It’s Not About The Money. It’s Public Service.

Mayor Driscoll Skips Both SUN Meetings On Vacant Houses

Originally uploaded by Phil At Sun

According to today’s Post-Standard, the Mayor’s pay raise is a sure thing. I was quoted in the article, but I managed to merely paraphrase our member’s opinions. I avoided pontificating on the issue as if I spoke for the organization. That is not my role as an organizer.

However, it is my job as a blogger! And I’ve got issues!

The rate increase is retroactive. If this were truly not about the current occupant why not make it apply only to the incoming Mayor?

No one becomes Mayor because of the nice pay packet and the health insurance. If people are discouraged from running for the office because they may have to take a pay cut–we don’t want them. This isn’t a company manufacturing widgets , this is public service.

Executive compensation is an upper middle-class racket. The talking points are always the same–we will not be able to attract the really talented and gifted people we want for these top spots unless the pay is astronomical. Well I’m calling bullshit on that. Plenty of well-qualified candidates spend a lot of their own money competing for this job at every election.

Some people are concerned that the name at the top of the organizational chart doesn’t have the highest salary. I’m not overly concerned with that situation. The Mayor has a lot of institutional power that ensures his authority will be respected down through the ranks. Besides, people doing jobs like cops, firefighters and DPW workers SHOULD make more money than the Mayor. They do hard, dangerous and unpleasant jobs that merit top compensation.

Syracuse is a city that is perpetually cutting services while simultaneously raising people’s taxes and fees. In this kind of climate, it is wrong to raise elected officials’ pay.

What’s Mine Is Mine And What’s Yours Is Open To Negotiation

Last night, I went to the Common Council’s public hearing on the city’s proposed 2008-09 budget. Unlike some hearings in past years, there were few people in attendance (perhaps a dozen) and the whole thing wrapped up in about a half hour.

However, the tenor of the meeting remains the same. People from the school district and various groups affiliated with teachers and parents of schoolchildren came to ask the city to spend more money on the school district.

The appeals came in two forms. The more savvy or connected speakers hewed to the school district’s party line and asked for a specific amount–$1.2 million. The less discriminating came and asked the city to fund the school district “fully.” Both groups alluded to the undeniable truth about the students in the city school district–students in abject poverty, many with little fluency in English, cost the district more to educate than do affluent children from the suburbs. When you start from so far behind, it takes more effort and more investment to catch up.

Unfortunately, no one speaking up for the school district has even an elementary grasp of the city’s economic structure and many speakers hold a thinly-veiled contempt for the city. The speakers constantly allude to the historic underfunding of the school district by Albany, lumping the city into the mix as an unindicted co-conspirator, questioning the Mayor and the Council’s commitment to our children.

Syracuse is a city where twice the amount of the local tax levy goes to the school district than to all other city services combined. Yet speakers for the school district seem to believe that the city is holding out on the schools, withholding money. The reality is that the city’s tax levy is now a small percentage of the both the city’s budget and the school district’s budget. The city and schools rely on transfer payments from Albany to survive. In fact, the structural deficits faced by both bodies–in the form of contracts with their unionized work forces–and the pensions, health care and other benefits that go along with those contracts–are insoluble without massive infusions of state aid.

Therefore, it is rather unseemly to go before the Council to beg for an additional $1 million, threatening to cut jobs if your budget isn’t increased by less than half a percentage point–particularly given the very large increase of state aid received this budget year. Is the school district so mismanaged that over 70 jobs are left to dangle in the wind unless an additional 0.3 % is added to the school budget? (An addition that was added at the very last meeting of the school board’s discussion of their budget?)

At least no one got up and asked the Council to please raise my taxes and give the money to the school district. Do these people even understand basic economics? Do they think that these costs are only born by those with the ability to pay? If the city raises its property taxes, it will fall disproportionally on the poorest neighborhoods and those least able to afford increases. The elderly on fixed incomes. Poor tenants paying higher rents. The poor students that you claim to care so much for will just have another stone thrown into their sinking boat.

Roy’s Our Boy, But A Cabinet Secretary?

Update:
Rep. Barney Frank, chair of the House Financial Services committee released a statement today asking President Bush to appoint an acting Secretary with the authority to: “work with us in making the decisions we need to deal with the housing finance crisis.”

Roy’s not your boy, Barney.

HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson resigned today. The resignation doesn’t become official until April 18th and he has pledged to help in the transition. Holy mother of god, this could mean Roy Bernardi, currently the number two guy at HUD, may be picked to become the next Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Deveopment.

