Four years ago, we urged MonroeCounty voters to reject Jack
Doyle’s bid for re-election as county executive. Among our reasons: the threats
and bullying that he and other Republican Party leaders used to get their way,
and the close correlation between the awarding of county contracts and
donations to Doyle and the Republican Party.
           If
Democrats had fielded a strong candidate that year, it’s likely that Doyle
would have been defeated. Few people were willing to speak out publicly against
him, but the hostility toward Doyle was palpable. It didn’t go away after the
election, and was likely the reason his wife lost her bid for State Supreme
Court.
           Doyle, or
Republican leaders, finally got the message, and earlier this year, Doyle
announced that he would not seek re-election. Running in his place is County
Clerk Maggie Brooks, who says she’ll be able to reduce the hostility between
City Hall and the CountyOfficeBuilding — and who insists that
she will bring “real leadership, real vision, realchange.”
           Brooks has
more depth, and is more thoughtful, than many of her critics have given her
credit for, and during her campaign she has tried to distance herself from
Doyle. She has criticized some Doyle administration policies. She says she
would end the animosity between the county and City Hall. And she has a catchy
campaign chant: “Jack is Jack. That’s the past. I’m the future.”
           But the
fact is, Doyle hasn’t been the only problem.
Republican Party chair Steve Minarik has built a
tough, effective fundraising machine, and the interests of that machine often
seem to take precedence over the interests of the
public. If Brooks is elected, Minarik, CountyLegislature leaders, and the
party’s smooth, aggressive treasurer Bill Nojay will
still be with us. And there’s plenty of indication that they, not she, will be
in charge.
           The latest
outrage: the orchestration of the county’s 2004 budget, submitted in sketchy
form — late — last week. Doyle has promised a more complete budget this
week. When he releases it, the public will find out what services he’s cutting.
But the Republican leadership of the CountyLegislature has postponed public
hearings on the budget until after the election. That will substantially mute
the public discussion. And, of course, it will benefit Brooks’ candidacy.
           Even if the
Minarik machine didn’t call the shots, however, there
would be serious problems with a Brooks
administration. Most important, while Brooks says she represents change, she
stands solidly with Doyle on the most critical challenge facing MonroeCounty today: county finances.
           Years of
Doyle fiscal policies have put the county on the edge of fiscal disaster. They
are causing pain to the poorest residents of the county. They are eroding the
institutions that have made Rochester
a nationally known cultural center. We are no less concerned about the bullying
and contracts than we were four years ago. Now, however, there is an even
greater concern: the threat to the community’s future as a financially viable,
economically healthy, good place to
live. That threat is real. It is as serious as it is because of the policies of
the Doyle administration.
           And Maggie
Brooks insists that she will continue those policies.
           MonroeCounty is rapidly sliding downhill.
The loss of jobs and young adults is proof. The loss of open space, the
stagnant population, the empty stores in Irondequoit Mall: All are proof. The status quo will
continue that slide. Three reports by local business leaders say so. And Brooks
represents the status quo.
           Bill
Johnson is a proven leader who has run a fiscally stable government under
difficult conditions. He is a person of accomplishment. And he is a person of
courage and vision.
Finances
As Jack Doyle has pointed out, the county’s expenses have
been rising sharply, and much of that increase has been in “unfunded mandates”:
costs that the state orders the county to pay. For the foreseeable future,
those costs are expected to continue to go up.
           Doyle has
been solving his immediate problems with one-time infusions of cash: selling
county assets like the Civic Center Garage and the Mill Seat Landfill and using
money from the county’s tobacco settlement.
           Brooks
insists that the county can continue to keep the tax levy — the amount the
county collects in taxes — flat. She, like Jack Doyle, is highly selective in
her concern about increasing taxes. MonroeCounty has had the highest
sales-tax rate in the state, and Doyle has just proposed raising it again.
           Incredibly,
Brooks also insists that she’ll be able to balance the budget without cutting
services — and without borrowing. Either Brooks is dangerously naïve or she
is not telling the truth. Both spell trouble for MonroeCounty residents.
           Doyle’s
fiscal policies have brought criticism from local business leaders. The
administration has also been criticized by national bond-rating companies for
the county’s continuing budget problems, for depleting its reserve funds, and
for balancing the budget by selling assets. Such criticisms are not just idle
words; when those companies downgrade the county’s bond rating, the county has
to pay more to borrow money.
