Displaying items by tag: neighbors, saratoga today

Friday, 06 December 2019 09:48

Neighbors: Jack Burger

Q. What is it that you do at Schuylerville High School?   
A. I was a football coach at Troy for 30 years and I have been here part-time for the last five years. I teach a couple of business classes in the morning and I coach football.

Q. How was your season this year? 
A. It was a great year! We ended up 11-2 and we lost in the state finals which is about as good as it gets with the exception of winning it. We were state runner-ups!

Q. What made you decide to come back and coach after you were retired? 
A. When I retired from teaching, a buddy of mine owned a sports marketing business and I traveled around with him for a year and a half. Then he sold his business and I knew John Bowen, the head coach at Schuylerville, for many many years. John asked me if I was interested in coming on board and coaching. I told him I was, but I didn’t really want to be an outsider to the boys. I said if there was something down here that I could do part-time I would be really excited about it. Doctor Sherman, the superintendent, had called and said that they needed somebody for the business learning lab and somebody to teach business learning classes so that’s how I fell into it.

Q. Do you live in Schuylerville? 
A. I actually live in Saratoga.

Q. How long have you lived there? 
A. My wife and I moved up there eight years ago. We raised our kids down in Ballston Lake and they went to Shenendehowa, so we’ve been in the Saratoga County area for over 35 years.      

Q. How many children do you have? 
A. I have two grown children and two little granddaughters.

Q. What are your holiday plans? 
A. We’re going to try and spend a ton of time with family and friends.

Q. What is your favorite holiday movie?
A. Wow, Home Alone. When my kids were younger, they loved it. I think I’ve probably seen it a
million times.

Published in Neighborhood Buzz

 

Who: Roy McDonald.

Where: Saratoga Springs Public Library.

Q. What are you doing today?

A. I’m with my granddaughter, Jane, at the library. She comes over every Wednesday for a wonderful reading program they have for little kids. My three daughters all used to go to the program when it was at the old Saratoga Springs Public Library.

Q. What occupies your time these days?

I have a wonderful wife, and children and grandchildren and now I’m able to spend a little more time with them.  I’m very blessed. I’m also on a variety of boards: New York State Military Museum Board of Directors, the Saratoga Bridges Board of Directors, Wildwood School System Advisory Board, the CAPTAIN’S Advisory Board. I’m very active in disabilities at the statewide level. I have two autistic grandsons who are the focal point of my life, and I’m going to have my sixth grandchild in May. 

Q. You spent a lot of time in public service as State Senator, as Assemblyman, and as longtime Supervisor for the town of Wilton.  To what extent do you still follow politics, locally and nationally?

A. I have nothing but positive things to say about the local situation. Nationally, I think people need to be a little more focused to get something accomplished, rather than being negative. 

Q. Is there something you’re most proud of during your years of public service?    

A. I’m very honored I had a long career and that I was able to do a lot of things in the town of Wilton, Saratoga County, in the Assembly and the Senate. I also had a business career. I’m very gratified. I love them all.  It’s like having children, they’re all equal. I specifically look at the town Wilton when I was Supervisor for 23 years. People say: you did a lot of stuff. But, nobody gets everything done by themselves. There’s good people in a lot of these places. We accomplished a lot and today the town of Wilton is the envy of just about every town in the state of New York.     

Q. What’s the most recent movie you have seen?

A. I went to see Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman (“Going in Style”) a couple days ago with my wife. We go to a lot of movies. We go to the one in the mall, and we go to the new one in Saratoga Springs as well.

Q. What brush have you had with fame?

A. I met President George Bush (43) and I met President Obama. The irony is most of the conversation was about baseball. President Bush was a Texas Ranger fan and President Obama was a Chicago White Sox fan and when they asked me who I liked, I said: the New York Yankees. OK? And they just smiled. And everybody knows I’m a Buffalo Bills fan.

Q. Have you gotten over Scott Norwood’s famous “wide right” kick that resulted in the Buffalo Bills losing to the N.Y. Giants in Super Bowl XXV ?

A.  I had the honor of meeting (former Bills’ quarterback) Jim Kelly some years ago and we talked about that. He told me it was one of the worst moments of his life. But he liked Scott Norwood. And you know “Tuna”? (Former Giants’ coach) Bill Parcells lives in the Saratoga area and I met him one morning at a Stewart’s. I was wearing a Yankee hat and he came up to me, said he was a Yankee fan and asked me, “Do you root for the Giants?” I said, no, actually I root for the Buffalo Bills. And he asked, “Do you forgive me?” And I said, “no,” ha. But, he’s a very good man.    

