Tag: Albany Public Library

TWO absentee ballots for Albany’s May 15 vote

Each absentee ballot must be returned separately to the organization responsible

As someone who has used an absentee ballot for the school district vote, I was intrigued and disappointed by this from the Albany school district:

“Voters wishing to cast absentee ballots in the City School District of Albany’s May 15 budget vote and Board of Education elections will receive two separate absentee ballots — one from the school district for the budget and related propositions, and one from the Albany County Board of Elections for the board candidates.

“The state moved the district’s board elections from November to May last summer to align Albany with the vast majority of public school districts statewide, which annually hold their board elections and budget vote together on the third Tuesday in May.” This, I thought, was a very good thing, and long overdue.

“The state legislation as it is currently written requires the county to be responsible for the board elections, as it has been traditionally when school board members were elected in November in conjunction with the general election. The district is responsible for the budget vote and related propositions as in past years.

“Please note that each absentee ballot must be returned separately to the organization responsible.

“…The absentee ballot for the school budget vote and related propositions… will contain the following propositions:
Proposition #1 — 2018-19 school budget vote
Proposition #2 — Proposal to establish a Capital Reserve Fund
Proposition #3 — 2018-19 Albany Public Library budget vote (this item is unrelated to the school district)”

Incidentally, the League of Women Voters of Albany County has announced a Candidate Forum for the Albany School board election on May 14 at 7 p.m. at Myers Middle School, 100 Elbel off Whitehall Road. It is cosponsored by CANA, Citizen Action NY and the NAACP. Nell Stokes is the moderator.

I hope that there can be a legislative fix for the voting glitch before the balloting in May 2019. The turnout for these important votes are notoriously low, and I’m in favor of things that will make the franchise easier.
Albany County Board of Elections will deal with “absentee ballots for the board elections. Four candidates are vying for three open seats on the school board.”

Meet Candidates for Albany School Board April 9

The vote will take place May 15 from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Meet school board candidates Damarise Alexander-Mann, Ellen Roach, and Tabetha Wilson Monday, April 9 from 6:00 – 8:00 p.m. at 32 Colonial Avenue, Albany. Your presence is welcome.
Please note that the school board election has been moved to May, to match when Albanians vote on the school budget, finally bringing the city in sync with the rest of the state.

There are three seats open: two full four-year terms and one partial one-year term, resulting from Kenny Bruce’s resignation in 2017. Tabetha Wilson, whom the board appointed last year to fill that vacancy, is running. Ellen Roach is running for re-election. President

Sue Adler is not running for re-election.

The Albany school budget vote, Board of Education elections, and Albany Public Library budget vote will take place May 15. The polls are open from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. at these locations, which may be different from those for the general election.

September rambling #3: taking a knee

I went to two street festivals in Albany

It occurred to me that people not familiar with American football may not understand “taking a knee” or a “quarterback kneel.”

The play occurs after the ball is snapped “when the quarterback immediately kneels to the ground, ending the play on contact… It is primarily used to run the clock down, either at the end of the first half or the game itself, in order to preserve a lead or a win. Although it generally results in a loss of a yard and uses up a down, it minimizes the risk of a fumble, which would give the other team a chance at recovering the ball.

“Especially when the outcome of the game has been well decided, defenses will often give little resistance to the play as a matter of sportsmanship as well as to reduce injury risk on what is a relatively simple play.”

This is what spiritual warfare looks like. “There is not a more perfect gesture of Christian nonviolent resistance than to kneel while the lovers of empire stand. It makes a spectacle of our worldly powers”

The Daily Show: When is the ‘right time’ for black people to protest?

Bob Costas on NFL protests and patriotism

Principled stands taken at great risk are often how movements are born

Is America Headed for a New Kind of Civil War?

Ibram Kendi, leading scholar about racism: education and love are not the answer

Nationalism Reconsidered

The Real Reason White People Say ‘All Lives Matter’ (from a white guy)

“Leave safety behind. Put your body on the line. Stand before the people you fear and speak your mind–even if your voice shakes. When you least expect it, someone may actually listen to what you have to say. Well-aimed slingshots can topple giants.” –Maggie Kuhn

John Green reviews what is known and what is not known about the Russia Scandal

Right-Wing Star Declares He’s Too Healthy For Insurance: Guess What Happened. He has a car accident and now needs a GoFundMe to pay for this hospital bills. The schadenfreude was not strong here; it was more function of irritation, way out of proportion, over his arrogance

Corporate Consolidation: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

Court Rules Copyright is Not a “Use It or Lose It” Right

Hurricane names are Insufficiently intimidating

Lynn Mabry, Sheila E, Rebecca Jade in W. Springfield, MS Sept 2017

Last weekend, I went to two street festivals in Albany. Larkfest I used to go to all of the time when I was single and lived nearby, but it had been a while. I was helping Albany Public Library staff to get folks to get library cards. The Madison Street Fair is smaller, but closer. At both events, the weather got HOT; sunburn at Larkfest, which is particularly bad for me with the vitiligo, so I used an umbrella at Madison.

Amy Biancolli: turns on the slide

Veteran Voice Actress June Foray Remembered at Packed Event

A Letter of Resignation Walking away, and “the hardest thing I’ve ever written”

Closed Campus? A Case Study of Skipping at Subchunkin, a place three blocks from my house

Now I Know: The Dead Man Who Sued to Make Himself Alive and The Man Who Ate Lots of Potatoes

MUSIC

K-Chuck Radio: Motown like you’ve never heard it before

Coverville 1186: Cover Stories for 10CC, Nick Cave and Oasis

Uranium Fever – Elton Britt (1955)

That was the week that was: late August

The guests gave our host unsolicited advice on romance.

