Well the city, as I wrote about months ago, pulled the trigger and appointed Tony Magnetto as the new police commissioner last week and the council is sure to confirm at next month’s meeting.

One thing that is bound to happen is overtime will spike. Police Chief John Tedesco was appointed by former Mayor Harry Tutunjian and one of the directives was to bring overtime into check. He was successful and with that success came the ire of the powerful Police Benevolent Association. I don’t care what President Bob Fitzgerald says publicly, it’s a given the support the PBA gave Mayor Lou Rosamilia and some Democrats on the Council was a driving force behind the appointment. This is a favor returned.

Think about it, Tedesco cut overtime by some $1million, coming in $16,000 under the OT budget last year, while the Fire Department spent $1.4 million in overtime last year, $405,000 more than was in the budget. When firefighters are making out better than cops, the cops aren’t happy. Yet, Magnetto is a police commissioner and not a public safety commissioner.

It didn’t help Tedesco’s cause when the city had a violent summer with six murders and a string of arsons and a ton of other crimes like stabbings, beatings, break-ins, robberies and burglaries and this winter has been kind of tough too and winters are usually a quiet time as far as street crime goes. I’m not saying it’s necessarily the chief’s fault but the facts are the facts.

One guy said sarcastically: “Tedesco is soft on crime but tough on overtime.”

As I’ve written, it’s going to be interesting to see how Magnetto and Tedesco work together. The two started on the force around the same time and were even patrol partners at the beginning of their careers.

But, Magnetto was one of three guys up for the chief’s job when Tutunjian picked Tedesco. He didn’t like working under his former partner so he retired. Now the table is turned so we’ll have to see what happens. Tedesco has vowed to stay on and I don’t think he has the type of personality to back down from a fight so we’ll have to see how they can work together or if they can again.

It’s not going to help matters if the city tosses Tedesco out of his office, but I’m pretty sure that’s bound to happen.

“The Alpha Grandma”

Talk about hitting the ground running. Newly elected state Sen. Kathy Marchione already made it onto national television, is mentioned in an statewide Associated Press story and has an online petition protesting the gun control laws that was at one point getting over 1,400 signatures an hour.

That’s not a bad first three weeks in office.

You don’t have to agree with her but you have to respect her. She ran as a Conservative Republican — the central point of her primary against former Republican Sen. Roy McDonald was his vote for same sex marriage — and she is sticking to her beliefs.

Also she has a way about her. A quiet intensity, as one colleague put it, and that intensity came out in the debate at The Sage Colleges in Troy sponsored by this paper where she just shredded McDonald and that performance did nothing but help her win the primary.

That intensity is surprising because it comes from a woman who looks like she just took off the apron and left a kitchen after baking cookies for her grandkids — as one of her staffers affectionately said at the debate: She’s “The Alpha Grandma.”

Gun control

Speaking of the gun control law in this state, the version that was rammed through the Legislature last week by Gov. Andrew Cuomo had a slew of holes in it and one of the flaws makes it illegal for SWAT teams to carry their automatic weapons.

Now that’s pretty funny. It’s an easy fix as are the others but Cuomo got his way. He issued a message of necessity — which means the bill didn’t have to sit on the legislator’s desks for the required three days and actually give everyone a chance to read it — in order to beat President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden to the gun control punch by a day. Biden and Cuomo are two potential Democratic presidential candidates in 2016.

He got national headlines, the chapter amendments the Legislature will now have to take up will make it on the blogs of the Capitol press corps and maybe get a brief in print.

Kind of ironic that one of the reasons Tedesco came under fire by the PBA — one of the many — was about training for the Troy Emergency Response Team and the ammunition they used in addition to the OT they were getting. The ERT is Troy’s version of a SWAT team so I’m wondering if Tedesco, a self-proclaimed Republican, may back up Cuomo’s original bill.

In a move unusual for Talespin, I am actually giving you something worthwhile and informative. There is a ton of uncertainly about the what the new gun control law means so the state is setting up a website and people who are not clear on the specifics can visit nysafeact.com or call 1-855-law-guns, which really means 1-855-529-4867.

Also, it was an impressive pro-Second Amendment rally at the Capitol Saturday with some 2,000 pro-gun rights people in attendance. The mantra: Don’t tread on me. Amen.

This week’s Talespin was written by James V. Franco. He can be reached at 478-5343.