Q. How has Saratoga Springs changed over the decades?

A.  Saratoga Springs is the best city in upstate New York. I think it’s one of the best cities in the country if you look at proportional size. I think it’s a safe city, the people are very family-oriented - and that’s the key. You protect the people, the taxes are reasonable, and the suburbs: Wilton, Malta, Clifton Park, Halfmoon; I’ve watched school systems like Schuylerville and South Glens Falls, and Ballston Spa become tremendous school systems. I’ve seen it with Saratoga Springs when my children went to school, and Shenendehowa, and now the smaller schools are getting the benefit of this. So, we’ve been blessed. And most importantly, we’ve been blessed with good people. People who move here, or are from here and stay here. It’s beautiful.    

Published in Entertainment
Thursday, 06 April 2017 12:14

Neighbors: Snippets of Life From Your Community

Who: Maureen Sager.

Where: Spring Street Gallery.

Q. What’s your day like?

A. I wear many hats. I’m executive director of Spring Street Gallery and right now we’re developing a show on birds that will open on April 29.

Q. What’s another hat you wear?

A. Project director at the Upstate Alliance for the Creative Economy. People tell me about projects they’re working on and we look for ways we think the creative industries can be developed in this region. And we’re finding lots of ways to bring business and arts organizations and parks organizations and others together, and to roll it into a vibrant, economically thriving way to address the creative industries and the arts.

Q. How big is the region you oversee as project director?

A. It’s eight counties, as far a south as Columbia and Greene and north to Washington and Warren counties.   

Q. Do you have a nickname?

A. Moe. Everyone calls me Moe.

Q. What did you want to be when you were a kid?    

A. A fashion designer. I had two aunts that went to Fashion institute of Technology and boy, that captured my imagination as I was growing up in New Jersey. I thought that was a very glamorous career.

Q. What was your first concert?

A. The Jacksons at Nassau Coliseum. I was like 10 years old. My mom wanted to do something exciting for us, so she took us to a Jacksons concert. It was on Easter Sunday. What was really embarrassing: we were in our Easter outfits. It was so bad. I never felt like a bigger dork in my entire life.

Q. What’s your favorite brush with fame?

A. I used to be in the entertainment industry and so many of my stories about famous people are not good. But, someone who delighted me goes back to my first job in New York, when I worked for management company for Kiss, the rock band. I saw them regularly at the time, but much, much later - about 13 years later, while I was working for a big record company, I ran into Paul and Gene in the elevator. I was thinking: should I say hi? Ah, they’re never going to remember a girl who worked for them that long ago, but I finally said, ‘Paul and Gene you probably won’t remember me…’ I thought they were going to blow me off, but instead, Gene says: ‘Paul! Look! It’s her!” Ha, they were so sweet about it. They didn’t remember me, of course, but they made good fun out of it, and I thought that’s the kind of famous person that I really appreciate. They were so generous in that moment, to acknowledge me and to give something back, because that’s something in that industry that’s so rarely done.     

Q. When did you move to Saratoga?

A. Twelve years ago.

Q. How has the city changed in that time?   

A. It’s changed a lot. My first couple of years here, I felt that I knew a small subset of people who I’d run into in town. I thought that was just a wonderful way to bring up my kids and raise a family. Now, I’ll sometimes go to an event in Saratoga and I won’t know anyone. And that’s also very exciting in a way, to have groups of people with such varied interests. I think Saratoga benefits from all these varied interests we have. 

 

Published in Entertainment

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Property Transactions

  • BALLSTON Heather DiCaprio sold property at 473 Garrett Rd to Justine Levine for $288,000 Sharon Willman sold property at 99 Jenkins Rd to Charles Lemley for $165,000 CORINTH George Montena sold property at 422 Oak St to Stephen James for $142,250 Mark Makler sold property at 313 Oak St to Sabrina Sinagra for $195,000 GREENFIELD Landlord Services of Upstate New York sold property at 1935 NYS Rt 9N to Cochise Properties LLC for $210,000 MALTA  Linda LaBarge sold property at 35 Snowberry Rd to Qu Haozheng for $270,000 Dennis Mitchell sold property at 60 Village Circle North to BGRS Relocation…
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