There is speculation that the race for Mayor in Plattsburgh between the Democrat Wendell Hughes and Republican Donald Kasprzak is tight. Due to the fact that there is no polling, it is very difficult to determine what the status of the race is. I do think two factors need to be addressed. The first being, Mr. Kasprzak’s public threat to attack the common counsel, which is a practice that he largely engaged in when he was Mayor the last time, and that did not lead to a positive environment and if you will, getting things done. Second is to recognize that he depleted the fund balance to dangerously low levels and yet claimed that he had managed the City well. These financial results are exacerbated by the fact that he was unable to reach agreement with the vast majority of the unions in the City, thus creating further discord in City operations. It is unclear to me if he is a follower of Mr. Trump, but I suspect he is, and if he is attempting to take, if you will, that path which is diverse and destructive, that’s not good for Plattsburgh and not how we operate.
The extreme Right has essentially claimed patriotism as its own. There seems to be a misguided view first as to what patriotism is, and second, who has the right to claim it. I know many people who served in our military who are Democrats, including myself. Few of them, if any of them are communists and certainly none of them participated in the January 6th insurrection at the Capitol. The basis of the claim appears to be that they’d like to take the country back to the 1950s with all that that implies and that they will not tolerate “others”. This of course, in and of itself, is truly misguiding because we all came to this country as immigrants. Some will say, well my family came legally. Are you really sure? Those who came from Canada over the last 150 years, did they arrive legally? Certainly, there was not the types of controls that we now have, and that is for very pragmatic reasons. In the period prior to the 1900s we needed bodies to settle vast swaths of our country but also to do the work. I suspect that farmers, if Mr. Trump does what he claims wants to do which is to deport millions of people, will be the first to feel that shortage and the fact that the ag industry is not raising any questions completely confounds me.
Isreal invaded Lebanon as we know, and continues heavy bombardments of attacks and now we hear that they had a secret incursion into Syria as well and capturing someone who they believe was associated with Hezbollah. This is a very dangerous escalation and it is unclear to me exactly where Isreal is going and how they expect it to play out.
Canada and Mexico are very concerned about whomever may be President as it appears the US is looking to greater protectionism and to some extent isolation. This obviously is a huge problem for our two biggest trading partners.
Canada and the US are the only two major countries, after Mexico successfully elected a woman recently, to never have had either a female President or a Prime Minister. Hopefully that will change.
Continuing on our discussion of Canada, the Québécois, or Nationalist Party, is taking a strong position in terms of ousting Prime Minister Trudeau and threatens to align itself with other minority parties in order to force a vote of no confidence and trigger an election earlier than the October 25, 2025 deadline. I suspect the Prime Minster would like to see how the years goes to determine when it might be best to call for an election that would result in his reelection. More interesting politics north of the border.
The US economy extends its growth spurt as GDP grows, inflation declines to 2.1%, and yet the job market took a hit last month with only 112,000 jobs created which is in large measure due to the hurricanes occurring in Florida and their disruption of the labor market throughout the southeast but particularly Florida and North Carolina. How consumers and voters will respond to this information could be critical to Vice President Hariss’ election.
Consumer confidence, interestingly enough, continues to grow and strengthen which is something of a surprise when you hear the commentary about the economy that is reported on the news. Either, the people they are talking to do not realize the economy is doing well, are Trumpers who are simply trying to find something to attack the Vice President on, or simply do not pay attention, and that certainly could be the cause.
I have encountered recently two situations in two different jurisdictions where it appears that bonds were authorized and offered for sale, the funds drawn down, but not fully utilized for the project, and instead of paying the money back and reducing interest costs, it was added to the general fund or fund balance, making the balance sheet look substantially better. However, that balance sheet has to be corrected at some point in the future and the money taken from one fund and used to pay down the debt. I call attention to this issue because it seems like a very poor method of accounting and does appear to be a manipulation to help whoever happens to be in office or running for office.
Bill Owens is a former member of Congress representing the New York 21st, a partner in Stafford, Owens, Piller, Murnane, Kelleher and Trombley in Plattsburgh, NY and a Strategic Advisor at Dentons to Washington, DC.
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