Column as I see ’em – Saratoga Report Publisher Dan De Federicis’ commentary for Saratoga Springs & beyond

And on this – not just frigid but really freakin’ frigid – Saturday morning as I write this, here we go:

Did I mention it is frigid? Brrrrr! Yeesh, minus 13 degrees this (Saturday) morning when Dexter and I ventured out. Oddly enough, when I spend 30 minutes with him outside I am relatively comfortable because I prepared for it. It’s when I shoot out the door to Stewart’s in my Saratoga Race Course giveaway t-shirt when I suffer. By the time you read this, temperatures will not only warm up, but warm up close to 40 degrees. That’s a 50+ degree turnaround in a little more than 24 hours. Ahhh the joys of winter in upstate NY!
I don’t think I’ve seen anyone ice fishing on Saratoga Lake at all this winter. That’s because for the most part there’s been almost no ice. I’ve seen some fishing on Lake Lonely (or at least parked pickup trucks on Union Ave near a trail to Lake Lonely – but even that small body of water has been mostly ice free a majority of the winter. I imagine this cold snap created some ice but you couldn’t pay me enough to walk out on that ice until I know it’s been really cold for a really long time.
You just don’t see too many Toyota Priuses in those ice fishing parking areas. Same story at the country music concerts at SPAC.
Wow, what a story full of twists and turns the placement of the homeless shelter has become. You need a flow chart and score sheet to follow along, and presumably it’s far from over. Probably the most up-to-date news on this can be found in this Friday Daily Gazette article. I imagine the editorial boards at the TU and Gazette will weigh in at some point soon, as it’s a big story. If you didn’t catch the Saratoga Podcast where Adam Israel and I interviewed Mayor Ron Kim Wednesday on this issue, click here. This interview was of course before Shelters of Saratoga announced they would abandon plans to run a shelter at the soon-to-be-former senior center.

The best and most timely news stories on the shelter, as well as other Saratoga news items in general, comes from the Daily Gazette, specifically reporter Shenandoah Briere. She broke the story about Shelters of Saratoga pulling out of the Williams St. location soon after Shelters of Saratoga posted it. She also broke the story of Fire Chief Joseph Dolan being placed on leave due to a complaint received that he was working for another public entity while working for Saratoga Springs. The TU posted reporter Wendy Liberatore’s articles about Friday’s shelter developments and Chief Dolan’s issue after The Gazette articles were posted. In fact, the TU’s shelter article was not posted until Saturday morning, even though Shelters of Saratoga made their announcement early Friday afternoon. The Saratogian finally caught up the shelter story about 9am Saturday morning, almost a full day later, and has yet to post anything Saturday afternoon on Chief Dolan’s situation.
It’s a small town and those stories are the news stories I expect a local newspaper to report. The Saratogian has improved posting local news stories since just some months back, but it can’t piece together a story on its own and needs to regurgitate a press release or other newspapers reporters’ work in order to produce an article (hmmm, sounds like an aggregator). It feels like whoever is writing their articles, often simply listed as “Saratogian Staff”, is writing from a long way away from Saratoga Springs and writing for multiple newspapers in Troy, Kingston etc.
Back to the shelter story, let me acknowledge I am biased on this because my daughters may someday attend Spa Catholic. Nonetheless, if you ever walked by the 20 to 25 homeless people usually congregating outside the Woodlawn Avenue Parking Garage – as I often do on my walks to the post office – you’d have to think it’s insane to put a low-barrier homeless shelter essentially on top of a school athletic field – read “play yard”. What could possibly go wrong? If that’s offensive to you then so be it, but I’ll bet you aren’t the parent of a 5 and 9 year old daughters who may be attending Spa Catholic in a few short years. The two parcels are right on top of each other and this idea is just wrong.
I strive to be balanced in my politcal views, and I appreciated Mayor Kim coming on our podcast Wednesday. His answers, however, ranged from unpersuasive to absurd. With that being said, there are real human needs here so good for him for caring. It is clear we – all of us – need to ensure we have a suitable location and adequate shelter and services to help this city’s homeless – I think most of us agree on that. But the location next to Spa Catholic is just horrible – abort! Good for Shelters of Saratoga for pulling out. I hope the city takes that as a clear sign they need to find another location. If someone wishes to write an op-ed on this agreeing, disagreeing, or whatever on my points, feel free to reach out. Dan@saratgoga-report.com
I recently noticed an under-the-radar real estate listing that would be a pretty signficant transaction if it sells. What I know as the D’Andrea property, 168 acres on Crescent Ave near my Woodlands neighborhood, is for sale for a cool $9.5 million. The listing touts nearly a mile of waterfront (presumably on Kaydeross Creek) lists the possibilities as “residential development…Perfect for one or more estates, private fishing, boating, hunting and horses and 86 Buildable acres….” Wow, depending on what is built there it could notably change the entire eastern plateau of the city.
Staying with my Woodlands neighborhood, there was a convoy of of National Grid (I still want to call National Grid “NiMo”) trucks and workers around here earlier Saturday – and they didn’t leave until past 8pm. Turns out several of my neighbors had no gas, and that meant no heat, because of low gas pressure. Yeesh – it was 13 below! We were fortunate and the Casa De Federicis was not affected and all occupants herein were toasty warm. I feel bad for my neighbors though, so here’s hoping the problem was resolved but I am guessing it’s not. There are orange flags planted and orange paint marks in the snow all over this area – so I assume workers will be back for an extensive and expensive repair job.

