The vote will be for Mayor: Margay Blackman or Connie Castaneda.
Also the vote will be for two trustees: Carol Hannon, Val Ciciotti, or Rick Ross. There also is a write-in candidate campaigning with Castaneda for Trustee Kristina Telles.
Having carefully vetted the candidates, the Brockporter enthusiastically endorses Margay Blackman for mayor and Hannon and Ciciotti for Trustees.
For more information read the article in the Democrat and Chronicle on June 16, 2013 by Meaghan McDermott entitled "Brockport Voters Have Decision To Make" by clicking here.
McDermott points out that Blackman, Hannan, Cicotti have been running as a team on the "Revitalize Brockport" ticket while Castaneda, Ross, and Telles have been running on the "Taxpayers First" ticket.
The choice is clear: vote for people who have a vision of a vibrant, thriving Village with a high quality of life or those who would dissolve the village and allow it to further deteriorate and turn it over to Brockport's slumlords who have exploited its housing stock, would eradicate its police department, further weaken its code enforcement, and allow the highly dense Village core to deteriorate into disorder and crime by increasing a highly transient renter class with no ties to the community.
Over the last few decades the once quaint Victorian Village of Brockport on the banks of the Erie Canal and home to SUNY Brockport has been turned increasingly into a student ghetto with many of its neighborhoods now having more student houses than the previously family owned and occupied houses making up family friendly neighborhoods. Many of Brockport streets have been turned into Holleywood sets for Animal House with drunken revelry and disorder a regular weekend happening.
This descent into alcohol fueled adolescent anarchy to enrich a few local landlord families has driven middle class families from the Village, not taxes as the Taxpayer First party maintains led by the lover and partner of Brockport's largest slumlord Norman Giancursio. Giancursio's partner, current Mayor Connie Castaneda, is still under charges of code violations for illegally renting her house to college students and has announced her intention to sue the taxpayers not serve them as she claims in her campaign literature.
The red herring of saving taxpayers money has led the Village to the brink of bankruptcy in 2010 while the current Mayor, Castaneda, was trustee and then Mayor. Luckily, the dissolution effort led by her partner, Giancursio, failed in 2010 and the new trustees elected, Blackman and Hannan working with trustees Kent Blair and Scott Hunsinger, were able to block Castaneda's further attempts to sabotage and undermine the Village's operations.
With the efforts of the Revitalize Brockport team, Blackman and Hannan, along with current trustees Kent Blair and William Andrews, Brockport has regained its financial solvency and many new projects and programs have invigorated the quality of life in the Village such as a Holiday lights parade to bring people to the downtown district at the Christmas season, the "high water, low bridge" festival to celebrate the opening of the canal in May, the introduction of a sewer fee so that these costs were no longer unfairly being paid for from the real estate levy, the continuation of historic preservation projects in Brockport's commercial district, the annual reforestation projects of the Urban Forest winning Small Town America awards from the Arbor Day Foundation, the research for a Village court, the collection of unpaid parking tickets going back several years bringing new revenue into the Village, the hiring of a grant writer to search and apply for funds for Village projects in lieu of further taxes, the update and management of PILOT (Payment In Lieu Of Taxes) with various non-profit and governmental organizations which have been tax exempt, a closer collaboration with SUNY Brockport, and the list goes on and on. Most of the time Castaneda has been on the opposing side of these efforts and so as McDermott writes in her article, for anyone knowledgeable about Village operations the last few years, the choice is very clear, very clear indeed.
Blackman and Hannan need to be supported and allowed to continue the excellent work they have begun. Ciciotti, as a volunteer, has helped Blackman and Hannan in their efforts in many ways and now needs to be officially added to the team of Trustees.
Tomorrow vote to keep the revitalization of Brockport going. Vote Blackman, Hannan, Ciciotti.
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