The grass may be greener somewhere else, but the autumn leaves are reddest right here.
On Monday, catching up on a week’s worth of Saratogians after a vacation ooh-ing and ah-ing the changing leaves in the Shenandoah National Park in Virginia, I found this front page news: Saratoga National Historical Park has been named one of the top 10 most photogenic parks for fall foliage by the National Park Foundation.
Guess I didn’t have to travel 1,300 miles to see the yellows, golds and burnt oranges of autumn — and we definitely had to head back north for the bright reds.
Still, I recommend Skyline Drive and visits to the places we stopped: In Virginia, Charlottesville (home of Jefferson's Monticello home and the University of Virginia, which he founded as a little retirement project, plus wineries and a downtown pedestrian mall with lots of tempting restaurants) and Lexington (dubbed the "coolest" little town and home to Washington and Lee University and the Virginia Military Institute, where the museum dedicated to alum George C. Marshall explains the Marshall plan for a new generation and displays the Nobel Peace Prize for a man who earned it before receiving it).
Also, if you haven't been to Gettysburg, Pa., in a couple of years (or ever), the new museum is not only a great alternative to the driving tours on a rainy day, but it's a really cool, interactive way to learn about the Civil War, the people and the battles.

I love election season.
Not.
It’s a juggling act, trying to report issues with context and depth on the news pages, trying to be the vehicle for candidates and their supporters to express their views, and trying to help readers make informed decisions on Nov. 3.
Reporter Andrew J. Bernstein is leading the way with news coverage of the city elections. He is also trying to report on the city budget, among many other things. And he is sitting in on the editorial endorsement interviews, along with me, Publisher Michael O’Sullivan, Assistant Managing Editor Betsy DeMars and Web Editor Stephen Shoemaker.We plan to publish endorsements the week leading up to the elections.
Who do we like so far? Can’t say. Don’t know. The interviews have only just begun.
Generally speaking, for elections at this level of government, the biggest factors are leadership, vision for the city and track record. Positions on particular issues are important, but rarely would a stance on one item or another be a make-or-break situation. What’s more important is to have council members who see the big picture and who can move the city forward despite its form of government.Who decides? It’s a consensus with a weighted vote: The publisher has final say.
Meanwhile, we’re glad to be getting lots of letters. As it says in the box on the printed opinion page, Oct. 21 is the last day to submit election-related letters for consideration. The purpose of the deadline is to try to get them all into print during that week leading up to the vote.
Now that I’m thinking about it, we can extend the deadline for online-only letters. We’ll firm that up and get back to you.
Speaking of online, the city stories have been generating some insightful comments as well as the regrettable rantings of ill-informed idiots.
My instruction to staff is to eliminate idiots’ access to the Web site, though some still seem to find a way around. Thank you to readers who report abuses for us to remove. Trying to monitor inappropriate comments while allowing a free flow of opinions continues to be a challenge at many newspapers, as I discovered last month at a meeting of editors from around the state.
Speaking of inappropriate, I wish to apologize for the political cartoon this week that trivialized the Holocaust and likened the Republican position on health care to supporting death camps.
The editorial cartoons are supposed to be provocative and satirical, but this was over-the-top offensive, and we should have rejected it. It has been the topic of discussion in the newsroom and, I believe, a lesson learned.

