[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hi, I'm Stan.
[00:00:02] Speaker B: And I'm Shen.
[00:00:03] Speaker A: And each week we bring you the Stan and Shen Show.
And each week we talk about fun things through our travels throughout the capital region. We touch on food, we touch on news, try to touch heavily on good news. And Shen's always available with hot takes.
[00:00:20] Speaker B: Yeah. So if you could follow along and listen to us every week on DailyGazette.com or on all major streaming platforms, we'd love to have you join us.
[00:00:29] Speaker C: We off track.
[00:00:29] Speaker A: All right. Shan's going to do the intro.
[00:00:32] Speaker B: Yeah. So about them school budgets. That's how we're going to start this, this, this show because we're just going to get right into it.
Only county that we cover that did that, had every single one pass was the county that I do. So yay for me, Saratoga County.
Nothing failed. No props, no budgets, no public library votes, no board of trustee votes. Those that got elected to their school boards got elected to the school boards. Please remember that you are elected officials and you should talk to us. And please stop making your clerk just answer our emails or only the school board president. Cause that's really annoying your elected officials. That's how I feel about that. That's my hot take for the week.
But we did have two. No, three that failed. We had one down in Hudson Valley, I think failed. I can't remember the name of that one off the top of my head. But in our main.
[00:01:26] Speaker A: Or New Lebanon.
[00:01:28] Speaker B: New Lebanon. But in our main coverage area, to no one's surprise, Northville, for a second year in a row, failed. And they're just having a rough year up there in Northville. And then Scotia Glenville, not a surprise at all.
[00:01:44] Speaker A: And we're happy to have our returning guest, the Chad Arnold, who has been.
[00:01:51] Speaker B: I'm a not so happy topic this time.
[00:01:53] Speaker A: I'm not so happy. Yeah, that's true. We had a lot of fun with the national Comic Book Day and spotted Chad out and about making. Making the tour, making the rounds.
And you've been like, kind of like the tartan whisperer in this. And we just had a conversation with Miles Reed talking about, you know, your work on this heading into this. So what happened to Scotia Glenville last night?
[00:02:19] Speaker C: Yeah, so the. The Scotia Glenville title school district, they had a $67.1 million budget proposal.
It actually exceeded the state mandated property tax cap, which means in order for this budget to to pass, it would need 60% of voters to. To basically vote in the affirmative to. To approve this budget.
It just missed the mark. It got 55% of voters.
[00:02:44] Speaker B: So it need.
[00:02:46] Speaker C: No. It was. The final vote was 1206 yes and 984 no. In. In order to pass, to get that 60% majority, they needed 1,314. So it's about. I think it's 108 votes that kind of decided that. So, you know, the next after that, that is something that has been closely watched. A lot of people in the community were really in tune to that, to that budget proposal, because it was said very early on in this budget making process that began in February that the district was facing a $2.8 million budget gap year over year. So the 2024, 2025 budget, 2025, 2026 budget, it was $2.8 million separating these two in order for them to maintain all of their services.
So Superintendent Susan Schwartz was very upfront about this. You know, if we want to be below the tax cap, which just needs a simple majority vote to approve, we're going to have to have some staff reductions. So it was about a solid month where they met every week, the Board of Education, to kind of hammer out these budget details. And they ultimately decided that to be below the tax cap, the cuts would have been just too steep. Too many things would have been lost. So they decided to put forward a budget that would have increased the tax levy by about 5%, which is more than the 3.25% allowed under the tax cap.
It would have included a 3% tax rate increase.
So let's hammer it out. The tax levies, the amount the district raises from property taxes. The tax rate is what the homeowners pay or property owners pay per $1,000 of assessed value. So it would have been a 3% tax rate increase.
It needed that 60%, and it just fell short of got that 55.
So we're talking now Wednesday, which is the day after the budget vote, the Board of Education, Education's meeting on Thursday, May 22, they're gonna have a special meeting, and they're gonna kind of try to hammer out a path forward.
They can do a couple of things. One, they can put the same budget out to vote for a revote on on June 17, which is statewide revote day. Or they can kind of hammer out a new proposition, maybe make some additional cuts, get it below the tax gap, maybe cut some things differently, you know, whatever they may do, and try to get a simple majority. Or they can go straight to what's called a contingency budget, which is not. Not ideal, not ideal at all. It would require another $1.6 million in cuts because you can't increase the tax levy at all. So inquire another $1.6 million in cuts, which means basically anything that's not essential to education, you know, extracurriculars and things of that nature are likely. Sports gonna go away? Sports, yeah. You know, public schools are often the community center. So public access to these buildings is just, is not going to go away. And that's, you know, could be really devastating for organizations like the Boy Scouts, the girl Scouts, anyone who, who uses that building. That's not, you know, the school district. So major implications there don't really know a path forward at this time. It's going to be decided at least discussed tomorrow, tomorrow evening. But a lot going on in the Scotia Glenville School District.
