Building Communication and Language Centers Across Schenectady
A City Policy for Expression, Literacy, and the Future of Human Communication
Schenectady has always been a city shaped by ideas, voices, and innovation. From labor halls to classrooms, from poetry readings to protest lines, communication has been the foundation of our civic life. As technology reshapes how people speak, write, and understand one another, our city must ensure that young people are not left behind or silenced by systems they did not design.
This policy proposes the creation of Communication and Language Centers across Schenectady. These would be public, neighborhood based spaces dedicated to developing language, expression, and critical communication skills for young residents.
These centers are not luxuries. They are civic infrastructure.
Office of Enrollment
The Office of Enrollment will serve as a centralized, people-first hub that helps residents access, enroll in, and maintain essential public programs and local services. Many Schenectady residents qualify for benefits but are blocked by paperwork, fragmented systems, or lack of guidance. This office removes those barriers and ensures public resources reach the people they are intended to serve.
Improving Sidewalks Is Public Safety, Economic Policy, and Basic Dignity
Orlondo Hundley believes sidewalks are not a luxury or an afterthought. They are essential public infrastructure that directly affects safety accessibility public health and local economic growth. When sidewalks are cracked uneven missing or poorly maintained the cost is not abstract. It shows up as injuries lost mobility higher insurance claims and entire neighborhoods cut off from opportunity.
In Schenectady too many residents navigate broken sidewalks every day. Seniors struggle to walk safely. Parents push strollers into traffic because curb cuts are missing. People with disabilities are forced to take dangerous detours or stay home altogether. These are not minor inconveniences. They are failures of basic governance.
Ending Third-Party Control of Parking Tickets and Speed Cameras in Schenectady
Third-party vendors profit when more tickets are issued—not when streets are safer or parking is managed fairly. These contracts often include:
Per-ticket or per-violation fees that incentivize over-enforcement
Aggressive collections that harm low-income residents
Limited local oversight and opaque revenue flows
Dollars extracted from Schenectady and sent out of state
This approach undermines public trust and turns traffic policy into a punitive system instead of a safety-focused one.
How We Will End Food Deserts in Schenectady
Too many Schenectady neighborhoods lack reliable access to fresh affordable food. Families are surrounded by convenience stores but forced to travel far for basic groceries. This is not a market failure alone. It is a policy choice.
Food access is health access. Ending food deserts improves outcomes for children seniors and working families while keeping dollars local.
Make City Hall Transparent, Accessible, and Accountable
City Hall should not feel distant, confusing, or locked behind insiders and jargon. When budgets are unclear and decisions happen out of public view, trust erodes—and waste thrives.
Transparency isn’t a buzzword.
It’s how residents know their tax dollars are being respected.
It’s how accountability replaces excuses.
Schenectady deserves a City Hall that works for residents—not insiders.
Reform PILOT Agreements in Schenectady
PILOTs Payments In Lieu Of Taxes were created as temporary tools to encourage development. Over time many have turned into permanent tax breaks that shift the tax burden onto homeowners renters and small businesses.
When large developers and institutions avoid full taxation everyday residents are left paying more. That is not economic development. It is cost shifting.
Schenectady needs PILOT reform that puts the public first.
Lower Fees and End Predatory Fines
Too often a minor violation turns into years of debt. Excessive fees penalties and collections do not improve safety or compliance. They punish people for being unable to pay.
A city should not rely on fines as a revenue source.
Ending Period Poverty in Schenectady
No one should have to choose between food rent or basic hygiene. Period poverty is a public health issue an education issue and an economic justice issue. When people cannot access menstrual products they miss school work and daily life. That harm is preventable.
Periods are not a luxury. Access to products should not depend on income.
Cut Waste Through a Full City Audit
Schenectady residents work hard for every dollar they earn and every tax dollar they pay should work just as hard for them. Right now, too much public money is lost to redundant contracts, unnecessary consultants, and inefficient authority arrangements that exist because no one is incentivized to question them.
This isn’t accidental.
Complexity protects waste. Fragmentation hides accountability. And a system that benefits insiders rarely fixes itself.