Roy served 20 years as auditor of the city of Syracuse and seven and one-half years as Mayor. The highlights of his career in Syracuse include investigation for drunken sexual assault on a young lady (no charges were brought), eviscerating the city’s finance department staff to the extent that the city couldn’t accurately track it’s revenues and expenses (resulting in the SEC citing the city for making up financial figures in a bond issue it floated) and making reckless economic development loans that left the city repaying HUD over $20 million with money that otherwise would have gone to help low income folks repair their houses.

HUD has been working with Treasury Secretary Paulson to deal with the costs of the subprime mortgage crisis for homeowners threatened with foreclosure. Sports Illustrated used to have a weekly feature, a dubious sports highlight that was evidence “The Apocalypse Is Upon Us.” Roy Bernardi sitting at the table in a U.S. President’s cabinet is just such an event. May the good lord help us all. (The band may now start playing “Nearer My God To Thee”)

Top Syracuse Stories 2007

1) Joanie’s Fresh Start
Joanie Mahoney won the election for County Executive. A 21-vote primary victory over former County Legislature Chair Dale Sweetland was hers when she defiantly stared down the leaders of her party and won the hearts and minds of the rank and file. The GOP’s County party chair got Joanie’s campaign energized when he suggested that Joanie should stay home and mind her 4 young children. Joanie then trounced Bill Magnarelli in the general election, when the incumbent Assembyman ran a singularly inept and unenthusiastic campaign. I believe Joanie won because of, rather than in spite of, her relative lack of experience. No one wanted a grim company man anymore after 20 years of Nick Pirro. Voters wanted young, vibrant and optimistic. It made the election easy, but sets her up for a big fall if her first term is not noticeably different from “business as usual.”

2) Art. Ask For More.
The Everson put their director out on the street in the face of boring programs and a lack of fundraising. S.U.’s Warehouse gallery forced their director out because the programs were too exciting. The city hired a public art coordinator and seemed to focus their sights on reimagining the city’s abandoned parking meter poles. A section of E. Fayette began calling itself an art park, while down the road an art collective is attempting to create a live/work/practice/gallery space in an old warehouse.

3) Walsh 2.0
You are an 18 year incumbent, a member of your party’s leadership team and have brought millions of dollars back to your district. However, you almost lose your last election, losing both the city and Onondaga County. So, you adjust–quickly. You change your position on the Iraq War, allying yourself with other electorally-challenged Republicans suggesting the President slowly wind down operations. You reverse your policy on Town Hall meetings, scheduling them all over your far-flung district. You vote against the President on expanding children’s health insurance.

4) The Chiefs Honor Syracuse’s Glorious Railroading Past
Of course, they honored this past the way we have come to expect the Chiefs to honor anything–with incompetence, penny-pinching and above all else, lots of lost ballgames. The name change was a way to acknowledge that the aging fanbase still calls the team the Chiefs and will always use the racist epithet freely and without shame. We discovered that the protection money demanded by the Chiefs cost this town our pro soccer franchise, an operation that embarrassed the stodgy baseballers with their energy and excitement. Now we learn that the team will not pay its NatGrid bill. I‘d love to see the utility shut off the power in the middle of a game. At least next year we’ll be able to see the Chiefs lose on grass.

5) Route 81 Bypass–To Eternity
Common Councilor Van Robinson was a lonely voice suggesting that the city look at not repairing or replacing Rt. 81 when its anticipated lifespan comes up in another decade. But thanks to some public hearings, lots of buzz in the Post Standard and Sean Kirst’s newspaper blog and the key support of folks like Syracuse University and University Hospital, this is now an issue with legs. It is also perhaps the first time we have enough time and publicity to make a community development decision out in the open, with real public participation. Now we just need someone to stand up at a podium on Almond Street and thunder “ Governor Spitzer, tear down this highway!”

6) Excellus Workers Lose Downtown Farmer’s Market, Gain A Food Court
Excellus, the non-profit health insurance firm, moved its local operations (and 800 jobs) out of downtown and out to the old Agway building adjacent to Shoppingtown Mall in Dewitt. While much handwringing and finger pointing ensued, I’m still unconvinced that the move will cost the city much. The region still has the jobs, downtown is looking at several residential and commercial development projects starting up in the next couple of years and Excellus still has to pay their property taxes on the building. Chill out, it really is an opportunity, not a disaster.

