HEROIN

See Recusal pg. 10 See Gymnast pg. 44

Recusal Or Refusal? Mayor/Hospital Communication Submitted to Board of Ethics

State Champ

Introduction: This is a story about transpar-

ency in government, overlaid on a timeline. The supporting documents that will be discussed have been placed online –http://saratogato-dayonline.com/index.php/news/news/item/5245-saratoga-emails

- for the reader’s consideration. After discussing this with man-agement, before press time, I con-tacted Mayor Yepsen and invited her to respond to this story, and we pledged to print her response ver-batim, in next week’s issue. SARATOGA SPRINGS — According to correspondence (emails and letters) and docu-ments obtained by Saratoga

TODAY, between officials at Saratoga Hospital and Saratoga Springs Mayor Joanne Yepsen, Mayor Yepsen opened discus-sions with the Hospital about fundraising work for her pri-vate company in October 2015, after the Hospital’s Planned Unit Development (PUD) amendment

See Heroin pg. 12

Volume 11 • Issue 15 • April 15 – April 21, 2016 saratogaTODAYnewspaper.com • (518) 581-2480

L O C A L • I N D E P E N D E N T • F R E E

by Arthur GonickSaratoga TODAY

by Norra ReyesSaratoga TODAY

Weekend ForecastFRIDAY

62|33SATURDAY

65|37SUNDAY

73|41

Inside TODAYBlotter 5

Obituaries 6

Business 18-19

Education 22-23

Pulse 36-39

Sports 44-48

Kasich in Saratoga

See pg. 11

Last Chance To VoteSee pgs. 26-28

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Another young victim was lost last week to the war on drugs, a 23-year-old local woman who died of a drug overdose right here in Saratoga Springs.

For her, and many families like hers, the drug war is more of a street fight, one that lurks in every home medicine cabinet, haunts every play-ground, and boldly grins through every neighborhood here and across America.

Retired New York State police sergeant Fred Scheidt of Greenfield

says you never see it coming. He lost his daughter, Katie-Lynn Scheidt, October 3, 2014, and the grief has never left him or the rest of Katie’s family.

“But what makes me really angry,” said Scheidt, “is that she was four months clean when her dealer got to her. Regular people don’t

understand the criminal element. They think that criminals are just like you and me. They aren’t.”

According to Scheidt, dealers think nothing of handing out free

heroin samples to people who are in recovery, because they know they’ll be back for more, willing to pay, will-ing to beg, borrow and steal to pay for

more. “Katie would say she had to

change her phone number because pushers were trying to encourage her to get back into it,” said Scheidt. “Subtly, people are dying. If you took out a pin map and marked all the spots, people would go, ‘are you kid-ding me?’”

The combination of the often painful physical addiction; easy access to cheap opioids like heroin; and the insidious, cloying “friendship” offered by dealers with no conscience suggest overdose deaths are more inevitable than accidental. And murderous.

No Murder Charge For Dealing Death

“On average for the past three or four months, we have been using Narcan a couple times a week.”

- Saratoga Springs Deputy Fire Chief Peter Shaw