[00:06:09] Speaker A: Here's, here's my experience. And again, this is, you know, the old guy, the oldest guy in the room. Probably add you two together and we're close.
So sports guy, 22 years, we go through school budget. School budgets get declined. We go to a contingency, what happens? Sports goes away.
Do you know the.
Off the top of your head, Shen. You know the Shen. What was the Shen budget number this year? Do you have an idea?
[00:06:32] Speaker B: So the Shenzha Shen's would feed a small city? It does, yeah. But it's what, it's in the, the hundreds of millions. Yeah, 430. Actually. You know what I do have? I have it right here. I don't know why I thought I didn't have it. So I mean, for Shen, you're talking $223,237,339. $223 million.
[00:06:53] Speaker A: Of school budget.
[00:06:54] Speaker B: Correct. They also have almost close to what, 10,000 students?
[00:06:58] Speaker A: I think, guess what? Their athletic budget is less than $2.2 million. So what I'm saying is the athletics, you're cutting on a contingency. Okay. If you're forced to go to contingency, you waved a magic wand and you've just eliminated less than 1% of the total load. J. How much impact did you make?
[00:07:20] Speaker B: I hear your argument there, but like.
[00:07:22] Speaker A: Can I continue with this?
[00:07:23] Speaker B: But I'm going to bring up arts because arts always gets cut.
[00:07:26] Speaker A: That's exactly where I was going to. Because when you go contingency, it all goes. And I get. We both know the arts budget is nowhere near the athletic budget.
[00:07:35] Speaker B: I know, but it's also increasingly frustrating when you sit in on budget meetings and the first thing that they want to cut is Arts programs over sports. And I'm sorry if that's going to anger a ton of people that listen to our podcast and maybe we don't get listeners because of that, but. But that's hot. Take number two is that we treat certain extracurriculars better than other extracurriculars, as if that's okay and it's not. So when school districts want to look at their budgets, let's actually take a hard look at budgets. Let's not dilly dally the way that sometimes it feels like things happen and go, oh well, we have championships for sports. Well, I'm sorry there's no art championship out there. But kids need creative skills just as much as they need athletic skills.
That's that.
[00:08:20] Speaker C: If I may bring this back.
So the Scotia Glenville proposal included a number of cuts, right. There was 21 full time faculty members that were going to be cut about, I think 14 of them were instructional. So that was going to be done through retirement attritions and then kind of reorganization from there. So, you know, some potential layoffs. I mean to talk about eliminating a full time administrative position, clerical staff, cleaning staff, pretty much. It touched pretty much everything across the board.
And I know there's a lot of people who were kind of unhappy, like why are we, you know, cutting education positions and not, you know, extracurriculars like a sports or whatever it may be.
And so there's a couple things I think is going to really imperative this conversation.
One is, you know, Scotia Glenville schools, like a lot of schools throughout the state of New York, a lot of schools in our coverage area have had a decline in student population. Right. I mean it has been shrinking year by year, little by little. And it's getting to a point that I think moving forward for a lot of school districts, the conversation about, you know, reducing staff is something that is going to have to drive the budget making process because do we need this main teachers or do we need, you know, are we using our resources, you know, in the right way and for schools, a lot of the budget I believe in Scotia Glenville is almost 80% of the total budget is staff.
[00:09:51] Speaker A: Correct.
[00:09:52] Speaker C: So it's hard to reduce.
[00:09:54] Speaker A: Which is my coin about why are you saying no?
Because where you're going to make a difference, unfortunately.
And again, we know the business, I lived it in retail, we live it in, in our business, in, in the print industry, staff cuts, you know, at the top, you know, it's a body, but it's tens of thousands of dollars.
So that's why What I'm. My point is, when we go. When we go. When we go to the contingency, we lose athletics and we lose arts. Why does, why does athletics get more coverage and more eyes on it?
[00:10:32] Speaker B: We.
[00:10:32] Speaker A: Well, we don't have a math section in the paper.
Okay. That's one thing. Where do people go. People will pay to watch athletics. It's a part of their DNA. It's something they've grown up with. Like it or not, That's a fact.
[00:10:44] Speaker B: Okay. But I think at the end of.
[00:10:45] Speaker A: The day, okay, I've always said athletics has better pr.
You only got good PR this year.
Theater partner with proctors, home theater, high school musical theater awards. We were all over it. We do. We do. I think we do a lot of things with Odyssey of the Mind. I think we do a lot of things with robotics. We do a lot of things with drone program, with the. With the drone teams. So there are opportunities to get more coverage, but you have to be more vocal. You have to reach out and we have to know what's going on. I disagree with.
Oh, sports gets everything. Sports has been around as long as there's been books.
Yeah.
[00:11:23] Speaker B: But when it comes down to it, sports gets more of the coverage. And you can talk PR all you want all day long, but they could send us a press release on something being covered in the arts and it's not going to nearly get the coverage that sports does. And that's. I mean, that's on us as a media org, and we need to take fault in that. That there is a bit of a bias there.