7) “Watch Me Pull A Fat Government Grant Out Of This Hat!”
Nancy Cantor, S.U.’s Chancellor and Bob Congel, shopping mall tycoon, continue to prove that an idea need not be any more substantive than a couple of watercolors and some fancy dreams to attract beaucoups bucks from government officials blinded by the magic act. Millions for a freakin’ sidewalk between S.U. and Armory Square? Millions for a fantasy shopping, hotel resort, green technology museum? What about housing, insanely high heating bills and a decent education for all our children? Where are those magic acts?

Purple County, Blue City
The Democrats have carried the County in the past three Presidential elections, four U.S. senate races and the last U.S. Congressional District race. However, they have made no real progress in local county races. District Attorney, Sheriff, Comptroller, Clerk and County Executive have all been Republican since the Ice Age. But things are worse for the Republicans in the city. The County government buildings in downtown Syracuse must feel like West Berlin, surrounded by a hostile enemy. No more city Republicans in the County Legislature or city school board and only one on the city Common Council. While the Democrats found candidates for all offices, and even picked off a couple Republican incumbents, the Republicans had many vacancies on their lineup card.

9) Person Of The Year: Greg Robinson, head football coach Syracuse University.
In these cynical times, it takes a special person to always look on the bright side of life (as Monty Python maintained that Jesus once musically urged his followers.) Well, Coach Robinson, who has won only 7 games in three seasons on the Hill, is just that kind of special person. So relentlessly upbeat, you believe he may be brain damaged. In the the face of relentless pressure from spoiled fans, sadistic sports writers and Type A personalities in the Sports Department, Coach Rob continues to believe. This cynic salutes his favorite Pollyanna. The BCS Bowl is just around the corner in the mind of Greg Robinson. It must be a very cozy place to be.

The Campaign Signs Multiply Like Kudzu

Some thoughts after the recent local elections:

1) Did anyone see any of Magnarelli’s lackluster appearances and not think he was going to get creamed by Joanie?

2) Isn’t any candidate who is routinely referred to by voters and media by their first name a prohibitive favorite from the get-go?

3) Was the County Exec race about personality or a return to the old rigid City-Democratic, County-Republican voting patterns recently bucked by Presidential, US Senate and Congressional candidates? Should Maffei be worried?

4) Is Mayor Driscoll upset that he can’t step up into Albany politics via a vacant Magnarelli seat or is he already planning a shot at Joanie for County Executive in four years?

5) Best win–Common Council: Michael Heagerty, 1st District. The guy behind both the Armory Square rennaisance (Pastabilities/Styleen’s) and the Palace Theatre renovation in Eastwood states his number one priority is housing. Hopefully the bland and uninspiring chair of the Housing Committee (Van Robinson) doesn’t crush his spirit.

6) Best win–County legislature: Tom Buckel, 7th District. This one is for all us Democrats in Onondaga County who saw a young law school grad. challenge US Congressman Wortley in the 1980’s and validate our decision to continue to live in this (then) overwhelmingly Republican area. Plus, his victory eliminates all stains of Republican-ism in the city delegation to the County Legislature. Bright, tough and hardworking. The future’s so bright Buckel’s gotta wear shades.

7) Howie Hawkins or Harold Stassen? Endorsed by the local paper and considered to have a shot to take one of the two open Common Council At Large seats, Howie finished fourth with less than 5% of the vote. Howie got beat by a four-to-one margin by the third place finisher, a guy who owes $11,000 in parking tickets to the city!

Best campaign slogan: “Street Fighting Man” by Common Council At Large victor Bill Ryan. Glad to finally see a politician come down so forcefully on the Stones/Beatles issue. Oh, and he’s a Red Sox fan!

9) Why didn’t Ed Ryan’s primary commercials cast him as pro wrestler The Undertaker taking on the corrupt Albany politician, or at least holding a wake for “business as usual” in Onondaga County?

10) 2010 Mayoral Campaign. Democrats who will announce candidacy: Miner, Gonzalez, Robinson, Corriders and Ryan. Republicans who will announce candidacy: McMahon, Wolken.

Is There Anybody Out There?

Post Standard columnist Sean Kirst recently had an interesting post on his blog discussing the primary elections for Onondaga County Executive.
Titled County Executive . . .Hungry For Change?, Sean highlighted a comment posted on his forum that claimed that voters casting ballots in the primary had voted for change, going outside the usual power brokers and sending a message to the politicians.

Cooler heads then prevailed in the comments, pointing out that both of the candidates unendorsed by their party officials, Ed Ryan for the Democrats and Joanie Mahoney for the Republicans, are not exactly “outsiders.” Ryan has been in the County legislature for 30 years and Mahoney’s family has a long history of campaigns and election wins between Joanie and her dad Bernie.

