With great fanfare, Waffner announced earlier this year there will be a vegan offering at the fair from the Syracuse-based Strong Hearts Café. Somehow fair officials managed to find a local vegan option but still can’t make the effort to close a deal with a kosher food vendor.
The options are no better at the Saratoga Race Course, another state-run facility, even with the prospects of Triple Crown winner American Pharoah coming to the venerable track this season. The owner of American Pharoah is an Egyptian-born Orthodox Jew, Ahmed Zayat, who lives in Teaneck.
In fact, for the second consecutive year track officials have scheduled Irish-American and Italian-American heritage days this month but no Jewish-American heritage day. There is the nine-part Saratoga Jewish Cultural Festival in Saratoga Springs sponsored by the synagogues in the Spa City but track officials have not seen fit to incorporate the independent festival in the state-run facility.
Courtesy Is Not Weakness
On another note, the state’s second largest public employee union, the New York State Public Employees Federation, has a new leader. Wayne Spence, a former vice president of PEF, will head the 54,000-member union of white-collar professionals in scientific and technical positions. According to state payroll records, Spence, a parole officer with the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, earned a salary of more than $82,000 last year. His salary as PEF president will be approximately $126,000. Not a bad pay raise.
PEF is currently in contract talks seeking a pay raise for its members, something that did not happen under the current contract, which included extensive givebacks.
“We are not going to start out fighting with this governor,” Spence, of Freeport, Nassau County, told an exuberant crowd of supporters when he was sworn in. “I understand some people might say that’s weakness. I do not believe it is weakness to be courteous. I do not believe it is weakness to treat somebody the way you want to be treated. Do not collectively think that the kindness of PEF is weakness because it isn’t. You treat somebody the way you want to be treated.”
There are many observant Jews who are PEF members working in a variety of state agencies. One such person who attended the swearing-in ceremonies, Usher Piller, a PEF council leader at Division 191 who works at the Office of Temporary Disability Assistance as a management specialist, Grade 23, says Spence, a Baptist, will be good for the Jewish members of PEF.
“He’ll help everybody who is being unjustly treated,” Piller told The Jewish Press. “If we’re going to be discriminated against because of our religion, maybe regarding leave for Sabbath, holidays, scheduling of meetings or training around Jewish holidays, there is no doubt in my mind that Wayne Spence will be there for us.”
Piller is no stranger to controversy. In May, he organized a debate between Spence and his predecessor, Susan Kent, at Piller’s Harlem work site. When Kent insisted that no media be present for the debate, Piller objected and won the day. This also created a stronger bond between Piller and Spence.
“We’ve become very good friends and we have the same goals of just helping our members,” Piller said. “There’s a lot of managerial abuse going on, including bullying, workers being needlessly disciplined, hassled, harassed, and discriminated against, and Wayne stands up to the managers.”