The mayor and the schools

City: Given the city’s fiscal challenges, would you favor giving
more money to the CitySchool District?

Norwood: No. I think the real question is: How
do we get more state investment into local government and local education?
Rochester’s next mayor’s going to have to be very aggressive in laying out a
new vision for state participation in ensuring a sound basic education.

Education investment is broader than investment in the CitySchool District treasury. I want to
see significant increases in the birth-to-2 period in kids’ lives. There needs
to be additional investment in pre-k through eighth grade, making sure that we
have smaller schools, neighborhood-based schools, a quality curriculum, and
that we’re adequately staffing early intervention so that we’re able to keep
kids on track.

You want to have the
school superintendent report to the mayor. Describe how this would work.

I would see the School Board operating as an educational
policy-making body, just as City Council functions as a municipal policy-making
body. The day-to-day operations of the district, just as the administration of
city government, would be in the hands of the city administration. A school
superintendent, an education commissioner, would report to the mayor, just as
the housing commissioner reports to the mayor.

The issues of school governance and policy would flow from
the mayor’s office over to the School Board. The School Board would deliberate,
cast a vote, and that vote would be enacted subject to the approval of the
mayor, just as Council actions take place subject to the approval of the mayor.
And just as City Council can override a mayoral veto, the School Board would be
able to do so.

Would
the superintendent would find
himself or herself pulled in two directions — trapped between the mayor and
the School Board?

No. I don’t think that city commissioners or department
heads feel trapped between Council members and the administration. Elected
legislators serve commissioners or department heads when they’re able to
represent the views of the public and engage the administration in policy
debate. I think that commissioners welcome that.

What they don’t welcome, and what mayors don’t welcome, is
interference in the daily operations. I’m sure every School Board member is now
heavily engaged in helping parents get students into the schools of their
choice. That’s not the right and proper function of our elected policy makers.

Does a mayor have
enough time and emotional energy to add one more huge
department, schools, to the job?

That’s a fair question. But so much of what I hear on this
campaign has to do with A) how we make sure that schools work for kids, and B)
how we provide kids with the inner resilience to overcome the challenges in
life. That speaks so directly to schools that I don’t see any way I could serve
as mayor and accomplish what I’d like to accomplish, knowing that here’s an
area where all I can do is talk and point fingers.

Are you saying, then,
that part of the reason for students’ low achievement is not so much
concentrated poverty, the education level of the family, the street, and all of
that, but how the superintendent runs the school district?

No. What I’m saying is that either we believe that education
is the route by which young people are able to break free of these things, or
we believe that we’ll never be successfully able to educate children until we
solve all of these other things first. I deny that latter viewpoint.

Education is and has always been the route by which people
overcome poverty, by which people make it into the working and the middle class
of this society, and we need to be very focused on making results occur. I
don’t think there’s any lack of ideas; I think we have a clear sense of what
needs to happen. But the current governance model — where governance is
shared among seven people, as opposed to holding one individual accountable —
is a major impediment.

It’s a system where everybody’s accountable so no one’s
accountable, where the arrows of City Hall point in one direction and the
arrows of the district point in another, and we wind up with a city-school
district relationship that’s characterized by finger pointing. We have to move
beyond that.

And no disrespect to the board, but when it is a political
body of seven people, it means that they have to work to consensus and get
things done. The education of our children is too important to be left to that
type of consensual decision-making process.

We have a very bright superintendent. He should be fully
vested with the powers of the city government and the school district. He
should know that if he stands up and says, This is
going to happen, that he has the full weight of the mayor’s office behind him
to make that happen.

Money problems

Let’s talk a little
more about the city’s fiscal restraints. You say we need to make sure than the
state provides more funding for Rochester. Why do we get a smaller share than
Buffalo and other cities?

The reason is purely and absolutely political. Other
communities have been far more aggressive, and far more adept at getting
incremental increases than we have. They have been able to present our state
delegations with crises that have pulled urban and suburban legislators on the
same platform. We have not done that in Rochester, first of all because until
very recently we haven’t felt we needed to. We’ve been able to solve our
problems. In any given year, if you approach the mayor of Buffalo
and say, “How are your finances?” Buffalo would say, “Boy, we’re in trouble.”
Our culture in Rochester is, “We will balance our budget.” We always deliver a
balanced budget to our legislature.

