The
town of Penfield is used to challenges.
In recent years, for example, there
have been floods in the Panorama Valley that made a temporary mess of some
homes and businesses — and, some say, highlighted the problems of
inappropriate development in a floodplain. (Federal, state, and local officials
are on the case.)
And then there was a political fight
over preservation of some delicate acreage along a semi-wild stretch of Allens
Creek. (Eventually, an office park central to the controversy got the
procedural go-ahead and was built.)
Now something else is on the
horizon: A longtime county legislator, George Wiedemer, is challenging the
longtime incumbent Penfield supervisor, Channing Philbrick, for the crucial
Republican slot.
Wiedemer, a
Rochester businessman (Cable-Wiedemer, a restaurant supply firm), has represented
Penfield in the County Lej since 1985. He’s due to be “term-limited” out of his
Lej seat in 2005.
In his official bio, Wiedemer touts
his co-authoring of Monroe County’s anti-smoking regulations and sponsorship of
grants for Alternatives for Battered Women. He says, too, that he “helped bring
together the Monroe County Water Authority and the Town of Penfield in a money-saving
cooperative that brought low-cost water to certain areas in Penfield.”
Local Republicans are noted for
their internal solidarity — some would say stolidity. So why is Wiedemer
seeking to unseat a fellow partisan? Looming term limits?
No, says Wiedemer. “The short answer
is taxes and spending,” he says. The town’s property tax rate, he says, rose 17
percent “last year alone” because of a new $10 million plan to preserve open
space. (Approved by voters last year, the plan aims to protect land through
conservation easements, purchase or transfer of development rights,
agricultural zoning, and other means. It was anticipated funds would come from
local property taxes, state and federal grants, and so forth.)
“There’s a lot of different ways
they could have done that” other than by raising taxes so much, says Wiedemer.
He thinks more grant money could have been found, for one thing. And he says
it’s wrong that the bulk of the money will go to protect just eight parcels.
The town of Macedon, nearby in Wayne County, did it better, he says. Town
leaders there got money through the Nature Conservancy and similar sources, and
they spent only $2 million total, he says.
“The biggest difference between
Channing and me is management style,” says Wiedemer. He thinks his style would
have profited the town in one high-profile case: negotiations with Paychex Inc.
over expansion of the company headquarters in the Panorama area. Paychex
eventually decided to look to the town of Webster instead. “It was clear,” says
Wiedemer, “that Channing talked to them as if they were any business. You’ve got to get the biggest company in town on the
fast track.”
“We just think it’s time for a
change,” says Wiedemer. He faults Philbrick for treating people in the Panorama
Valley with less sensitivity than needed while government bodies were
finalizing a flood-control plan. The people there, he says, “were not very
pleased with the process. I would never go into a neighborhood and force a
change. I’d meet them door-to-door on their own turf.”
When asked, Wiedemer couldn’t give a
status report on the flood-control plan, though.
A former
Penfield town board member who’s been supervisor for a decade since retiring from
Eastman Kodak, Philbrick defends his record.
“It’s been pretty hard to find out
what my opponent thinks is ‘broken,'” he says. “He’s having a hard time
articulating it.”
Philbrick has no regrets about the
open-space plan or its funding mechanism. The voters gave the plan “a mandate,”
he says. The property tax rate rose for only one year, from $2.51 to $2.95 per
thousand, he says. “We’ve kept the tax rate flat for nine out of the last 10
years,” he says. “We’re pretty tight with a buck here.”
What’s Philbrick’s agenda? He talks
of wrapping up the town’s open space plans and of expanding community and
recreational space for seniors at the town hall. And like Wiedemer, he says a
leaf-pickup service could begin — if a town board majority coalesces.
What about Paychex? “They opted to
acquire that building in Webster,” he says simply. “We went right to the
Governor’s office to move the DEC [state Department of Environmental
Conservation] a little faster” on the permitting, he says. “They probably would
have moved there anyway,” he says, purely because of the Webster site’s lower
costs.
And the $7 million Panorama
flood-prevention plan? “It’s still an active project,” he says. “At the rate
they’re going,” he says, work will get underway “probably next year.” (The
planning for installation of levees and flood walls to contain what engineers
call a “500 year storm event” began around four years ago.) “We think it’s an
example of stepping up to an issue,” Philbrick says.
He adds the project is important for
Nalge Nunc International, a plastics company on Panorama Creek Drive. Nalge
Nunc, he says, is the largest, and maybe only significant, manufacturer in
Penfield. “They’re a good neighbor,” he says.
Primary facts
Primary
elections will be held for several elected offices in Monroe County on
September 9. To vote in the primary, you must be a city resident and a
registered member of the political party holding the election. Polling hours will
be noon to 9 p.m. Information: Monroe County Board of Elections, 428-4550 (TDD:
428-2390).
For more about the 2003 Primary elections, visit the News Articles section by clicking here!
This article appears in Aug 27 – Sep 2, 2003.