Yea it’s their job and they were most certainly getting overtime, but it was double digit negative temperatures this morning so I sure appreciated these National Grid Workers working there for 12 hours in that cold. Thank you.
Staying on the eastern plateau, who do I need to talk to for a little coffee shop/bakery a short drive from my house that I can hole up in with my laptop for an hour or two now and again? I often encouraged Sully from Longfellow’s to open such a place, but that ship sailed. Stewart’s is fine for a cup of joe on the go, but not to sit and do work. The Bread Basket is just far enough to not feel close. What about the old Vero’s Anchor Inn? That location would work. I thought some attorneys bought it a few years back but haven’t heard much on it lately. C’mon, a coffee/tea house would be great there.
Staying in that area – not quite the eastern plateau anymore but I’ll call it Fish Creek Valley – everytime I stop in to Barrymore Wine & Spirits (in the Stewart’s Building) I make it a point to buy something so in my silly mind I can do my tiny part to ensure he – the owner Michael – stays in business. Now I hear he is expanding in the vacant space in the western part of that building. I guess business is good and he’ll do just fine without my occasional Barefoot brand wine ($8.99!) purchases!
My interactions with Michael are often interesting and my wife had a bizarro experience with him once. But he’s grown on me and now I sort of appreciate him. Not surprisingly, Barrymore’s Yelp reviews range from one extreme to the other, with none down the middle, and for added entertainment Michael responds on there to the bad ones.
Staying with the alcohol theme, my friends from Buffalo, that I often text back and forth with about the Bills, have moved on to new and random subjects now that the Bills are kaput for the season. Today’s topic du jour was “best TV and movie bartenders”. The choices ranged from Isaac from Love Boat, Sam Malone, and Tom Cruise’s older bartender friend in “Cocktail”. Just to be annoying, I offered Moe from The Simpons and opined that if someone was going to pick a Cheers bartender, Coach was a much better choice than Sam Malone. Humor me here folks, we’re all mourning the Bills’ early playoff exit and looking for diversionary topics.
Another controversy not quite as intense as the shelter one – but still pretty spirited – is the plans for Union Avenue. Have you read the bit of back and forth on John Kaufmann’s Saratoga Politics blog between architect and lifelong Saratogian Jim Martinez and Bikeatoga’s Ed Lindner? The debate isn’t quite the insulting level of the old Saturday Night Live skit Point/Counterpoint with Jane Curtin and Dan Akroyd (remember: “Jane you ignorant slut”?), but there were nonetheless some jabs and perhaps a swipe or two in those posts. But mostly the series was an insightful back and forth about differing views for Union Avenue and all three (and counting?) entries are worth reading.
At some point when I wasn’t looking the Best Western on Rt 9/South Broadway, Across from PJ’s BAR-B-QSA, became the Hotel Saratoga. C’mon all you Eagles/Don Henley fans – sing it with me. “Welcome to the Hotel Saaaar-a-to-ga, such a lovely place…..”
I can make these Don Henley, Cheers, Love Boat and 70s-era Saturday Night Live references because most of you reading this are my age or older. “Column as I see ’em” hasn’t quite caught on with Saratoga’s 20-something crowd just yet.
Back to South Broadway accomodations, I saw the Springs Motel now has caution tape around it. On the off chance it ever was such a lovely place, it’s not anymore. But I bet if those walls could talk…..Anywho, I guess the tape means demolition is coming sooner than later. Old Saratoga has been slipping away for a long time, hasn’t it?

Dave Matthews will be performing at SPAC on July 14 & 15. Saratoga Race Course’s opening day is….you guessed it: July 14. The traffic that weekend will be another kind of demolition – a demolition derby!
Boy the new Adelphi/Rip Van Dam project is sure coming into shape. Fortunately, the front of both the Adelphi and Rip Van Dam were not changed. Even though the rear addition rises higher than the two 19th century buildings in the front, it is not that noticeable from Broadway as far as I’m concerned. I know many disagree with me on that project but, just between us, I think it’s kind of exciting.

OK folks that’s about it for now. If you find that your heat isn’t working, remember there’s plenty of room at the Hotel Saratoga. Any time of year….you can find it (t)here.