But it's also on the communities.
We put way more clout into athletics than we do the arts and anything else. And on that topic, we're talking about extracurriculars. But there are so many programs that schools are taking on. And I get it, you want kids to be well educated and well versed in a number of things. But when you have declining enrollment. I'm sorry, you need to start looking at the basics. That's what it's going to be. Math, reading, arithmetic. This is science. This is where everything.
[00:12:18] Speaker C: This is not how I thought this would go today.
[00:12:22] Speaker B: So I think this is a very important discussion about how schools, districts are looking at declining enrollment in their budgets. Because. I'm sorry. And this is gonna sound like old man didn't have this when they were growing up sort of moment here to some people. And I'm not saying that they.
But no, I'm like, it's gonna sound like, you know, basically, I'm Stan complaining, not for nothing complaining that, you know, when I grew up, we didn't have all these things in laptops and stuff.
[00:12:48] Speaker A: Like that and did everything.
[00:12:49] Speaker B: No, no. And I understand that it's going to sound, I'm going to sound like that for a minute, but I'm just saying that maybe we need to take a step back and ask ourselves, do we need all these programs kids are going to have, get them to college, get them in the career tech, and they're going to have so many opportunities. I'm not saying they can't have those now, but in New York State, we can't even get the fundamentals of reading down at a young age, apparently. So.
[00:13:15] Speaker C: So I, I actually, I just spoke to, within the last 20 minutes of us recording this, I just spoke to the Scotia Glenville superintendent Shoes in Schwartz, and I asked her about this because I know there have been people, you know, in the community who aren't happy, like, why are we cutting instructional positions and, and why are we cutting, you know, XYZ instead? And so I asked her why, why not cut sports? Why not cut an extracurricular? Why, why cut instructional staff? And what she told me, and I believe the direct quote is I'm trying to nibble around the edges rather than just taking a piece of pie because there's a lot of people who play sports and if I eliminate sports, there's a lot of people going to be upset. And they may say, why don't we take away from the fine arts? Well, there's a lot of people who enjoy the fine arts and they're going to be upset. So I'm looking at this decline in enrollment and I'm saying, okay, what's the most pragmatic way we can address this issue? And that's how they came up with these reductions, through attrition. And it's really taken a hard look at who's retiring this year. Do we need to fill that position in order to continue these services or can we reshuffle people around or whatever it is? So that's something that I think is going to be. I think school districts are already doing it. But, you know, we talk about Northville, which is a very small school district in a rural county, which not only do they have decline in student enrollment, but they have decline in population in general. Right. And this is the second year where Northville has struggled to get a budget passed. Right. So what are those conversations going to have to look like moving forward? Right. I mean, share services with other districts? Do we have Conversations about a potential merger with another district which comes up. What does that look like?
[00:14:48] Speaker B: You know, I guess my whole thing here is, I guess from my perspective is if I was ever a school board member, which let's. I guess some of you guys are going to hope to God I'm not in the future and this ever happened. I'm thinking basics first.
That's what you put in your budget first. You cover your basics. Then you go and you just set a specific percentage for sports and make it the same for arts and make it the same for whatever and that's it. Whatever doesn't get across the board. No, whatever doesn't get covered doesn't get covered.
[00:15:17] Speaker C: Right.
[00:15:17] Speaker B: I'm sorry. If the, if the amount you get to spend on sports is 2% and it only covers three sports.
It only covers three sports and then.
[00:15:24] Speaker A: 2% and it's a gladiator style. And what? Three, three go out.
[00:15:29] Speaker C: There's also, I think, a lot of other, you know, external pressures too. Right. You know, everyone is feeling the effects of inflation. Right. There's no doubt about it. Utility costs are going up. No doubt about it. School districts are also feeling those pressures as well. Right.
They're dealing with, you know, they have contractual obligations they have to fulfill. There's. There's state and federal mandates and things that, that, that need to be considered as well. And then they have to.
Transportation costs, you know, the price of gas. And, you know, I mean, there's so many things that, that, that go into. To making a school budget that are essential, you know, getting the children to school in order to get them educated. And you know, as, as we, you know, feel these pressures in our own lives. School districts are also feeling these pressures as well. Right. So it's becoming harder and harder to.
To kind of balance some of these budgets. And, and you know, unfortunately, particularly in smaller school districts, things like extracurriculars or maybe they just have to go away or maybe they look different than what they are right now.
[00:16:28] Speaker A: So two things.
[00:16:30] Speaker B: I think we need a note, though, for this conversation real quick. That none of us have children.
That's why I think I used to be.
[00:16:35] Speaker A: That none of us own property.
[00:16:36] Speaker B: Yes. None of us own property. Property. And none of us have children. So that should be noted in this conversation because we have a very different take that I think some people, we do see all sides. Yes.
