18 and Counting
When Sandra and Carl Bank first moved into their country
home on Rte. 31 just outside the town of Clarendon,
they had to get used to one thing: the annoying sound of squealing tires. When
the DOT repaved the road near the Banks’ home it made the curve a bit sharper,
and it lowered the grade on one side to let rain run off.
That was more than two years ago, but the Banks say many
drivers still go so fast they lose control and end up in the side yard — an
area that Sandra calls “the pit.”
Her solution is an advisory to uninitiated motorists. Two 4′
by 8′ sheets of plywood are propped up, creating a makeshift billboard that
says: “# of vehicles to miss this turn …18! Please slow down!”
Each time a driver misses the turn,
Banks takes down the old number and hangs up a new one.
“We had one man that had to have a Mercy Flight out of
here,” says Banks. “We had another one that was like the Dukes of Hazard. He
went right over the pit and landed on the other side of the field. The latest
was a lady that flipped over. Fortunately, no one has been killed.”
Banks says she and her husband thought about making a
barricade out of some of the huge boulders on their property, but that might
make the crash worse. She says she hates to be pessimistic, but she is
prepared. She has boards numbered through 22 ready to put in service.
Banks also worries about her children and pets. And she says
getting in and out of their driveway is a fright.
“We have 19 acres here,” she says. “This farm once belonged
to my husband’s family when all of this was farmland. It kind of makes me
laugh, because all you have to do is tell people where the sign is, and right
away they say they don’t need an address or directions. I always thought I
wanted a quiet home in the country. Now if I slow down to make the curve and
not miss my own driveway, the people behind me get angry and start honking.”
— Tim Louis Macaluso
THE WATER SCANDALS
LastweekState Comptroller Alan Hevesi’s
office gave the public yet another look at the abuses that can occur in public
authorities.
As our article this week on government reform notes (page 10),
authorities have important uses. But the shenanigan-potential is enormous. And in
2002, according to the Hevesi report, out of sight of public scrutiny —
hidden even from the authority’s own passive board — two Monroe County Water
Authority board officers gave undeserved pay and benefits to the authority’s executive
director, John Stanwix. Five other officials were also taken care of
handsomely, says the Hevesi report, but the “principal beneficiary of executive
enrichment schemes” was Stanwix.
“In sum,” says the report, “authority executives appear to
have managed the authority to enrich themselves rather than to serve rate
payers.”
This was possible, in large part, because the Water
Authority board didn’t ask enough questions. And the officers who took care of
Stanwix must have assumed they wouldn’t.
The Water Authority operates outside of the scrutiny of
elected officials like the CountyLegislature.
But there’s supposed to be at least a bit of oversight built into the system:
board members must represent two different political parties. Traditionally, that’s
been Republican and Democratic. In the Stanwix era, however, and today as well,
board members come from the Republican Party and its frequent co-conspirator,
the Conservative Party.
Stanwix, a former Republican county legislator and
Republican Party chair, headed the Water Authority from 1995 to 2002. In his last
three years there, he got raises amounting to 44.8 percent, according to the Hevesi
report. And four months before he retired, his friends on the board signed an
employment agreement that gave him even more: “$52,000 in unearned vacation
days, $60,000 for sick leave days, $105,000 for insurance and medical
reimbursement benefits, and a $72,000 lump-sum payment,” says the report.
The raises, says the report, were enough to boost his state
pension 25 percent. His friends also gave him lifetime medical insurance.
“Stanwix had not earned, or was not eligible for, many of these benefits,” says
the report.
The Hevesi report estimates that Stanwix’s enhancements
amount to $290,000 — plus the 44.8 percent pay hike. All of that money came
out of Water Authority users’ pockets. But that, grumbles Democratic County
Legislator Paul Haney, doesn’t include the cost of the state pension, which
taxpayers will pay for — for the rest of Stanwix’s life.
(Stanwix was 60 when he retired, according to a Democrat and
Chronicle report at the time.)
There’s more to come, apparently. Hevesi’s office has also been
investigating possible conflicts of interest in the authority’s contracts. That
report hasn’t yet been released.
The Stanwix saga is a reminder of the tentacles and power of
the Republican Party, at least during that period. One of the people who
approved the largess for him was the authority’s treasurer, Peter Formicola, a
former MonroeCounty
legislator and a developer with longtime Republican connections.
It was Formicola who bought a parking lot at the airport and
tried to sell it to the county a year later for $1 million more than he paid
for it. The county has leased space in buildings partially owned by Formicola. In
the late 1990’s, his firm bought a large parcel of property at the corner of
West Main Street and Plymouth Avenue in downtown Rochester hoping, according to
a Democrat and Chronicle report at the time, to get Monroe Community College to
locate a new facility there. (The CountyLegislature appoints the MCC board
members.)
The other person who approved the Stanwix deal: Tom Mooney,
the authority’s vice chair and head of the Rochester-area Chamber of Commerce,
an organization noted for criticizing the high cost of government.
The Water Authority board and some county legislators are
making noises about trying to get some of the money back. The fix doesn’t have
to be limited to that, however. For example:
• The CountyLegislature
could appoint Democrats to replace the Conservatives.