The curse of a daily blog is that life sometimes gets in the way. I STILL haven’t written about the rest of the July vacation, which I will eventually do, not for your sake, but for my own. So as a blog cheat, I’m going to note the week that was, now a couple weeks ago.
allshookup
Before that: Heck, I haven’t mentioned the TWO plays I saw the FIRST weekend in August. The first was All Shook Up at Proctors Theatre in Schenectady, featuring one of my teenage nieces. It was a mix of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and Elvis Presley and worked surprisingly well.

The other was Into the Woods at the Mac-Hadyn Theatre. With our front-row seats, sometimes the action was over our left shoulders, and sometimes (Little Red Riding Hood being devoured), it was so close we could almost touch it. But what we decided, after having the movie and this production, is that the story isn’t compelling enough to see again any time soon.

As for this past week, a few months ago, parents-in-law had arranged all of the families of their three surviving children to a timeshare in western Massachusetts. You make plans in May for the end of August, and they don’t always work out. One brother-in-law couldn’t make it for work reasons.

We delayed our departure on Saturday so we could attend a rededication of the marriage of Rosaline and David in our church. It had elements of a Cameroonian service, and it fun, but unfortunately, we couldn’t stay for the reception, as we went out to Hancock, MA.

We had been there nine years ago, and there wasn’t much to do. The highlight then was watching trucks bring parts of the first of what are now several wind towers. Now, there’s tennis and other amenities. But I never used any of them.

The next morning, the Wife and I went back to Albany. The choir, heavy on sopranos, but light on men, sang at the funeral service of our friend Margaret Hannay. We sang Lord, Make Me an Instrument of Thy Peace by John Rutter. I had difficulty singing:
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

My spouse then went BACK to Hancock, but I stayed in town, and attended a party our friend Jon threw, where the guests gave our host unsolicited, contradictory, but brilliant advice on romance.

Monday, I took off from work, but I had a professional development project to work on. I had a Friends of the Library meeting at 5 pm, followed by a meeting to give some expert feedback on the operations of the library. That evening, I needed to write a letter to an organization requesting speakers that HAD to be done THAT NIGHT.

Tuesday, work, then slog through professional development project until 9 pm.

Wednesday, work. The Wife and Daughter had just gotten home, but we needed to leave immediately for junior high orientation, which I had totally forgotten about. The school district is now engaging CDTA to provide bus service for the morning, and first afternoon routes, instead of the oft-unreliable bus company used in the past. The greatest challenge was the combination locker, which none of us could open with any regularity.

Thursday, work. I got a desperate request from my old boss to transcribe an interview with a friend of mine. The link didn’t work in Google Chrome, though I discovered by trial and error, it did operate in Firefox and Internet explorer. The interview turned out to be 90 minutes long, and with the time I wasted figuring out how to hear the piece, needed and fortunately found some help.

Friday, work. Transcription, interrupted by the Daughter not feeling well.

Saturday, transcription, edit transcript, tend to daughter still feeling poorly. You can tell she’s off when she pulls out her large unicorn to cuddle and asks Oscar the monkey to talk with her.

The only blogging I did was to write the intro for ABC Wednesday.

That was the week that was.

The penultimate: ABC Wednesday Round 19

You are invited to participate, every week, or as you can, with ABC Wednesday.

At some basic level, I don’t much like being in charge of a lot of things. This month, I’m relinquishing the presidency of the Friends of the Albany Public Library, though I’m staying on the board, even as I join the board of the Albany Public Library Foundation.

I’m also planning to give up being the president of the NY/PA Olin Family Reunion next month. That’s been a four-year term, and I’ll be happy to pass the torch.

So too, I’ll stop being the administrator of ABC Wednesday, the meme where one participates with others, literally from around the world, in sharing a picture, a poem, an essay, SOMETHING with the various letters of the alphabet. But it’s not ending right away. We will have two more trips through the alphabet, ABC Wednesday Round 19 starting the week of July 5.

Usually, our friend Troy has done the badge for the round, but this time, Gattina from the team has created it.

ABC Wednesday was started nine years ago by Denise Nesbitt. I’ve been participating since the letter K in Round 5, and became administrator some point later, though I really don’t remember when anymore. I assign who reads which posts, making sure somebody is writing the introductions (and writing them myself, when necessary) and inserting the link that allows everyone to participate.

Oh, speaking of that link thing, from InLinkz: I only use it once a week. So if someone I know, who has a Blogger/Blogspot blog wanted to get other people to link to THEIR blogs, for some reason – this means you, fillyjonk, SamuraiFrog, Jaquandor, AmeriNZ, and some others – I could be talked into it.

Or it can a WordPress blog. Like this one. I am inviting you, if you have a blog, to link it below. Because I can.

As noted, ABC Wednesday will end with Round 20, with a badge by Troy. But you are invited to participate, every week, or as you can. I do think it’s advantageous to do so weekly, as it generates a lot of comments for me. Personally, I visit practically everyone who posts. I’m especially looking for folks who will visit others each week, especially since I’ve lost one of our more steadfast members.

Note that we’re VERY flexible with the letter X, with eXit or eXcel.

One last thing: if someone wants to take over ABC Wednesday, email me at rogerogreen AT gmail DOT com. I’ll tell you what it entails. Heck, I might even participate if I don’t have to be in charge. Whether or not there’s an ABC Wednesday, I may continue my alphabetic journey twice a year.

 

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