[00:16:45] Speaker A: But from, like I said, doing this for 27 years. So my, my point about the contingent is don't vote no.
Don't vote no because you're Voting no for the wrong reason. The people are going to pay the price on a no.
Okay.
Are your own children's, your neighbor's children and things like that. You're going to take things away from the children when you're voting no. You're not. The system needs to be overhauled.
There are conversations about this at the highest level, at the college level. The cost of education at institutions, you know, needs to be.
[00:17:21] Speaker B: Is ridiculous. Yeah.
[00:17:22] Speaker A: Well, as we've all, as we're all.
[00:17:24] Speaker B: Paying sometimes, sometimes you're only paying for the view that.
[00:17:27] Speaker C: That's something I also talked about with, with Susan Schwartz and, and you know, the district was really trying to kind of put things in perspective. Right. So you know, this proposed tax rate increase according to them would have been like about 11. $11.33 for, for an average home with an assessed value of $160,000 in the district. So about $11.33 more a month you'd be paying on your annual school tax bill, which may not sound like a lot, but you know, as Susan Source point out, and I think as we all can kind of understand, that's $11 more on top of what you're already paying. Right. So, you know, for, for some of us out there, maybe it is. I just won't go to Chipotle one day. You know, I mean, there's just things I can do to cut and cover that and go on with my life. For a lot of other people though, that $11.33 is, is, is a big, is a tough nut to crack. Right. Where does that money come from?
[00:18:19] Speaker A: And then also you had a point listening to talk to Miles.
This is, and I think this needs to be said and I think you're. It's going to be. I'm sure we're going to run editorial things on it. This is the only thing you can vote no on.
[00:18:32] Speaker C: Yeah.
So some other, some other perspective that's going on. Scotia Glenville School District, you know, it's made up of, you know, people, the village of Scotia. Right. In the village of Scotia, the last two years have had. They've increased their taxes over the last two years are combined about 15%. Their tax rate has gone up. And, and a lot of that is because they have a long overdue facilities project. I mean to build all new, a new firehouse. There's ongoing project right now to, to revamp village hall, which is all this was voter approved in, in the referendum.
But it's been, it's been a lot. It's been the bond payments are, are starting to come due. Then obviously they have, you know, similar, similar pressures that the school district has faced with, you know, retirement and medical benefits increasing.
And that's kind of have to drive up some of their costs. And so that is something that's also on people's minds, I think the voters minds is that, you know, what my village tax rates, my property taxes have gone up. Do I want to have another bump on top of that? You know, so you don't get really an opportunity to say no on like a municipal budget.
But you can have a direct impact on a school budget now.
[00:19:48] Speaker B: You can have a direct impact in more than one way. It's not just voting no. And I was going to bring this up because it hasn't been mentioned yet. Like we're talking a lot about the budget. We're not talking about enough about the school board itself. You don't get to complain about what goes in the budget if you're not on this. Like, you can vote no all day long and you can hate what's in it, but if you really want to be a part of change, run for the school board, running for an office. I, I can't tell you how many times we open up a, a school and it's the same people running time and time and time again.
[00:20:20] Speaker A: Running people running for or attending the meetings.
[00:20:23] Speaker B: Because running for. There's two running for and attending the meetings. Nobody. What's the last time someone attended a school board?
[00:20:30] Speaker C: Here's what I'll say. The people. I, I would say, unless it's controversial, the voters of the Scotia Glenville district, I mean, they were very in tune to this. I mean there were.
[00:20:37] Speaker A: I want to follow up with that. Go ahead.
[00:20:39] Speaker C: There were dozens of people who, who packed these, these budget work session meetings.
[00:20:42] Speaker B: Before or after you wrot.
[00:20:45] Speaker C: Well, this whole, I mean, people have been kind of into it. People pay attention to. I, I think Scotia, there's a few other things going on in that district that's kind of got people in tune. But I wrote about it and then the district was very upfront about the information. I mean, they put it out, they had a meeting then like the next day or two days later, they had information on their website that went out to families, the residents in the community that you could see they weren't hiding anything. I mean, it was very clear. If you look at that first update they posted on their website back in February, it's very clear. Like if we're going to be below the cap, staff reductions are necessary.
[00:21:13] Speaker B: I mean, that's great for Scotia, but that's not every school district. They're an outlier. That's part of the problem. Because you and I'll hear this time and time again in Saratoga county, while they all pass, people aren't happy with every single budget that passed. They just got enough people to go out there and vote and say yes. Because there are going to be people who just say yes to anything for a school district. And that's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. But you don't get to complain unless you vote or you. And you sit on the school board. I'm sorry.
[00:21:37] Speaker A: So this is. And this is a point that. And again, I've had know there's been, you know, Shen's passed all. All 22. All 22 years that Oliver. Oliver Robinson's been there in the 27 that I. That I've known about the school district and I. But there's been a couple propositions that have been very vocal and the, The. The community's been split on it.
