It was a pretty typical election-campaign event, but the size
of the audience was anything but typical. People packed City Hall’s spacious
Council Chambers March 8 to hear three candidates for Rochester
mayor — and one possible candidate — discuss campaign issues. There were
people sitting on the floor, people standing several deep at the back of the
room, several deep in the hallway, craning their necks and straining to hear.
Undoubtedly, some were committed supporters of the candidates, but certainly
not all.
           Participants
in the event were Democratic candidates Bob Duffy, Tim Mains, and Wade Norwood,
and Republican John Parrinello, an attorney who says
he’s considering running but hasn’t yet declared. County Legislator Chris
Wilmot, a Democrat-turned-Republican who’s also thinking about running, was
attending a legislature meeting.
           There was
little disagreement on the issues. That is to say, all four agreed that the
city needs economic development, safe streets, and good schools. How the city
gets those things is another matter, and none of the candidates shed much light
on that.
           All four
said that Rochester has a bright
future ahead, and that they’ll work hard to help the city reach it. All said Rochester
has great resources, and as mayor, they’ll help the community tap them. They’re
all glad to see that County Exec Maggie Brooks and Mayor Bill Johnson get alone
so well, and they all promised that they, too, will cooperate with other levels
of government.
The specifics: All
four are eloquent, passionate speakers, and each can be funny when the occasion
arises. So what exactly did they say?
           Norwood
noted that Johnson’s State of the City address earlier this month laid out the
problems the next mayor will face, and he called the speech “a brilliant
discussion of what we have to do.”
           Duffy said
the city has an image problem, and, he said, “much of it is self-inflicted.”
“We’re also fighting a population problem,” he said. Rochester
has to find a way to get to the thousands of students who graduate from area
colleges and universities each year and get them interested in living here, he
said.
           Parrinello noted the thaw in the relationship between the
Democratic city administration and the Republican county administration and
suggested that things would be even better with a Republican mayor.
           Parrinello drew derisive laughs from the crowd when he
complained that Rochester has
one-party rule, with a Democratic mayor and a completely Democratic City
Council, and coupled that complaint with the following:
           “We have a
Republican county executive. We have a Republican governor. We have a
Republican president. We need a Republican mayor.”
           “Stagnation,”
he said, with a straight face, “is one-party rule.”
           Norwood
talked about the importance of Rochester’s
culture and the arts and linked them to economic-growth potential. “Culture and
the arts,” he said, “equal jobs.”
           Duffy noted
that Rochester got a $250 million
benefit last year from tourism and said the city needs to “think big and think
bold.”
           Mains, as
he has previously, cautioned against placing too much hope solely on large
projects. “This city,” he said, “has adopted a ‘project’ mentality.'” Projects
like the ferry and the soccer stadium may be fine, he said, but there must be a
larger vision into which they fit.
Schools and the city:
There was a sliver of difference on the issue of city funding for the city
school district. Mains, who is a city school principal, said schools must have
sufficient resources to succeed, and that the mayor and City Council “must make
sure that they have those resources.” And, he said, the mayor must be an
advocate for the schools.
           Norwood,
who supported last year’s cut in city funds for the school district, said extra
money will have to come from the state. City government will never be able to
be a primary funder of the schools, he said; it can
barely pay for the essential services it has to provide. The city, said Norwood,
must make sure that it can afford to pay for services that children and their
families need outside of the schools.
           Duffy
didn’t mention funding, but he did voice strong support of the school district,
as he had when he announced his candidacy earlier in the month. He noted the
close correlation between crime and lack of a high school education, and he
said the city should be “full partners” with the school district.
           Parrinello, in attack mode, criticized the Johnson
administration, charging, among other things, that Johnson had run former
Superintendent Clifford Janey out of Rochester.
(Johnson was a critic of both Janey and of the school
board for what he said was a too-expensive buy-out of Janey’s
contract.)
           “The mayor
and City Council should keep their hands and their noses out of city school
district business,” he said.
Balancing acts: There
was also a bit of difference about balancing the needs of downtown with those
of city neighborhoods. Most of the candidates said the city needs to pay
attention to both; the city, said Mains, doesn’t have to choose between the
two. But Parrinello said he would give neighborhoods
a higher priority.
           Curiously, Parrinello launched into an attack on the Johnson
administration that was based on an erroneous assumption. The questioner who
raised the issue of the downtown-neighborhood balance said the city has faced
“a deficit budget” several years. The real question, said Parrinello,
is: “Why do we have a $20 million deficit for the third year in a row? We
should be a balanced-budget city. Somebody is not watching. Somebody is not
taking care.”
           As a former
City Councilmember, Parrinello no doubt knows that Rochester
is prohibited by law from passing an unbalanced budget. With expenses rising
and the city’s tax base declining, the Johnson administration has faced major
fiscal problems. It balanced its budget by cutting services and by securing
additional state aid.
           “The city
administration has never presented a deficit budget,” noted Norwood.
Casino? Yes. The
forum brought one small surprise: All four candidates are at least open to the
possibility of a casino for downtown Rochester,
and two of them — Norwood and Parrinello — support the idea.
           “I am not
convinced that Main Street is the right place,” said Norwood, and he said he’s
concerned about the possibility of a sovereign nation — one of New York’s
Indian tribes —owning property downtown, with the restrictions it could place
on city government. But, he said, “I do believe we have to learn how to say
goodbye to the old way of doing business.”
           Parrinello said the casino should be in MidtownPlaza, with Sibley’s developed into
“a high-end hotel.” “That block,” he said, “is a natural place to put the
casino.” Concerns about involvement by a sovereign nation are overstated, he
said, since the city would negotiate the terms of the casino’s operation,
including how much revenue the city would receive.
           Duffy said
he needs more information before deciding. “I would have to listen,” he said,
adding, “there are social costs, but also great economic-development benefits.”
           Mains said
he’s not against a casino, but said it should fit into a broader
economic-development plan. And, he said, “it’s not a decision the mayor should
make; it’s a decision that the community should make.”
           The
candidates might want to read carefully the study that the Center for
Governmental Research did for developer Tom Wilmot when he proposed a casino
for the Midtown-Sibley’s area. The casino itself might be successful, CGR said,
although the region is becoming saturated with casinos. And, said CGR,
restaurants, bars, entertainment venues, and other businesses located in the
casino complex would be successful. But they would probably simply displace
those dollars: They would draw business from nearby restaurants and
entertainment venues and could lower property values in the area.
           And, said
CGR, while a hotel opposite the casino could prosper, it’s highly likely that
it would draw business away from other downtown hotels, increasing their
vacancy rates and reducing the county’s hotel and motel tax receipts.
Personality. Issues
alone, saidWXXI’s
Michael Caputo in a recent column, won’t help voters decide who to support in
this campaign. As last week’s forum proved, Caputo’s right. The candidates will
probably say pretty much the same thing, perhaps in a slightly different way.
They all know that the city’s fiscal constraints severely limit what a mayor
can do.
           What voters
will have to decide is who’ll be able to do the best job, given those
constraints. Who’ll best be able to make tough decisions? Who’ll best be able
to inspire commitment from developers? Who’ll best be able to build coalitions
between the city and its suburbs?
           The
decision, said Caputo, turns on “personality,” and he didn’t mean charm and
charisma. Personality, he said, means “leadership qualities — their intellect
and ability to adapt, their skills at mediation and their backbone.”
           That may be
hard to sort out. It’ll certainly be impossible to determine leadership
qualities from television ads or from direct-mail pieces. For a conscientious
voter, this will be a campaign demanding research, and attendance at forums
like last week’s.
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This article appears in Mar 16-22, 2005.
