This newspaper recently reported that Mayor Mark Drnek had accused residents speaking in favor of appointing Carolyn Marks to the empty Seventh Ward council seat during a Common Council meeting of political maneuvering, and that he had made similar comments discouraging residents from speaking in support of Marks at past meetings. Needless to say, that did not go over well.
One resident in attendance at that council meeting was quoted as saying, “In public comment section, it is essential that anyone say anything that they want, it is not for you to curtail that in any way.” That caught my attention. Not having followed this issue closely, I contacted Marks to ask if we could meet.
Born and raised in the City of the Hills, Marks is serving her second term as the chair of the city’s Parks and Recreation Commission. Drnek had appointed her to the Safe Homes and Neighborhoods Committee and asked her to serve on the city’s Board of Ethics. She retired from the Oneonta School District after nearly 30 years of teaching adult education. Despite retirement, she now works full time at the Oneonta High School Yellow Jackets Learning Center, providing students with assistance in all academic subjects.
When Seventh Ward Council Member Bryce Wooden moved out of the district, months ago, his recommendation to the mayor was to nominate Marks. Wanting to be certain that she had the support of the ward’s residents, she knocked on doors and came away with 137 signatures on a petition in favor of her appointment (Wooden had been elected with 122 votes). Confident that she had the support of her neighbors, she notified the mayor that she hoped to be nominated.
Despite all this, the seat remains open. “What’s going on?” I asked, and Marks proceeded to hand me a copy of an email she had received from Drnek. In it, the mayor stated that he likes and respects her, however, he sees her lack of support for the RSS project on Market Street as not keeping ‘the city from imploding, decaying, and becoming irrelevant in the face of the exponential growth of the town.”
“I know,” he continued, “that you have been convinced of a totally different — and arguably false — narrative and that’s incredibly frustrating.” The message ended by stating that Marks should tell her supporters to end “this divisive campaign.” He stated that the residents speaking in her support were making him “sick to the stomach,” and he added that they “served no purpose other than to punish me for doing what I believe.”
When I asked Marks why she wants to represent the Seventh Ward, she spoke of neighborhoods, the budget and taxes. She also said she sees great opportunity in the newly redesigned Market Street, but feels we should not rush to turn it over to RSS prior to having a master plan for Market Street that would generate revenue, business and visitors. She told me her father taught her “to do one thing at a time and to do it well,” and that she would like the city to slow down and further explore selling 27 Market St. to a fully taxable entity before rushing to go forward with tax-exempt RSS.
It is the neighborhoods that she thinks of most, she said. “Changes in the character of our neighborhoods are making residents uneasy,” she told me, and she said she would like the council to focus on policies and initiatives that make it easier for families to be able to find and purchase homes in the city.
Marks told me she fully understands and respects the mayor’s exclusive authority to nominate someone to fill the vacant seat. (After all, elected officials have often made appointments designed to support and implement their personal agenda — see this week’s national headlines.) She said she cannot accept, however, his recent accusations that residents of the city are creating divisiveness by expressing their opinions on whom they want to represent them. She cited Drnek’s calls for her to tell the residents of her ward to stop with their “divisive campaign” and “zero-sum politics” as inconsistent with how our democracy is designed to work.
The mayor has stated that he will be nominating someone other than Marks. At the time of this writing, he had not stated who that will be. The residents of the Seventh Ward, including the 137 who had “voted” for Marks with their signature, will be waiting to see who will be nominated to represent them and how the council will vote on that appointment.