[00:21:59] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:21:59] Speaker A: And at the previous paper, you know, we covered it because it was important.
Okay. And the turnout did increase because of our coverage.
Again, everything we wrote, and I truly believe this, and I know Miles will agree with this, and I think this room agrees with it, is that we reported the information.
If there's an editorial be written, it's like, go out and vote just like we do every November and every. Whatever, it's go out and vote, vote, vote your conscience, vote whatever.
But the idea that this was voted down, which was obviously one of the calls on, sure, there'll be more letters coming in, that it was our fault because that's fault that we put the information out there and that's why I got voted down is categorically false.
[00:22:46] Speaker C: No. Yeah. No.
[00:22:47] Speaker A: I mean, I just think it's an opportunity for us to say this is what we do to the best of our ability, to the best of our ability. And it goes back to, this is why you can't have news deserts, because if no one was covering it. And once again, we will say in this room, and I think totally agree, that if we didn't write about it as the Gazette, there are a couple sticks out there, meaning television stations that wouldn't even follow it up on it.
[00:23:12] Speaker B: But also to that point, it's like.
[00:23:13] Speaker A: We did our job and we informed the community. And this is what it's about. Informed citizens made the decision and unfortunately did not go Scotia Bonnesville ways. Unfortunately, it has not worked out for Northville. And now we're going to cover to see what they do for their communities and what decisions their citizens make.
[00:23:32] Speaker B: I mean, that's, it's, it's great. Like we had great coverage for everything, you know, and it's, it's hard with the staff that we have and how limited we are. But again, my whole point here is like, we cannot be at everything. We are a staff of what, less than 20 people in the newsroom alone that's actually out there covering news. News, not sports.
It's less than 20 covering like we have 20 people.
[00:23:56] Speaker A: Maybe an editorial period. You gotta consider at minimum of six are copy editors.
[00:24:02] Speaker B: Yeah. And how many counties do we cover? So my point here though is like, we do what we can, but this is a two way street.
You as citizens need to do what you should be doing, which is attending and listening and partaking in democracy.
[00:24:19] Speaker A: And not the same people who we see every time. Because I go to what Great.
[00:24:24] Speaker B: To the people we see every time. Congratulations.
[00:24:26] Speaker A: I go to what, one city council meeting every two months and I'm like, I know the, I know the players. Yeah, that's not good.
[00:24:32] Speaker C: No. And it's, it's like that with school boards. It's like that with local governments. You know, my thoughts on this is, is there are things happening in village town halls, city halls every single day. There are things happening at school boards every single day. Right. And you know, you, you have an, you have a role to, to, you have to pay attention to.
[00:24:55] Speaker B: You were going to say obligation. People do have an obligation. Have an obligation to your community, whether you like it or not.
[00:24:59] Speaker C: The thing that, you know, lack of transparency. Right. And like I, my, my general rule of thumb is I think local governments, government in general, school boards. I always think there's always room for improvement with transparency. I'm a big fan. There's always a way you can put information out there. You know, I'm not pointing fingers at anyone in general, but just generally speaking, I think transparency can be made. But at the same time, you know, you record all these meetings, you put them on YouTube, all the documents online, you still got to watch the meetings, you still got to reduce documents. You know, they get to your neighbors, you know, they can have the information right there in front of you. But if you're not paying attention to what is being said or what they're voting on, that's on you. The audience is on you at the end of the day.
[00:25:45] Speaker A: And this also goes back to.
Yes, it's on YouTube. And again, I Talk to people all the time when, you know, I'm a little more thin skinned on it when I'm out there, but I'm probably more diplomatic when I reply is, do you want to go to every meeting? Do you want to watch every YouTube? No. That's why you have to support local journalism, because we are killing ourselves to try to be there. We're doing everything we can. If we can't be there live, we're watching it. If we're not watching it the next morning, we're trying to get to it that afternoon, we're trying to catch it. And that's why local journalism counts. And we have a supervisor in Fulton county that every time I see that supervisor, that supervisor will remind me that in the Fulton county supervisors meetings at the press table, if no one is there, the meeting is dynamically different.
Of course, they don't broad, they don't record.
[00:26:35] Speaker B: Yeah. I think that says something about the fact that they don't. They're not as transparent as they would like to think that they.
[00:26:41] Speaker A: As they like to be.
[00:26:42] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:26:42] Speaker A: And. And we talk about some of the things like, you know, you know, we're adding staff and we're adding talent. You know, we're adding talent to the staff. I think Ian's been a great addition to Fulton county, and now we're seeing some things come about from New York State. And then Eden's been covering in Fulton county, and we're happy to officially confirm that Tom Dinopoulos has joined the staff and he will assist in our Saratoga county coverage. So now we're gonna have two reporters in Saratoga county, which is priceless.