What a week.
Monday, which had been anticipated as a slow news when The Saratogian scheduled its first community forum in several years, turned out to be the day President Obama visited the Capital District. Not so slow after all.
That night, with news pages not quite done and sports pages barely started, the newspaper staff shifted over to the Holiday Inn, where more than 130 people filled a meeting room to learn more about our operations and to talk about how we can work better together to our mutual benefit. We’ll come back to that in a minute.
Tuesday, after a day’s work and an evening at University at Albany, where I teach a journalism class that meets once a week, my colleague at the The Record in Troy, Lisa Lewis, and I drove out to Syracuse so we’d be fresh for the next morning’s meeting of the board of the New York State Associated Press Association. She was completing her term as president of the board, and I am a member and past president.
The primary role of the New York State Associated Press Association is to provide training opportunities for journalists and to honor and encourage good work at every size newspaper. Wednesday began with an 8:30 a.m. board meeting at which ideas for 2010 seminars were discussed. A likely topic will be social networking and what journalists ought to be doing to keep readers informed and engaged. Who knows what new networks will be in place six months from now?
Wednesday’s luncheon speaker was Gov. David Paterson, direct from a morning meeting with legislative leaders. For a guy who’s been under the political gun, he was gracious, articulate, funny and candid. Though he didn’t plan to be governor, that’s what he is, and he intends to do everything he can to lead New York and dig it out of its financial hole. He said he wouldn’t do anything to harm his political party. By the time it dawned on me to ask about the holdup in bringing slots to Aqueduct racetrack, he was down to "one more question" and it wasn’t mine.
The seminars on Wednesday included a review and discussion of a national survey about newsroom attitudes toward multimedia reporting, and how that translates into a successful mix of stories and visuals in print and online. For every respondent who wished they could turn back the clock, there were several journalists who think they should be investing more of their workweek into the Internet.
Wednesday evening, I was proud to be called up four times at the awards banquet to accept applause and certificates on behalf of reporters Paul Post and Andrew Bernstein and Beverly McKim, the former features editor who is now editor of WG Life, our weekly publication for the Wilton and Gansevoort area.
Which brings me back to Monday’s community meeting.
We presented our first-ever video, prepared by Web Editor Stephen Shoemaker, which briefly touched on what we do around here. As if publishing a daily newspaper weren’t enough, we also publish the Community News, which is southern Saratoga County’s weekly newspaper, and this year we introduced two new weekly newspapers, the aforementioned WG Life and Ballston Spa Life, for the Ballston Spa and Milton area, as well as a bi-weekly entertainment publication called The Scene.
We’re busy. We reach more than 50,000 households in print, and thousands more online.
Everyone at the meeting received a packet describing those publications along with tips about how to publicize your news and who to contact for what. Shoemaker, back from his honeymoon refreshed and rearing to go, will be putting up the contact information and publicity tips on our Web site.
We’ve already begun discussions about how to present upcoming activities in ways that are even more timely and convenient and how to provide coverage of events that our staff can’t get to (share your photos and information, please). More, smaller forums focusing on particular areas of interest are in the plans.
The turnout Monday was heartening, because it meant the community is connected with The Saratogian and its publications. The community meeting was just the start of our conversation. Thank you to those who took the time to come out to speak with us. Whether or not you were there, I and the rest of The Saratogian staff want to listen to and be responsive to your suggestions and concerns.

Talk to me.

Come talk to me -- and to my colleagues at The Saratogian.
We at The Saratogian are hosting an informal community get-together on Monday, Sept. 21. You’re invited, you’re all invited.

The purpose of the event is a mix: getting to know one another, learning how we can work together to get your news in, and addressing any questions and concerns about any aspect of our operations. Yes, any aspect.

And sometimes it’s just good to put together names and faces.

Besides, we’re not just The Saratogian, you know. Or did you? In the last six months, we’ve introduced three new publications in addition to The Saratogian. Two are weekly papers delivered free to homes: “Ballston Spa Life” for the Ballston Spa and Milton areas, and “WG Life” for the Wilton and Gansevoort neighborhoods. The third is a bi-weekly local entertainment paper called “The Scene” that’s distributed around town, separate from the daily newspaper. And we continue to produce the “Community News,” southern Saratoga County’s local weekly newspaper for more than 30 years.

And when we talk about The Saratogian, we’re not just talking about the paper you’re holding in your hand right now. We’re also talking about the Web site, whose readership is growing by leaps and bounds.

All of that is activity is good news, really good news. At a time when the newspaper industry nationwide has been seriously struggling, faltering and even failing in the face of declining advertising, changes in reader habits and crushing debt, it’s something to not only be chugging along, but to be moving forward.

But we can succeed only if you find us compelling, useful and important. So let’s talk.