The post then opens up a discussion thread I’d like to take up: what would it take to get a real outsider to run and what would that campaign look like?

What does “real outsider” mean? A non-politician? Someone with no real name recognition? A regular Joe or Jane whose tolerance for the status quo erupts and forces them to enter the ring? Party affiliated or no party affiliation?

I have a cardinal rule of politics: “pay your dues.” I don’t appreciate candidates with no past experience at any level of government running for high levels of public office, especially legislative offices. Successful work as a part of a body of officials requires an understanding of negotiation, compromise and collegiality. Mavericks find it hard to get anything done if they’re leading a charge with no one behind them.

Executive level jobs are slightly different, because a major part of the job is management of government workers and departments. This is a skill set that people can acquire from non-governmental experiences: academia, churches, labor unions, private enterprise, military etc. Unfortunately, executives are frequently people with management skills but with no vision for change and no ability to adapt their executive decisions to changing public opinion or new information (for example, Nick Pirro’s refusal to consider changes to the County’s ossified plans for the siting of raw sewage treatment plants, despite being presented with ideas for better technology that was safer and cleaner.)

So my “outsider” would have to be someone that had some experience with the process, at the very least someone who attends public meetings, has expressed themselves in print or verbally on issues facing our community, someone who has obviously spent some time thinking about the process and its problems. In addition, the candidate needs to have some positive name recognition in the community just to get their campaign past the gatekeepers of public discourse, largely a press that can be hostile to non-establishment candidates.

My “outsider” would also have to run solely as an independent. Any identification with a party ties you to the ward heelers and their personal intrigues and dust-ups, regardless of a candidate’s best intentions. Foregoing party affiliations puts major roadblocks in the way of a candidacy–financial, party identification by voters, volunteer support. However, a truly independent and maverick outsider may be able to turn all those negatives into positives.

The three major requirements for a true outsider candidate:
1) One or two important and exciting ideas/goals.
2) Explain the ideas/goals so everyone can understand them.
3) The ideas/goals are THE topic all candidates discuss in the campaign.

The stickiest issue in this discussion is money. Money often comes with strings that limits the independence of even the best candidates. Candidates without resources will be unable to counter a barrage of negative ads by their well-financed opponents or counter attempts by the press to marginalize their campaign by harping on their relatively cash-poor operation. Does a true outsider candidate have to be a wealthy person financing their own campaigns, like Mike Bloomberg or Tom Golisano? Can a true outsider candidate garner numerous small contributions by regular folks, perhaps by using the internet, like Howard Dean or Barack Obama? It probably has to be one or the other.

To quote Pink Floyd: “Is there anybody out there?”

Fayetteville To Small Business & Disabled: “Drop Dead”

I have serious problems. I go to government meetings for fun.

Last night, I accompanied a couple of activists for the disabled to a special meeting of the Village of Fayetteville Historic Preservation committee. The issue was an application to rehabilitate a building in Fayetteville’s historic district and open a branch of Skaneateles Jewelry. Since I was born, raised and educated in Fayetteville, I thought I’d tag along and see what my homies were up to.

The meeting was interesting and entertaining for several reasons:

1) The owner of the jewelry store was not opposing American with Disability Act requirements for accessibility, in fact his architect had designed a relatively elegant ramp, utilizing both the brick of the building and the historic limestone already a part of the crumbling steps to the building.

2) The chair of the Historic Preservation Committee opened the meeting, then immediately recused himself, announcing that he was the architect for the applicant in question. He led the discussion, both for the arguments in favor of the project and by informing the other members of the committee about the rules, regulations and procedures of village code and committee protocol.

3) The crowd of about 10 people could ask questions at any time, simply by raising their hand (or just waiting for a lull in the conversation.) The crowd was split between residents in the historic district, disability activists and the owner of the proposed store.

4) After approving small pieces of the project (signage, door replacement) the committee split 3-2 against the ramp. The two in support were solicitous of the time, effort and money the applicant had put into the decaying building. They also made eloquent statements about the need to accomodate the disabled with dignity and not relegating the accessible entrance to the rear or a side alley. The three opposed were all seemingly more solicitous of the pile of decaying limestone in front of the building than any arguments of the rights of the disabled or the need to accomodate someone willing to make a large investment in the village’s economy.