Not that her Majesty was not already priceless, but, you know, town will look good in a tierra too, but she'll still wear the tiara. But Saratoga is a county that deserves two reporters. We had a. We have a whole paper.
[00:27:26] Speaker B: Saratoga county is a county that deserves.
[00:27:29] Speaker A: But we have a community in Clifton park that had its own paper for 80 years that did very well until those people made a bad decision and decided not to do that.
And I think we're doing great things. And when the foundation, which maybe we'll have John on to talk about it when we can finally explain the whole thing about how we're going to get bigger and better and do the absolute best job in the capital region here shortly.
But don't go away. Checks. I've got something for you that's fun. It's going to get you out here with a little bit of a smile. But we have to talk about Courts. What would we do without courts for Shannon?
[00:28:05] Speaker B: What would it be? So we have an update on two important cases. So last we talked, the Middleman trial was still going on. That actually finished up pretty much Thursday, the next day, because by Friday morning of last week we were hearing closing arguments.
Interesting as always.
And then they went into deliberations and very quick, very quick.
[00:28:30] Speaker A: What was the.
[00:28:31] Speaker B: It was like two and a little over two and a half.
[00:28:32] Speaker A: I think two and a half hours.
[00:28:33] Speaker B: Or about two and a half hours to deliberate. They do it through lunch, so that must make it easy.
Came back guilty on both counts.
Obviously. ADA not surprised. His attorney, however, very surprised. He will likely appeal. I don't have off the top of my head, the maximum he now faces. Obviously all of that is up to a judge. His sentencing is in July, I believe July 8th. And then, and then today we had that was the, the Milton case with Ronald Rehear. And then today we had Paul Trincy, the Malta man who today pled guilty to firing at a car just a few blocks from the Saratoga Springs Police Department and then firing at the Saratoga Springs Police Department and what appeared at the time to be an attempt to have fire police fire back at him and kill him. Which is very unfortunate that we have to talk about this. But apparently Vietnam combat veteran had some alcohol substance abuse issues going on. He's now apparent he's apparently getting treatment for that, which is is good to hear. But he has taken a plea deal and faces off the top of my head, I believe it's to run aggregate anywhere from 212 3rd to I believe, 11 years in state prison.
He had a number of charges. He had several, in fact, pled to two felonies of class D felonies. Yep. Two class D felonies, first degree reckless endangerment and second degree criminal mischief.
And so, you know, just unfortunate sort of story to bring up when it relates to veterans and just sort of the path that can happen when they return home. And that was talked a little bit about by ADA Joseph Brandino. So that's the core rundown. I'll see you next week for next week's.
[00:30:20] Speaker A: All right, real quick, what did I do this weekend? I totally forgot again.
Can't remember I did a lot things do I did things I did things. Oh, singing in the Streets Cafe Lena, I wish you were there on Sunday because. Sorry, I could sing at the start 5,000. It's one of those guys from TikTok. Reginald does the he has the list where he plays the guitar and you sing with him. And it was absolutely. It was awesome. And so I was right in front of impressions.
[00:30:48] Speaker B: Nobody wants me to sing.
[00:30:49] Speaker A: It would have been a blast. But one of the staffers and impressions was played with him. We got some great video there. So that was a wonderful event.
A lot. A ton of different talent.
Seven stages went down to five because of rain. That was great.
And I think right now my highlight for the week was speaking of veterans, we had a veteran officer retire this morning.
Oh, yes, Officer Doggy. Officer K9 Travers from the New York State State Police Force retired.
And so he is officially home and he's staying with his fellow officer.
[00:31:33] Speaker B: Correct it.
[00:31:33] Speaker A: And along with his replacement.
And so there's a whole ceremony and there are canine units from Troy and Sarah.
[00:31:42] Speaker B: Isn't it always interesting when they do those. The dog ceremonies? It's always so there's such. I mean, there's like pop for like regular ceremonies, but like Dutch get the same treatment, man.
[00:31:55] Speaker A: And it was a nice moment that, you know, that dog. And I and I talked to Officer Jonathan something.
[00:32:06] Speaker B: Sorry, apologize, sorry.
[00:32:07] Speaker A: And just talked about being with the dog and the personalities of some of the big things he's done. So that was awesome.
Again, we said no more gifts, but since Chad has returned.
[00:32:18] Speaker B: Oh, Chad. You're the first one, Chad.
[00:32:20] Speaker A: Let's talk about the Superman trailer.
[00:32:24] Speaker C: Oh, my God.
[00:32:26] Speaker B: Oh, the latest one, which I haven't seen. I saw the one with the dog, though.
[00:32:29] Speaker A: No, this is the big.
[00:32:30] Speaker C: This is.
[00:32:30] Speaker B: I haven't seen that one yet.
[00:32:32] Speaker C: No, this is.
[00:32:32] Speaker B: We're ruin it for me now.
Standing chin stickers. Now I'm.
[00:32:39] Speaker C: I'm gonna be there.
