City leaders looking to make deals at mayor's conference in Albany

Several city leaders are in Albany today, where Council President Charlie Mallow hopes to swing a couple deals for future grants. In an e-mail to local media outlets, Mallow said that he and Councilwoman Marianne Clattenburg "were able to secure private meetings with some very influential people and there are several issues the city is looking to move forward on." As a result, Mallow requested City Manager Jason Molino and Assistant City Manager Sally Kuzon, to join them in the capital for help with "this very important lobbying effort." mallow and Clattenburg have been there since last week.

Tonight's council meeting has subsequently been cancelled.

We sent an e-mail to Mallow this morning to see if he could supply us with any more details about these "private meetings." We also asked why he felt the presence of Molino and Kuzon was required.

His response:

Being successful and keeping the tax rate down requires us to obtain grants.This year city taxpayers were subsidized $580,000 by state grants. in prior years we were only able to secure a small fraction of that money. That is a number that was unthinkable in past years and it comes from a lot of hard work and a professional staff. We have made a conscious effort to go out and get what our city needs instead of relying on that money to come from local taxpayers pockets.

I was able to setup several meetings with key individuals in the governor’s office. I asked Jason how we could use this time and these contacts to our best advantage. Sally and Jason's knowledge on the specifics of our requests are needed on an informational basis to those we are meeting with. The more successful we are in making our case for funding the higher the probability we will be successful with future grant opportunities, that is our ultimate goal and the reason we are here in Albany.