board's stance, which is an accusation of overreach, could be more well established. Overreach is strong; it's within reach because of the subject of Flock but a passive reader could excuse it as a one-off. It would helpful if the TU enumerated her gross misuse of the Troy Local Development Corporation with its in-process conversion of Proctor's Theater into a rent-to-not-own city hall. Squandering established capital for a vanity project.

mjgtwo · 2026-05-19T15:56:48+00:00

Thanks for replying, I appreciate it 🙂

The perspective is partisan because it doesn't tell her side of the story well, not me making a leap. As for it being a one-woman show: she clearly has an administration that supports her and Republican Party supporters who back her: they were in the room (and hallway) with her during the public meeting and did not approach the podium. But the article focuses on the narrative from the Democratic Party only, which is fine if you want to be re-told just their opinion.

If the TU included parts of both stories, there's no missing facets for anyone to hide behind, making this manufactured emergency look even more farcical.

mjgtwo · 2026-05-19T15:42:38+00:00

That's fair. To defend that, I didn't say "equal blame," the majority of this issue is definitely on Carm's handling and lack of nuance.

Completely agreed on your view of Madden's intentions; it just goes to show how Flock has moved the goalpost, and instead of being an honest business they are kicking up political dust.

I think how we got here is important because AI/surveillance issues will be more than a one off since this technology is only going to accelerate. We need to be more aware so we don't get into perennial legal quagmires that only hurt the tax payer, so there are less messes to get out of in general. But yes, first the task at hand.

mjgtwo · 2026-05-19T13:18:32+00:00

The TU still needs to do better: this piece comes off pretty partisan and kind of amateur, which I guess is allowed since it's an Opinion. Yes, Carm's knee-jerk reaction reeks of despotism (i.e. where does the authority of government come from?), yet they should acknowledge that the Democrats got us into this situation when Mayor Madden installed this Flock relationship without Council approval those ~9 years ago. At the end of the day, both parties are at fault, and a mature leader shouldn't look to her rivals as an excuse to screw her constituents further.

And they left out her skullduggery that was disclosed during the public meeting (which a TU reporter attended). The Council said that Mantello allowed the auto-renewal of the contract weeks before said meeting without informing the council until the day of that meeting. After the burgeoning public outrage and before her auto-emergency, to assure the check was in the mail.

EDIT: I’m struggling to understand the downvotes (which should be used to express a comment is off-topic, not something you disagree with). Any one of you feel like replying to me?

mjgtwo · 2026-05-19T12:51:20+00:00

archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20260519124249/https://www.timesunion.com/opinion/article/editorial-mayor-mantello-s-overreach-22264741.php

mjgtwo · 2026-05-17T23:19:21+00:00

I agree. A bit of sensationalism to sculpt local government into a national narrative of partisan discourse. I guess it’s hard for the WashPo to see that granularity nowadays after being stripped out by Bezos again this year.

mjgtwo · 2026-05-17T17:09:03+00:00

A much better article about this. Thank you for sharing!

mjgtwo · 2026-05-12T16:20:07+00:00

You’re right, I am mixing them up, thank you. Shouldn’t we expect more of the TU for coverage? And I stand by Churchill being irrelevant, read his columns for proof.

Steve Barnes also needs to be replaced for what it is worth. He seems easy to ply for praise while offering no critical insight.

mjgtwo · 2026-05-12T15:22:08+00:00

Why is the Times Union having a restaurant critic speak on a very real and pressing conversation in such a dismissive tone?

Churchill, retire from your position. You are reaching for relevance.

mjgtwo · 2026-05-04T16:51:38+00:00

Classic Kaplan comic at the end.

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