[00:32:40] Speaker B: Put it on my water bottle.
[00:32:41] Speaker A: I think we may be there at midnight.
[00:32:43] Speaker C: Yeah, I think I might have to see it. I mean, I never see a midnight show, but this we're talking looks.
[00:32:48] Speaker A: We're talking about going to the midnight show. What do you think?
[00:32:50] Speaker B: Wait, when is it?
[00:32:54] Speaker A: Midnight, July 10th into 11th.
[00:32:56] Speaker B: Oh, okay. Who's buying popcorn?
We can go to the dollar store and get all the other snacks there.
[00:33:02] Speaker A: Do the old sneak in.
[00:33:04] Speaker B: It's not the old sneak in. I don't care. You can look at my purse. I'll tell you that. I brought my own snacks. I'm not paying for.
[00:33:10] Speaker A: Super exciting.
[00:33:11] Speaker C: I'm very excited for that movie. It looks really great.
I think James Gunn has a real.
A real love for the character.
[00:33:18] Speaker B: What a real blessing it's been to bring him on for as well.
[00:33:22] Speaker C: So it still looks phenomenal. Everything I've seen about it might be.
[00:33:26] Speaker B: G Please come back.
[00:33:27] Speaker C: Every time I hear him talk about Superman and the character and his vision, it's just like this. This is a guy who has read comics and his whole life and understands the character and then is really pouring that, that love into it. So I'm excited about it.
I. Yeah, I can't wait to see it.
[00:33:46] Speaker A: I. I have an issue with Nathan Fillion in orange hair.
[00:33:50] Speaker C: They. They gave him the, the common accurate. You know, Guy Gardner.
They, they. You look, you open the comic book. That's what. Okay.
[00:33:58] Speaker A: I grew up on Hal Jordan. That's why it's strong.
[00:33:59] Speaker B: Wait, isn't he the same guy that plays in the Rookie.
[00:34:02] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:34:02] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:34:02] Speaker B: Oh my God.
I haven't seen the trailer.
[00:34:06] Speaker A: That's why I wasn't and is in the greatest, you know, short lived sci fi series ever. Firefly.
[00:34:11] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:34:11] Speaker A: Which I'm sure you'll.
[00:34:12] Speaker B: I love him.
Oh, he was also in another.
Yes. What a great show that was.
[00:34:18] Speaker A: So speaking of great shows, I still have Chad. What's your. What's your binge? I think we covered it last week, but we'll get it on the podcast. Your TV binge forever list your top three.
[00:34:29] Speaker C: I don't really. I don't really have one. I gotta be honest.
[00:34:32] Speaker A: What would any. It was like I got three shows. That's all I got.
[00:34:36] Speaker C: No, I really, I really don't like.
I watch a lot of YouTube.
[00:34:41] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:34:41] Speaker C: Random anime.
[00:34:42] Speaker A: So many. So one of my friends at Best Buy gave me two animes.
[00:34:45] Speaker B: I think we should switch it to your favorite movie. Everyone's got one of those.
[00:34:48] Speaker C: No, I don't really. I'm not really. Huge.
[00:34:50] Speaker A: We got a long list of things bring next week.
[00:34:52] Speaker C: I mean like I, I mean our.
[00:34:54] Speaker B: Starting favorite, favorite movie today. How about that?
[00:34:56] Speaker C: I just finished watching standing
[email protected]. deadliest Catch on Discovery.
[00:35:02] Speaker B: Oh gosh.
[00:35:03] Speaker C: Like only seasons of that.
[00:35:04] Speaker A: Reese. How like Sharkwave.
[00:35:06] Speaker C: Just I was.
[00:35:07] Speaker B: You ever watched it though?
[00:35:08] Speaker C: I watched that Deadliest Catch Wild up.
[00:35:11] Speaker B: In the Alaska waters.
[00:35:13] Speaker C: Yeah. So I watched that recently.
[00:35:16] Speaker B: You know what you need to start next. There's a show with the guys and they go and they find like all these like old. They just like travel the. The. And I'm forgetting what a name, what the name of it is right now.
[00:35:26] Speaker A: There's a lot of shows that guys travel and find old stuff.
[00:35:30] Speaker B: My dad, my dad watches it all the time and I'm just like. I'm like, how do they know that? That is like that much. Like how do they know that?
[00:35:39] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. The Pickers. Whatever. American Pickers.
[00:35:42] Speaker B: Yes, American pickers.
[00:35:43] Speaker C: Yeah, I can watch that.
[00:35:45] Speaker A: And then this weekend, we talked about it. Kayla Ek was on the podcast. It's going up. Her stories going in Thursday's Daily Gazette and the podcast with her. The nightmare on Jay will happen this Saturday.
Rained out.
[00:35:58] Speaker B: Are you sure? Because it might rain again.