           Brooks
insists that “Wall Street” is “irresponsible” for wanting the county to have
reserve funds. “When we have a surplus,” she said in her interview with City, “critics start advocating that we
spend it.” But having reserve funds is a good government practice, a hedge
against unforeseen expenses and emergencies.
           Brooks,
like many other Republicans, says that we can reduce county government costs by
“streamlining” government operations. That’s simply ludicrous. Republicans have
been in charge of MonroeCounty
government for more than a decade. To say that efficiencies can balance the
budget is to say that the Republicans have been operating an inefficient
government, full of fat, for years. That they spent down the county’s reserves,
and left the fat in. That they’re selling off assets and borrowing money but
haven’t been diligent enough to institute efficiencies. That they’ve watched
the county’s credit rating slide, reached a point where they had to consider
closing county parks, and did nothing.
           Even Jack
Doyle has apparently rejected that stand now. Doyle’s press release
accompanying his 2004 budget last week contained this significant statement:
“We have exhausted our ability to cut and find efficiencies in non-mandated
services.”
           Brooks says
that keeping tax receipts flat will boost the economy. But it has not worked
for the Doyle administration. It has not brought new industry here. It has not
stopped the Kodak layoffs or replaced the Kodak losses. Instead, it has put the
county in precarious financial shape and eroded the quality of life.
           During his
campaign, Johnson has told the truth: There are tough times ahead. When all the
assets are sold and all the tobacco money is gone, the county will still face
rising costs. Unless it raises property taxes or hikes the sales tax again, the
county will have to cut services. Those services will include more than the
programs that help the county’s neediest residents — the targets of Doyle’s
mean-spirited proposal last week. They will include funding for parks, for road
maintenance, for arts organizations, for boosting economic development.
           In that
case, this will be a far different county from the one we’ve lived in. And if
Brooks is elected and keeps her word, the only accomplishment she will be able
to claim is that she, like Jack Doyle, kept property taxes flat.
Development
Both Brooks and Johnson emphasize the importance of boosting
economic development in MonroeCounty
and in the region. But Johnson understands — far more than Brooks — the
importance of a regional approach. And Johnson understands — far more than
Brooks — the damage the Doyle administration has done.
           Johnson
notes, for example, that towns, villages, and the city currently compete with
one another for economic development. All are desperate for a stronger
property-tax base, so they offer tax breaks — literally indulge in a bidding
war — to attract new businesses. Many times, those are businesses simply
moving from one part of the county to another. That does nothing to increase
economic development in the county, and it increases the tax burden on the
individual municipalities.
           Johnson
notes, too, that while there’s a growing awareness of the need for service
consolidation, the Doyle administration recently set up yet another
economic-development agency, the Monroe County Economic Development
Corporation.
           Johnson has
talked for years about the need for a regional economic-development effort. He
says that as county executive, he would press for a non-competitive agreement
among towns, villages, and the city, to stop the internecine warfare taking
place.
           Brooks, on
the other hand, offers little more than vague proposals, and she promises
little more than a continuation of the status quo. She emphasizes the
importance of individual governments and business interests “working together”
to “coordinate our economic development message.” She wants local
municipalities to “streamline zoning and planning approvals.” She says we must
“diversify” our economic-development efforts and focus more on “emerging
technologies.” That’s all to the good. But she does not offer any proposals
that would move this county, and this region, forward.
Consolidation
For years, Jack Doyle has been obsessed with the issue of
“metro government.” Brooks has latched onto that obsession. Like Doyle, Brooks
knows very well that Bill Johnson has absolutely no power to bring about
metropolitan government, or any kind of consolidation of local government or
school districts.
           Even if
Johnson proposed some form of consolidation, it would have to be approved by
the Republican-dominatedCounty
Legislature. Then it would have to be approved by the state legislature. And
then it would come back home, to be voted on by MonroeCounty residents. And if the
majority of voters in a single affected
municipality — a single village or town, for instance — objected to the
consolidation, it would fail. Simply put, there will be no government
consolidation in MonroeCounty
— ever — unless MonroeCounty
voters want it.
           And yet,
like Doyle, Brooks repeatedly works the “threat” of consolidation into her
campaign message. There can be only one reason for this tactic: It takes the
focus off of the county’s fiscal condition. That
is the real issue in this campaign. And Brooks and the Republican Party
leaders don’t want to talk about it.
