“I am going to protect the city from the Sierra Club,” Papalia said as he introduced himself to a resident named Jean, born in 1914, who was cooking dinner. “An Irish root (O’Keefe) and an Italian root,” he said. “I hope you remember my name, and I hope you get to vote.” He turned to a reporter as he left. “Ah, things like this repay you for all the efforts,” he said.

Papalia says the city needs to increase commercial revenues, and that to do that it needs “a real project for the waterfront and an understanding of what is involved.” Papalia criticized his opponents’ “Save Our Shoreline” team, accusing them of inaccuracy and misinformation. “They make up numbers,” he said. “It is pure propaganda.” Papalia’s flier reads “Information not Misinformation,” and says any changes on the waterfront will require voter approval, under the ruled approved by voters in a 1990 city proposal called Measure C.

When “Citizens for East Shore Parks,” an organization that endorses Papalia’s opponents, printed  a glossy eight-page booklet featuring two digitally-rendered pictures of the waterfront, Papalia got mad, he says. On one side, the booklet showed a Pentagon-style array of grey blocks featuring a casino, a mall, a garage, and other non-specified facilities. On the other side, the booklet showed a more idyllic rendering, with an all-green area and some small buildings in the distance, on the inland side, close to I-80 –and no trace of Golden Gate Fields.

Such a park could be completed only by tearing down the whole racetrack and clearing the land. “That process would imply demolition costs for several years,” Papalia said. “The city would lose GGF’s tax revenues for 5 to 10 years,” affecting both city and school services. As a real estate agent, he said, he knows it is impossible to make changes on Magna’s property without first acquiring the rights to their land. The city does not have the money to start such negotiations, he said, nor have any other players expressed willingness to negotiate for an acquisition.

Papalia said he liked the plan of Rick Caruso, a developer hired by Magna, who had presented a proposal for a mixed use of the waterfront with restaurants and commercial venues. Caruso withdrew this July, when an Albany city council meeting put on hold the approval for the project, as the council members could not reach an agreement about their vision for the waterfront.