[00:36:00] Speaker A: This was thunderstorms and wind last Saturday. That's why she bumped it. Very excited for that and for her. And now I remember what I did last Saturday because before the rain came, I was able to catch Sarah's cross zone right at Congress Park. And I was just literally jumping around, racing back and forth. Yes, you can laugh because I was racing.
Literally just grabbing snapshots of students before they headed off to the prom at Saratoga City Center. So we did a lot of things outside and they had a lot of fun and it was well received on her website.
So that was great.
[00:36:37] Speaker B: Anyway, Chad, so what's your top movie?
[00:36:40] Speaker C: My top movie?
[00:36:42] Speaker B: Number one. Your number one.
[00:36:43] Speaker A: That's. You gotta get time on that. Movies moot, I think. Go three.
[00:36:48] Speaker B: Find the easy Number one.
[00:36:49] Speaker A: Easy Grays. The Grayson.
[00:36:51] Speaker B: Actually, I have a tie for it. Could go either way.
[00:36:53] Speaker A: See, that's why we don't go one. Go ahead. What is it?
[00:36:56] Speaker B: Remember the Titans?
[00:36:57] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:36:58] Speaker B: Great movie. Black Hawk Down.
[00:37:00] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:37:01] Speaker B: Awesome.
[00:37:01] Speaker A: Really?
[00:37:02] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:37:02] Speaker A: One and two with that.
[00:37:04] Speaker B: Yeah.
I can watch them every single time.
[00:37:07] Speaker C: Some diversity.
[00:37:10] Speaker A: There's enough there.
[00:37:11] Speaker B: Cry at every point.
[00:37:12] Speaker A: I like the library's deep enough to agree with that.
[00:37:16] Speaker C: Number three.
[00:37:17] Speaker B: I haven't thought about that one yet.
[00:37:18] Speaker C: I see.
[00:37:19] Speaker B: Number three is gonna be a toss up. Honestly, though, those could go either or.
[00:37:23] Speaker A: I mean, I'm like Goodfellas.
[00:37:27] Speaker B: Certain people in this office thought mine were gonna be chick flicks.
I don't like that term. But no, they were not.
[00:37:34] Speaker A: Gardens of Stone. There we go. There's my three.
Well, Almost Famous is in there.
Almost Famous. Lighthearted Almost Famous. Bull Durham.
Gardens of Stone is probably one of the best movies that no one's ever seen. James Earl Jones, D.B. sweeney.
[00:37:51] Speaker B: There's a lot of con out there.
[00:37:53] Speaker A: I mean, it's worth it. It is worth it.
It's out there.
So that's it, right?
[00:38:00] Speaker B: I think so.
[00:38:01] Speaker A: I hope so. Phoenix, New York Phoenix. Northeast champions. Playoffs start next week.
[00:38:07] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:38:08] Speaker A: So we'll be looking to get Becky on the show, the owner, the co. The CEO.
Because we already had Sam Clifford on. So we gotta get Rebecca Clifford on.
[00:38:20] Speaker B: Yes. We also have to.
[00:38:21] Speaker A: We have to get with Todd. Todd Nielson. Todd.
[00:38:24] Speaker B: Todd Shimkiss.
[00:38:25] Speaker A: Return the email. This is our plan. And then we're gonna roll to Belmont, and then we're together on Monday for Memorial Day.
[00:38:31] Speaker B: Yeah. Who knows what. What Belmont's episode's gonna be like, so.
Because I think we're the day we would normally tape, we're up doing Belmont. So, I mean, I don't know, maybe.
[00:38:41] Speaker A: People go early, we go live.
[00:38:43] Speaker B: Tape it on the road there again.
[00:38:44] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:38:44] Speaker A: Do it at Dean's old space, apparently.
[00:38:48] Speaker B: So.
[00:38:48] Speaker A: Yeah.
Parting shot, Chad.
[00:38:51] Speaker C: Nah, I have to wear my zebra shirt next time I'm on.
It's a referee joke.
[00:38:59] Speaker B: It wasn't, honey.
[00:39:00] Speaker A: No, it was good.
[00:39:00] Speaker C: No, he liked it. It was good.
[00:39:02] Speaker A: It was good. No, we needed him because you might have gone to the desk.
[00:39:06] Speaker B: Stan. Stan has jokes.
Don't you remember the holiday parade?
[00:39:13] Speaker C: No.
[00:39:14] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:39:16] Speaker A: Speaking of holidays. Hey, July 4th celebration. We got asked after the podcast.
[00:39:21] Speaker B: No, you can't make that announcement yet. We'll make that on here.
[00:39:24] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:39:25] Speaker C: More to come.
[00:39:26] Speaker B: Keep that to yourself. That's a surprise for the people.
[00:39:29] Speaker A: All right, More to come.
[00:39:30] Speaker C: Thanks for having me.
[00:39:31] Speaker A: Absolutely. Thanks for being here.
Say goodbye.
[00:39:35] Speaker B: Goodbye.