           There is,
of course, a need for a serious discussion of consolidation. In MonroeCounty, there are multiple layers
of government: the county, the city, 19 towns, 10 villages, 18 school
districts. Upstate New York, the
Brookings Institution reported earlier this week, has twice as much government
per person as Massachusetts, New
Jersey, or Connecticut.
One result is a duplication of services that could be provided less expensively
and more efficiently. And, Brookings noted, the fragmentation of local
governments discourages cooperative planning and encourages hostility between
the city, suburbs, and rural areas.
           Johnson,
like several reports by business leaders, hassaid that the cost of government in this region is contributing to
our financial problems, and that we should find ways to reduce that cost. As
Johnson has noted, there are numerous ways to consolidate. The point is, we cannot continue to nibble around the edges, unless we
are willing to pay for the duplication. We cannot complain about high taxes and
insist on keeping the amount of government that is driving those taxes up.
           A stand-out
example: In this one county there are 39 different fire agencies. Thirty-nine. Some of them use paid firefighters. Some use
volunteers. But all of them have equipment. Some have substantial firehouses.
Some handle very few fires a year. And some are ridiculously close to one
another.
           Consolidating
some of those agencies wouldn’t be popular. But it would save money. And it
wouldn’t reduce the quality of service or the public’s protection.
Social services
Jack Doyle is leaving the community with an important county
agency, the Department of Social Services, in chaos. The root of that problem
is Doyle’s reorganization of the department. In the long term, reorganization
may have been needed. And properly funded, it might result in better, more efficient service to the county’s needy. And
certainly, if reorganization can provide quality service and save money, that’s
a good thing.
           But that
requires time. It requires planning and experience. It requires money. In its
desperation to save money quickly, the Doyle administration slashed the staff
and lost many experienced workers and administrators, at a time when caseloads
were increasing. The result is a highly stressed, poorly trained, overworked
staff. Case files are being lost. Qualified recipients are having benefits cut
off. MonroeCounty
residents who need to talk with caseworkers can’t get through on the telephone.
Clients with appointments are kept waiting for hours.
           Also hurt:
day-care providers, including low-income women, who are receiving county
reimbursement checks late — or are told several months after the fact that
some of the children they’ve been caring for have been disqualified — and
that there’ll be no county payment coming.
           This is a
system that is inhumane, and that will become costly as the county is forced to
reinstate qualified recipients who are dropped erroneously.
           It is, of
course, Maggie Brooks, not Jack Doyle, who is running for county executive. And
in a recent City interview, Brooks
said there’ve been problems with the way Doyle has gone about the DSS reform.
It was too top-down, she said, too many top administrators were lost, and the
county did not make an essential investment in technology.
           But here
again, Brooks promises change but offers none. She wants to distance herself
from the Doyle administration. But she embraces Doyle’s fiscal philosophy and,
perhaps innocently, Doyle’s deceit. She insists that although the DSS caseload
is increasing, the county will realize the savings Doyle has projected. And she
says the county will be able to afford to invest in essential technology,
without raising taxes.
Brooks’ conservatism
Little attention has been paid during the campaign to issues
of political philosophy, but those issues are important at the local level as
well as the national. Brooks is a very conservative Republican.
           She says
she is “very much in favor of the concept” of providing tax dollars to
religious service providers. She is opposed to abortion; Johnson is pro-choice.
While that issue may not seem relevant to a county race, it is. Among the
agencies that lost county funding last year was Planned Parenthood. And several
years ago, conservative county legislators lobbied (unsuccessfully) to ban
county funding for agencies — even hospitals — that perform late-term
abortions or provide RU486, the so-called “abortion pill.”
           Brooks
tends to talk about complicated issues in simple, knee-jerk (and often
divisive, anti-poor) terms. She says she regrets that the county can’t provide
more money for day care and that she wants to maintain the current level of
funding. But she quickly falls into conservative stereotyping, insisting that
there are “a lot of people” who are getting public day-care funds “for taking
care of a grandchild.”
           Johnson
discusses the complexities of such issues as Medicaid costs, noting that
Medicaid finances nursing-home care for the elderly and health care for
low-income people who can’t afford insurance. Brooks, on the other hand, talks
about the need to reduce “welfare fraud.”
           Brooks has
repeatedly blamed Johnson for not doing more to reduce the city’s crime rate.
