When
County Executive Maggie Brooks declared at the outset of her first-ever State
of the County Address that “the state of our county has greatly improved,” she
said she did so “with a clear vision for our future.”
But
what exactly that vision is was unclear: Very little of what Brooks addressed
was new.
There
was, of course, her announcement that she plans to extend the county’s
prescription drug discount program, currently available to seniors, to all the
county’s residents. And she’s launching a program to dole out $3,500 grants to
homeowners for lead paint abatement. But details of those plans — and what
their financial impact on the county might be — are yet to come.
Instead,
Brooks served up a series of pats on the back to programs already in place.
Perhaps
the best example of this was her tribute to the County of Monroe Industrial
Development Agency, which took up nearly 10 minutes of the 35-minute speech.
Using
three businesses as examples, Brooks touted the success of county efforts to
grow the local economy. She cited figures like the nearly 1,000 jobs the
incentives are projected to create and nearly 5,000 more they will retain. But
the figure she led off with — the one that’s supposed to make the case for
the program’s success — is the 67 percent spike in the number of businesses
using the incentives in 2004 over 2003, after COMIDA retooled some of the
programs to make them more attractive.
Minutes
later, however, she measured the success of another program by a different
yardstick.
“It’s
because of innovative services and programs like these [the Department of Human
Services’ new St. Paul Street welfare-to-work center],” Brooks said, “coupled
with effective case management that we ended 2004 with a net reduction in the
total Public Assistance caseload for three months in a row.”
Not
surprisingly, Brooks promoted the budget her administration prepared for 2005
and the Budget Advisory Team she assembled to help with it, while taking the
opportunity to call yet again for Medicaid reform in Albany. Conspicuously
absent was any concrete strategy that can be implemented locally to address
looming structural deficits in the county’s budget.
Even
if Governor George Pataki’s Medicaid plan is approved, “the resources of our
county government remain limited,” she said. Her solution? “We must continue to
rethink the everyday practices of the past and continue to think outside of the
box.”
Brooks
also passed up the chance to express specific plans and goals for the county
that typically mark executive addresses at higher levels of government. Instead
she revisited old (but upbeat) news like the expected birth of a baby elephant
at the Seneca Park Zoo, the rise in passenger traffic at the airport, and
tougher standards for the county’s four public authorities.
Perhaps
that’s because positive stories provide excellent material for the speech’s
political purpose: to reinforce Brooks’ image as a conciliator. At the opening
of the address, she identified as her signature accomplishment “the new spirit
of cooperation that we have established in county government.” Such rhetoric
was peppered throughout the address, which ended where it began: “Let’s be
proud of what we’ve become in the last year: One community, together again.”
That’s a tough
sentiment to disagree with, but the county legislature’s Democratic Caucus took up the
task, in a response delivered by Minority Leader Stephanie Aldersley following
the main address. With few specific statements to contradict, Dems turned most
of their attack toward a familiar target — and one that undermines Brooks’
bid to cast herself as a uniter: partisan divisions.
“If
words and deeds are to be met on this matter, then the administration and the
Republican Majority in the legislature must deal with the legislature in a more
fair and balanced manner,” said Aldersley. “In the past year, Democrats in the
legislature have made numerous requests for information and proposed
significant legislation on behalf of the 300,000 residents we represent. The
response has been, frankly, no response.”
Aldersley
listed a litany of requests to the administration that went unanswered. She
conceded that Brooks’ administration has made the tone of local government more
positive. But she questioned whether that made any difference if the day-to-day
business of governing was growing less cooperative.
You
can read the entire 2005 State of the County Address at www.monroecounty.gov
This article appears in Feb 2-8, 2005.
