SCHENECTADY — It wasn’t too long ago that the mayor would duck out of Schenectady City Council meetings to take important phone calls. Now, he just glances down at his Blackberry and types a quick message.

He discusses downtown promotional events with Metroplex Development Authority Chairman Ray Gillen while watching the latest super-hero movies with his son. He even texts with department heads while he watches baseball games at night.

Yes, Mayor Brian U. Stratton has become a texter.

It has made him more efficient, he said — but at the price of taking over almost all of his personal time.

“I get more things done and more things done faster,” he said. “One of the great things is you can sit down and watch the ball game and still get your work done. But it does increase the never-ending chain to work. Now people know they can reach you instantaneously, except on the plane when you have to turn it off.”

The city bought Blackberries for its top officials two years ago. The devices work like a cellphone, but offer a full keyboard to make it easier to type. The new form of communication didn’t catch on right away, but Stratton is a believer now.

“I’m always texting someone,” he said. “It started with [former Police Chief Michael] Geraci. He was always texting me — I usually woke up, put on the coffee and saw three or four texts waiting for me.”

Unlike today’s teenagers, who regularly hold long social conversations through texting, Stratton’s messages are work-related. But just like the younger generation, he now answers those messages at seemingly any time of the day or night.

Public Safety Commissioner Wayne Bennett said the city’s recent embrace of texting rather than calling with important news has proved particularly valuable late at night.

Automatic messages now go out to critical personnel whenever certain emergencies occur, including a recent stand-off on Van Vranken Avenue.

“Of course the messages are never enough and I end up calling [Deputy Chief Michael] Seber,” Bennett said.

But the text allows him to gather his thoughts instead of speaking to someone in the first seconds after the phone wakes him up. It also lets him digest the information without having to search for a pen and paper in the dark.

“It’s 2 in the morning and you’re thinking, wait, was that 2628 Van Vranken or 2826?” Bennett said. “You can just look at it again and see.”

He’s starting to love text messages even during working hours. It’s valuable to have certain discussions in writing, he said. That way, no one can later argue that they didn’t say what someone else thinks they said.

“It’s all right there,” Bennett said.

CUT TO THE CHASE

Stratton said the texting also helps him cut to the chase in decision-making.

“You can say yes and no without having to hear the other’s reaction on the phone,” he said. “I can write, ‘No,’ and that’s it. And sometimes it’s easier to write a reply than to say it.”

He also whips out the Blackberry during meetings to record every date announced by the public.

“When people get up and say, ‘We’re having a barbecue on X date,’ or the council says, ‘We’ll do this at our next council meeting,’ I enter the dates on my calendar,” he said. “That’s something that’s made my life hugely easier.”

It’s also helped him avoid time-wasting calls during meetings. Before he got a Blackberry, he would screen calls by telephone number, guessing that a call from the fire chief or the governor’s office was important enough to answer while a reporter’s call could probably wait. It was a delicate balance — he didn’t want to walk out of a meeting, but he also didn’t want to miss a critical call.

Now he can look at the entire message and determine whether it needs an immediate response. Many times they don’t, he said.

“I don’t respond to all of them. I’m adept at being able to hear the speech or the information being reviewed and not put all my attention on it. I can multi-task. But there is a certain courtesy,” he said.

And if he has to respond right away, he figures texting is “the least disruptive” way to do it.

It’s become so interwoven with his daily life that he now has difficulty understanding how politicians ever got along without it.

“I can’t help but wonder how my father survived without a cellphone or a Blackberry,” Stratton said. (His father was Sam Stratton, former mayor and former congressman.) “You know, the most he ever had was a pager, and that was just to call him back to Capitol Hill for a vote.”