Johnson has noted the link between crime and drug sales and drug usage. Limited
access to drug-treatment programs, he says, prevents many people from fighting
their addition, and they often to turn to crime to get money to buy drugs.
           During the
WXXI-TV debate between Brooks and Johnson last week, Johnson noted that the
county has reduced funding both for drug treatment and for probation services.
But Brooks brushed off that issue, insisting that voters “don’t want to hear
about the collateral issues.”
Johnson’s record
Bill Johnson’s career is one of accomplishment and
leadership. The city’s solid credit rating is in strong contrast to that of the
county. Johnson is respected nationally as a dynamic, creative mayor. And
Brooks’ contention that he has accomplished little suggests that she has little
understanding of such issues as poverty and crime. It also suggests that she
never looks around her when she drives into the city to work — and that she
seldom ventures into the city on weekends or at night.
           Rochester,
like many cities, is a complex organism. It houses and educates nearly all of
the county’s poor, and so it continues to wrestle with problems of crime and
low student achievement. But its community-development efforts — from street
and sidewalk maintenance to low-income housing — have been applauded
nationally.
           Rochester
struggles to maintain its property-tax base, eroded by suburban sprawl. Thirty
percent of city property is tax-exempt, and much of that property is owned by
government and institutions that serve the entire region: StrongHospital, the University
of Rochester, state and federal
offices, major metropolitan churches, theaters, and museums. What those
properties do not pay in taxes, other city property owners must make up.
           It is an
enormous challenge to provide essential services under such conditions, and to
attract new business and housing development. And yet the City of Rochester,
under Bill Johnson and his predecessor Tom Ryan, has done just that.
           And the
city, unlike the county under Jack Doyle, has insisted on involving residents
in planning. While the Doyle administration has tried to force a Thruway exit
and a soccer complex on the residents of Chili, a holiday light show on the
residents of Mendon, a zoo expansion on SenecaPark, Johnson has engaged thousands
of residents and business representatives in planning the future of their
neighborhoods and their city.
           Downtown
housing development continues, in Grove Place,
where townhouses are snapped up as quickly as they’re built; in the Cascade
District, where high-end loft apartments and high-tech offices are thriving and
more are being developed; in the East End, where
apartments and lofts continue to be built. Among the newest developments: Sagamore on East, a condominium project where prices range
from $350,000 to $600,000, and the Michaels Stern Building, loft apartments and
retail in a significant downtown structure. New condos are under way in the Geva neighborhood. Ground has been broken for a major
housing development along the river in Corn Hill.
           Geva draws record crowds. The StrongMuseum has expanded. The East
End and Alexander Street
draw traffic-jam crowds at night. New restaurants continue to open downtown.
Thousands of young adults turn out for the East End Festivals. The Little
Theatre continues to mock the myth that movie theaters can not operate in
downtown areas.
           The
Rochester MusicFest and the Greater Rochester
International Jazz Festival enliven the summer. Crowds pack the aisles at the
Rochester Public Market.
           This is not
a city on the ropes. It is a city whose current and
previous administrations have adhered to prudent tax policies and careful
budgeting. It is a city that through private initiative as well as public
investment is a lively, attractive place to live and work.
Saving the county
Jack Doyle’s gift to the Greater Rochester region is a
county in serious trouble. Without a dramatic change in leadership, MonroeCounty residents will find
themselves with deteriorating parks and roads, with few arts institutions, with
under-funded police and fire services. That kind of county is not in a position
to attract new development — or keep the businesses it has.
           To reverse
the course Doyle has put us on will require courage, intelligence, leadership,
and bold action — by the county executive, the county legislature, and the
leaders of the city, towns, and villages. Bill Johnson has those qualities.
While Maggie Brooks may have them too, we’ve seen little evidence of it in the
campaign. Instead, she has given every indication that on the issues that
matter most, she will continue the Doyle-Minarik
policies.
           The
November 4 election is one of the most important in MonroeCounty history. The Brooks campaign
has tried to mask the serious challenges facing the community with platitudes
and metro-government scare tactics.
           Bill
Johnson understands the challenges facing the community. He knows that
continuing to follow the Doyle policies will bring great harm to the community.
He knows that restoring the county’s health and attracting new development will
not be easy and will not be painless. But with co-operation from Republican
legislators and town supervisors, we believe he will be able to bring this
disparate community together.
This article appears in Oct 22-28, 2003.
