Weekly Member Update - June 8, 2026
We begin this week’s installment with The Great Albany County Newsletter Scandal of 2026. We talked last week about the pricey $133,000 public relations contract doled out by Albany County in May which will apparently platform Albany County Executive Dan McCoy in a quarterly newsletter and a podcast. But, as the Times Union previously reported, this new public relations initiative — which just so happens to coincide with McCoy’s nascent campaign for a fifth term as County Exec — is not responsible for the glossy 12-page mailer pictured above which has been clogging up Albany County mailboxes for the last couple of weeks. Well, this past week, the Times Union started peeling the onion on where this current mailer came from, revealing that the mailer cost over $110,000 in taxpayer money to produce and distribute County-wide. We know a little bit about newsletter distribution in this digital age, and we think that kind of exorbitance is more than a little ridiculous considering that most of these mailers are going to go, unread, straight to the recycling bin. But cost is not even the most objectionable thing about the mailers; as the TU’s Chris Churchill points out, the mailers are blatant political propaganda, trumpeting McCoy and Democratic County Legislators while omitting all references to the Republican representatives on the County Leg. It’s a tax-payer funded campaign mailer for the County Exec and his Albany County Democratic allies disguised as some sort of public service; it’s embarrassing, plainly corrupt and, in the end, completely emblematic of where the Albany machine, and corporate Dems generally, are. When polls show time and again that the American people hold Democrats in low esteem despite the Trumpian GOP being an authoritarian dumpster fire, we can draw a straight line to that deep-seated disapproval from self-dealing shenanigans like the Albany County newsletter.. This newsletter, like so much that corporate and centrist Democrats do, is all about self-promotion, self-preservation and the exploitation of public resources for political gain. It’s the antithesis of principled public service, and we’re sick of it. And, we also think that it is telling and despicable that not one single Albany County elected has been brave enough to condemn this corrupt mailer and demand that those responsible — McCoy included, if need be — be held accountable. The whole episode is shameful.
Stop Invasive Tech - The Rise of the Machines in the Capital Region
Our Monthly Member Meeting is tonight, and we’re using it as a community forum to discuss the three-headed tech monster of the Kenwood Data Center, Waymos and Flock Surveillance. We’ll talk about it at length tonight, but the big news on the data center front is that the State Legislature passed a one-year moratorium on data center permitting in the closing days of the legislative session. Assuming that Governor Hochul signs the bill, there is a lot to like about it. The Responsible Data Center Development Act applies to facilities requiring 20 megawatts or more of electricity — the Kenwood proposal would reportedly require 180 megawatts of electricity — and directs the Department of Environmental Conservation to complete an environmental impact report to assess a host of potential data center impacts, including water and electricity usage, the effect on tax revenues and incentives, and noise and groundwater pollution. The bill would also creates a new utility rate for data centers to insure that these facilities pay their full share of costs to the electrical and water infrastructure. The legislation also establishes renewable energy and energy efficiency goals for data centers, and funds community infrastructure and residential home upgrades in the communities where data centers would be located. In sum, the RDCDA would disincentivize rampant data center construction and provide localities with the empirical information necessary to decide for themselves whether a data center is right for their community. We’re cautiously optimistic, but are wary that Governor Hochul may go the way of Republican Vermont Governor Phil Scott and Democratic Maine Governor Janet Mills and veto the legislation.
But, even if Governor signs the RDCDA, as written, into law, the one-year moratorium is just that, a temporary pause. At the end of the day, the fight against data centers will be a hyperlocal fight for democracy itself. Increasingly, local resistance to data centers is motivated not only by environmental and quality-of-life concerns — although those concerns have far-reaching resonance — but also by broader concerns about the unchecked expansion of AI and the technology’s irreversible societal impacts. As tech oligarchs allied with the Trump Regime drool with delight at the prospect of AI eliminating human intellectual labor and turning us all into worker-bee serfs on the battery assembly line, as we all witness the increasing merger of state and corporate power and the proliferation of an AI-powered surveillance state, fighting the conversion of local farmland — or the site of a former convent — into a sprawling data center provides everyday people with a tangible means of resistance to what otherwise feels inevitable and beyond our control. So, we’re not going to call the RDCDA a silver bullet; we’re instead going to use it as an opportunity to organize for the future fights on the horizon.
We’ve also apparently got more time Waymo front. The bill — sponsored by local Senator Patricia Fahy and local Assembly Member John McDonald — that would bring robot cars to Albany and Rensselaer Counties has died in committee for this legislative session. But, mindful how important Waymo expansion is to Governor Hochul, and based on what we are hearing about the lobbying efforts being pressed upon Senator Fahy, we tend to think that Waymo will be rising from the dead. So, we’re going to keep working against it in the interim.
And then there is Flock. This past week, the Troy City Council held a public hearing on Troy’s proposed Local Law #3. We were incredibly encouraged to see that a lot of the speakers at the hearing were saying essentially what we have been saying all along; Local Law #3 is a nice idea, but any regulatory scheme that contemplates the ongoing use of contractors like Flock surveillance should be a non-starter. Troy needs to get the Flock out first and foremost and, once Flock is out for good, Troy can then have a conversation about possibly creating a heavily regulated, and locally controlled, ALPR network, if that’s what Trojans democratically decide that they want.
The need to eliminate Flock in the Collar City took on even greater urgency this past week. First, Rensselaer County Executive — and Dan McCoy travel companion —Steve McLaughlin and Rensselaer County Sheriff Kyle Bourgault announced this week that Rensselaer County — which has access to Troy’s Flock data — will continue its 287(g) agreement with ICE, despite the fact that such agreements are now prohibited under state law. Later in the week, Rensselaer County upped the ante, with news breaking that Flock surveillance will be conducting a demonstration tomorrow morning to show off Flock’s dystopian drone technology to police and County officials. DeFlock 518 has organized a rally for outside the Rensselaer County Public Safety Building in South Troy to coincide with Flock’s drone demonstration, and we’ll be standing beside them.
Upcoming Events of Note
Early voting starts Saturday, June 13 as we count down to the June 23 Primary Day. Next week, we’ll be highlighting the few competitive local primary elections for State Senate and Sate Assembly and, the following week, we’ll be talking about some of the New York Congressional primaries we’ll be watching on Primary Day.
RCV Albany has until June 30 to get the signatures it needs to get Rank Choice Voting and unified elections on the ballot in the City of Albany this fall. Much to the chagrin of some Albany County Democrats, we’re going to be helping to get RCV Albany across the finish line and will have more information about canvassing opportunities at tonight’s Monthly Member Meeting.
Tomorrow night at 5:00, the Capital Region Sanctuary Coalition will be holding an ICE Out of Albany Protest at the intersection of Madison Avenue and Lark Street. We’ll be there.
We’ll also be at Capital Pride this coming Sunday, where we’ll be marching with our comrades from other local Indivisible groups and the DeFlock 518 movement. We’ll be wearing orange, because Albany, so put on something with a tangerine, pumpkin or safety-cone hue and come join us!
Oh, one other thing; Knicks in four.