• It could insist on approving the authority’s budget,
hiring, and awarding of contracts. With the Minarik Republicans controlling the
Water Authority Board, the county executive’s office, and the CountyLegislature, that might not change
much. But it would get the authority’s actions out in the public view.
To do this, the legislature would have to ask the State
Legislature to approve changes in the authorizing legislation that created the
Water Authority. As of Tuesday, that item wasn’t listed on the agendas of any
of this week’s Lej committee meetings.
— Mary Anna Towler
The heat is on
Heat in Rochester,
says Darlene Williams, is “a necessity, not a luxury.”
Williams, a founding member of a grassroots organization
called The Heat Is On, is protesting Rochester Gas & Electric’s decision to
enforce an old policy: full payment or service termination.
Currently, RG&E customers who fall behind on their
payments can maintain service as long as they pay half their bill every month.
If RG&E moves forward with its strict-compliance initiative, however,
defaulting customers might find themselves in cold, dark homes after October 2.
(RG&E had initially planned to enforce compliance earlier this month but
relented after protestors picketed outside the company’s office). People, says
Williams “shouldn’t be forced to go on welfare to pay RG&E.”
(RG&E representatives did not respond to requests for
comment.)
There is a state law that
protects poor people, says Charles Brennan, an attorney with the Public Utility
Law Project, which advocates for low-income people. Passed in 1981, the Home
Energy Fair Practices Act requires utility companies to create a
deferred-payment agreement for struggling customers. Brennan says most poor
customers opt into a plan that allows them to pay nothing up front and $10 a
month on the arrears. Deferred payment options, however, are a one-shot deal;
utility companies can terminate service agreements for customers who fall
behind on subsequent payments.
RG&E could be legally liable, says Brennan, if its
company rules and regulations allowed for half payments — but, he says, that’s
not the case. The only recourse some customers may have, he says, is if they
can prove that RG&E’s unwritten policy created reliance. “Whether or not
the court would buy this argument, I don’t have the answer to that,” he says.
But Williams and her
supporters hope that RG&E looks at the issue from a social rather than a
legal standpoint. Erma Hall, who lives on Cummings
Street in northeast Rochester,
says she’s concerned about what will happen this winter. “I don’t get any
benefits, and I work part time,” says Hall, who’s raising her three
grandchildren. Hall says she’s particularly worried about losing heat because
two of her grandchildren have asthma. She hopes, she says, that RG&E will
continue to work with poor people to come up with a fair payment plan.
Williams says Heat members plan to meet with RG&E
representatives this week to discuss the change. Ideally, she says, the group
would like to go back to the way things were. But she’s open to compromise.
“Why,” she asks, “didn’t they go from 50 percent to 60 percent” and gradually
increase rates over five years?
Rising energy prices have also made it hard for people to
keep up with their payments, Williams says. Williams would like RG&E to
partner with area agencies to educate people on how to conserve energy. Two
agencies in the Rochester area
provide free weatherization services to people whose incomes are less than 60
percent of the state median: Action for a Better Community and Rural
Opportunities. (Williams is an office manager at ABC, but says the agency is
not involved with Heat.)
Rodney Washington, ABC’s energy-conservation program
director, says many people don’t realize how much energy they waste. Sometimes,
he says, “You go to a house where a person qualifies for services and the heat
is at 80…. We gotta go in there and literally get out
of our clothes.” But, adds Washington,
a lot of people conserve energy and still struggle to make ends meet. There
are, he says, “people who are conserving and doing everything that they can do
to try to keep the bill as low as they can, and they’re just fighting a losing
battle.”
Moreover, with demand for
ABC’s and Rural Opportunities’ services outstripping supply, it might take
several months before people could get free consultation and home repairs.
Like some other critics of RG&E, Williams says utilities
should be operated as nonprofits. For the time being however, Williams says just
wants to help people like Hall make it through another Rochester
winter. “We just want them (RG&E) to be reasonable,” she says.
If your income is less than 60 percent of the state median, you can
get free weatherization services, which include an energy consultation and
repairs. Information: Action for a Better Community, 442-4160 (city
residents) or Rural Opportunities, 442-2030 ext. 202 (suburban residents).
— Sujata Gupta
TAKING A HIKE
MCC students will see a $100
hike in tuition this year.
That change was part of the
MCC budget approved by the CountyLegislature earlier this month. Legislature Democrats made a brief, futile attempt
to lower the hike to $50. The Dems have criticized the MCC administration for
carrying an unreserved fund balance of nearly 16 percent of its total budget
while it seeks tuition increases.
Speaking to a legislature committee
last month, MCC President Tom Flynn acknowledged that tuition contributes a
higher percentage of the college’s budget than state guidelines suggest. The
shortfall, though, comes from the share of the budget the county ought to be
paying and is not, he said. According to Flynn, MonroeCounty contributes the state’s second lowest amount of money to its community
college, as a percentage of the college’s budget. With the county’s fiscal problems,
however, that doesn’t appear likely to change anytime soon.
The Dems’ amendment to lower
the tuition hike failed 18 to 11. The lone Democrat to vote against it was its
sponsor, Ted O’Brien. That was a procedural move meant to allow O’Brien to
bring the measure back at a later date. But since it was an amendment to a
larger piece of legislation, which passed, Democrats aren’t sure that’s even
possible.
— Krestia DeGeorge
This article appears in Aug 23-29, 2006.
