- FILE PHOTO
- Lovely Warren.
City Council President and mayoral candidate Lovely Warren rolled out her economic plan (see below) this morning during a press conference at her west-side headquarters.
Warren’s plan includes creating a Rochester Industrial Development Agency to guarantee jobs for city residents, pursuing social impact bonds to help deal with Rochester’s serious social problems, creating a small business center, and adopting measures to increase transparency and promote sustainability.
Warren said her biggest criticism of her opponent, incumbent Mayor Tom Richards, is that he hasn’t done enough to create jobs for city residents. Unemployment in the City of Rochester is higher than unemployment in the county as a whole. Unemployment in the Rochester metro area was 7 percent in May, compared to 9.3 percent in the City of Rochester, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Warren’s plan also addresses housing and aging in place — measures to help aging residents stay in their homes as long as possible.
The Richards campaign called Warren’s plan a “collection of random ideas from a politician who has never created a private sector job in her life.”
This article appears in Jul 3-9, 2013.
ANOTHER industrial development agency–? Really?! I wonder if whatever brain trust put this together is paying attention to what’s been happening lately with IDAs around the state. For instance, reform efforts, including State-level legislation in this year’s session, and the calls to _consolidate_ IDAs instead of adding new ones. Progressives and elected officials in Rochester have complained for years, going back to at least the Bill Johnson mayoralty, about municipalities in Monroe County having their own IDAs separate from COMIDA — competing against each other to lure businesses across municipal boundaries. And now a plan for the City to do exactly what it’s been complaining about — creating its own IDA separate from COMIDA. Talk about mixed messages.
In Syracuse, where the city has its own IDA, businesses and developers who know how to play the game pit the city and county IDAs against each other in a bidding war to get what they want. In Buffalo, where past giveaways by the County IDA have hurt the city, instead of a simplistic idea like creating a city IDA, folks are pursuing a multi-pronged approach to reform. City and County Democratic appointees on the County IDA board have started voting in blocks against inappropriate, deck-chair-shuffling suburban giveaways — and having success. Now, City, State, and County leaders are working together to soon co-locate the County IDA with the City of Buffalo economic development folks and the regional office of Empire State Development, to eliminate silos and allow for “one-stop shopping” for businesses looking for assistance. This approach is being informed, in part, by advisors from the Brookings Institution, who are assisting Buffalo and Erie County with their economic challenges at the request of the Governor.
But without regard to problems that Syracuse created for itself, and in the face of all the current rethinking on IDAs in the State being in the direction of reform and consolidation and cooperation, this plan suggests going in the other direction. The idea is ill-considered. An informed and collaborative approach to IDA reform, like that being pursued in Erie County, would, of course, take some degree of power by City officials and stakeholders at the County level — but right now the City and progressive Democrats have very little power within Monroe County governance, despite the Democratic enrollment advantage County-wide. Why? Largely due to the interminable, internecine factional infighting among Monroe County Democrats, much of it driven, for decades, by Lovely Warren’s political patron.
This plan to create a new IDA does nothing to promote cooperation or collaboration at the County and regional level that Rochester needs — and which is being promoted elsewhere in the state. And the campaign of the challenger, which has been more about dividing than unifying almost from the get-go, doesn’t promise to take the community in the right direction, either.
I read Warren’s plan and I’m impressed. It’s well researched and comprehensive. It’s based on successful programs in progressive cities. But mostly, it’s honest and frank. She’s right: enough of the illusion, it’s not serving any of us—even me in the ‘burbs. Our region can’t survive if we continue to tolerate the poverty in the city. It’s unconscionable that Richards has ignored the jobs crisis –a staggering $1.7 BILLION was spent that created NO JOBS for city residents! Meanwhile, we have the 7th highest child poverty rate in the country. These children are poor because their parents don’t have jobs.
And as a woman… I continue to be disappointed in how patronizing Richards has been to Warren. She has raised important issues and deserves more respect than he’s given her. His behavior might have been acceptable 50 years ago when he was cutting his teeth in the corporate world, but it’s very offensive today.
I must have hit a nerve, my original comment to RaChaCha was deleted. Hmm…
Two points in response to RaChaCha, whose comment still strikes me as “inside information”:
1) The consolidation you advocate for–and claim the current administration supports–already exists in Monroe County. Can you honestly say that city residents have been well-served by COMIDA? 2) I GUARANTEE that when campaign contributions are reported, taxpayers will see that Richards has been using PILOT deals to curry favor with developers who give to his campaign. Taxpayers have gotten little–if anything–out of these PILOT deals. It might not rise to the pay-for-play that happens in Albany, but it’s close.
Taxpayers deserve a debate about the issues–including Richards’ consolidation vs. Warren’s City IDA. Instead, Richards has avoided any real discussion and speaks through vague prepared statements and insults. Voters deserve more substance.
@ironMommy–I agree!! Warren has raised some great issues and deserves more respect. It’s staggering that in 2013, male politicians still think that patronizing a female candidate is acceptable. Reminds me of that great Eleanor Roosevelt qote: “Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.”