The get-together will be from 7 to 8 p.m. Sept. 21 at the Holiday Inn on Broadway in Saratoga Springs. We’ll serve up some beverages and sweets. And to sweeten the pot even more, everyone there will be eligible to win a full-page ad for the non-profit organization of their choice.

You can also win a Saratogian cartoon umbrella if you’re selected from among those who take our fun little Saratogian quiz, which you can find on our Web site, www.saratogian.com. Click on the “GOT NEWS?” promotion at the top of the Web page and you’re on your way.

Please RSVP for the meeting at the GOT NEWS site or by calling 583-8702. Do it now, while you’re thinking about it. Make sure your organization, institution, business and neighborhood is represented.

Hope you can make it.

I had an occasion on Saturday to visit to the Universal Preservation Hall, the church-turned-venue on Washington Street that is undergoing what, when done, will be a $4 million rehab. It has come an amazing way since it was saved from the wrecking ball by local people with a vision, perseverance, volunteerism and the ability to roll up their sleeves, literally and figuratively -- participating in the labor and raising the money.
Good news for the UPH last week came in the form of a $225,000 matching state grant. That's a great boost toward the construction of what they're calling a "community plaza" -- a welcoming entrance to the towering structure. It will creates a reason to walk down Washington Street from Broadway, further expanding the scope and appeal of downtown.
How does one decide when a project is throwing good money after bad, when it's time to say it's not worth it? No simple answer to that. After an evening in the second floor hall, one comes away with a renewed respect for those working so hard to not just preserve an old structure, but to give it new life.
This rehab, I hope, will be remembered as work that began at the turn of a century to create a downtown gem for centuries to come.

This morning I received a phone call from a reporter at another newspaper asking if I'd like to comment about Commissioner Ron Kim's press release.
Company policy generally sends requests for comment to the publisher, I said, adding, "What press release?"
A call to Kim's cell phone interrupted him at a public safety department budget meeting; he promised to have the release faxed to the newsroom and we would speak later.
The fax (which his campaign spokeswoman swears was supposed to have been sent to us, too) makes some reasonable comments in a needlessly adversarial way. The release makes it sound as though there has been a longstanding problem with racial slurs by commentors to online stories, and that no one did anything about them.
"For several months we have noticed an increasing number...." the press release begins, quoting spokeswoman Georgana Hanson.
Of course this concerns me as editor of The Saratogian. We are learning as we go, but we pay attention to complaints to comments.
In separate telephone conversations later in the day with Hanson and Kim, no one knew who the "we" is who had been noticing this for "several months." And neither could explain why no one reported the offensive comments. Every post after a story on our Web site offers readers the opportunity to report the comment as abusive. Personally, I tend to err on the side of taking a comment down. A couple of times, I banned an IP address whose owners were not content to merely be idiotic.
In an ideal world, we would have a staff person whose job was to review every submission ahead of posting, assess them and then either reject or publish them in timely fashion. To move the comment conversation along, instead we rely on community policing. You see a comment that's offensive, you report it, we act on it. It seems to work. But it does depend on community members taking the trouble to click "report abuse."
Kim wonders whether no one reported comments likening him to a Korean dictator because no one considered it so offensive that it should be removed. I agree with him: it is offensive, and I don't want such comments associated with The Saratogian.
You can criticize Kim and you can criticize me, and readers know that some of you out there have made that a part-time job. But credible criticism doesn't devolve into name-calling.

Yes, the thoroughbreds begin their six-week season at Saratoga Race Course on Wednesday (July 29), but the other races already vying for attention are the ones up in the November local elections.
One city council member has declared his candidacy for mayor against the incumbent, the Saratoga County sheriff has a challenger, and more contested races are likely. In Saratoga Springs, citizens should be looking for candidates who, among other things, are willing to proceed with changing the form of government.
Former Mayor Val Keehn's unsuccessful charter vote failed in part because she proposed a radical rehab of the city after taking office instead of making it a campaign platform. I also think her goal to rid the council of then-DPW commissioner Tom McTygue became a distraction from the bigger plan to make city government more efficient.
Anyway, now's the time to start anew. So let's hear what the candidates have to say about charter change.