This is preservation run amok. The proposal wasn’t the equivalent of sticking a garish neon and plastic business in the middle of a historic district, it’s an issue of basic access into the building at the front door. The building wouldn’t undergo any significant aesthetic change, despite the nonsensical statement of one committee member that the front would now be “massive.”
The only real change would be a building that is now usable, rather than a hulking abandoned shell.

The options are to ask for an appeals hearing to the village Planning Board seeking a reversal on the basis of economic hardship or to give up on accessibility altogether, something disability activists would fight, but that historic district status may allow.

In the meantime, the words of one Historic Preservation committee member ring loudly: “I’d hate to be a person in a wheelchair and have to live in Fayetteville.”

A Little Pork Roast For The Holiday

Courtesy of the Daily Politics blog.

A reader of Ben Smith’s politics blog for the NY Daily News sent him an elegant, searchable Excel spreadsheet for all NY State Assembly member items (aka pork barrel spending) since the 2003-04 fiscal year. Unlike in the past, each item is labeled with the assembly member responsible for the cash.

The data was released due to the efforts of the Albany Times Union newspaper in the courts. while the assembly’s data was released in a monstrous format running thousands of pages, the senate’s data was released in an even worse format. The anonymous tech savvy reader who created the Assembly spreadheet told Daily Politics that creating the same spreadheet for the Senate will be harder.

Now, as for our local hog butchers Magnarelli and Christensen:

1) Not apologizing for backing the doomed Bragman coup is still hurting Ms. Christensen. In the four year period covered, Magnarelli brought back $1.625 million in pork from Albany. Christensen brought back $340,000 in the same time period.

2) Christensen and Magnarelli teamed up for $250,000 to rebuild Nottingham HS athletic fields.

3) Magnarelli and Christensen teamed up with other CNY Democratic Assembly Hog Butchers to bring back $1.39 million in pork for various school districts, fire departments and non-profit agencies. ($515,750 of that total went into the districts represented by Magnarelli and Christensen).

4) Magnarelli can well be described as the Metropolitan Development Association’s go-to guy. In the four years covered by this data, Magnarelli helped steer $1.535 million to the development group. $535,000 of that money was done in tandem with Assembly leader Shelly Silver.

5) Magnarelli also helped Speaker Silver steer $172,000 in operating expenses to the New York State chapter of NARAL–National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League.

Maffei v. Walsh

I am separating out my thoughts behind my vote in NY’s 25th Congressional District from my other votes because it is one of the most pivotal races of my lifetime. It is the only time where the personalities and talents of the two contestants are really irrrelevant. This election has national, as well as local, import.

Dan Maffei is young, energetic and very bright. Jim Walsh is dedicated to our region and well-connected politically. A good case can be made for both men’s candidacies. That being said, I will vote for Dan Maffei.

Jim Walsh has been a relatively good provider for our community–leveraging his increasing influence within the Republican Party for federal money for a raft of projects: housing, V.A.hospital, new air traffic tower, Marshall St. repairs etc. Walsh brought home the bacon.
(**Personal Disclosure** Rep. Walsh helped get federal funding for a national anti-crime program that helped fund some of SUN’s activities.)

I will vote for Maffei for three reasons. 1) While Rep. Walsh has energetically fought for so-called “pork barrel” funding for our district, he is part of a Republican party whose economic policies have been disastrous for our region. What Jim Walsh brings into CNY with one hand, he signs away with his other hand. Rep. Walsh, despite his ads to the contrary, is a leader in the Republican Party and must own up to policies cutting support for many of the social programs that seniors, students, veterans and others in this community rely upon.

2) A vote for a Republican congressman is a vote for the war in Iraq. Despite ample evidence of mismanagement, fraud and incompetence, the current Republican Congress has given the Bush administration a blank check to continue down the same path of disaster, costing the lives of thousands of American soldiers and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians.

3) At a time when the stated goal of our operation in Iraq is to bring democracy to the region, the United States is acting less like a democracy and more like a police state. Extraordinary rendition, torture, secret CIA prisons, Abu Ghraib, Bagwan airbase, Guantanamo prison, suspension of habeus corpus, illegal wiretaps. If we truly believed in democracy, we would practice its values even when under duress and attack. The Republicans have never shown the backbone to stare down the punks in the administration who would break any law, cheat and torture.

We are a better nation than that and we must send that message now. “Republicans, out of the pool!”

Unlike My Opponent Last Time

Unlike My Opponent Last Time

Originally uploaded by Phil At Sun.

Town of Onondaga Clerk election campaign sign. Rt. 173 near intersection of South Ave.