I think that there is a real strength and a real value to
being fiscally responsible. I would not encourage my son to be irresponsible
simply because he can get money from me. The question is: As we have come to
the end of our own capacities, could we have been more aggressive and more
adept? And I think the answer is yes.

There is such a cultural difference, such a language
difference, between City Hall and the State Legislature. It has been very
difficult, because the gap between the way Albany operates and City Hall
operates is so wide. This community needs to learn how to do business
differently.

The state budget process does not begin in January with the
State of the State address. The state budget process begins in the fall, when
regional offices and then the central departments submit their budget requests
to the governor. Right now is when we should be working to impact next year’s
state budget.

And are we not?

No. Most of the people in this community will start
aggressively holding legislative breakfasts and luncheons and dinners in
January, February, March, and April. Half of the game will have passed by.

Are there any
city-county consolidations that you would look at to save money and perhaps
offer better service?

I’m open to reinvigorating conversations about the water
system. There ought to be a no-holds-barred conversation on every area. And
consolidations are a two-way street. We are very proud of the work that the
mayor has done in extending city services into the suburbs, the fire services,
building and zoning services. What are our unique assets? What competencies can
we offer to our neighbors and help this community find some relief from New
York State’s staggering economic disadvantage by lowering the tax requirement
for government?

When you prepare a
budget next spring, everybody will be asking for more money — more money for
cops, more money for schools, more money for community development. What will
be your priorities?

My priority will be finding where other people’s money can
take the heat off of city government. I have been very engaged in trying to
devise market dynamics that would lead to private housing construction in the
city. I believe that we are on the verge of being able to get out of the
business of constructing affordable housing. We have created market dynamics
where the real opportunities are in the private sector and in the
rehabilitation of existing stock.

But again, I think we need to look at how we leverage state
and federal dollars instead of city dollars. The answer is not a particular
issue slice that we can divest ourselves from but rather within each issue
slice, what are the things that we could pull out of and allow the voluntary
sector, the private sector, or a higher level of government step in and do it.

Or, what are things that we need to stop doing and this
community can survive without it? I hope that by finding this realignment
between the city and the City School District, there are things we’re doing out
of City Hall right now that can become part of district operations and can be
eligible for state support as an educational expense.

Where is the state
going to get the money?

The state’s going to do what the state government’s been
doing for the last 20 years. They’re going to engage in borrowing and fiscal
sleight to make sure that their obligations are met. As long as state
government is in place, it is going to make spending available. I don’t believe
it’s a tin-cup trip to Albany. I believe it’s a matter of going to Albany and
saying Rochester’s your policy laboratory. Here are investments you can make
and generate real results. We’ve done that with the universal pre-k program.
We’ve demonstrated to Albany how it’s an investment. We demonstrated with
world-class results that you really get a bang for your buck.

That role of being a laboratory makes this a very different
conversation than “Let’s join Buffalo
in a race to get cash.” Rather, let’s provide the public service of trying to
find smart answers to stubborn problems.

Shaping City Hall

How would your
administration be different from Bill Johnson’s?

It’s going to be different in its structure and its
composition. The 1950s corporate hierarchy has outlived its usefulness. I think
there needs to be a wholesale restructuring of City Hall in order to have an
interdepartmental approach.

I would have fewer departments, a flatter line, and a
smaller circle of people with direct reports to the mayor. That would give the
public greater contact with people who can actually make decisions instead of
having to refer things back to superiors.

We have an aging workforce at City Hall that’s experiencing
a great retirement rate. A restructuring would allow us the opportunity to restaff City Hall with people who have the skill sets that
match the customer needs today. And it gives us the opportunity to find out how
can we downsize city government and realize some cost-savings that we can pass
back to the taxpayer.

I would like to see a city government that is far more
connected with the other levels of government, and with elements outside
government: arts and culture, colleges and universities. We don’t have a staff
capacity right now to engage with those sectors, even though we acknowledge
that they are critical to our future.

I have a very good sense of those people within City Hall
who share my vision and who have demonstrated competency in their work. I also
have a sense of the people who are not in government right now who have the
talent, the expertise, the vision as well. There are great people in this
community, inside and outside of government, great people in this region who
don’t live in Rochester now but could be enticed to come.

What would be the
most important characteristics of your appointees?

I would say competence, community competence, and cultural
competence. The people around me now are people who display competencies in
those areas, professional as well as personal. Having a management structure
that allows for argumentation is necessary and healthy. I like diversity of
viewpoints. I like divergence of opinion. And I like being in the company of
people who are so solid that I am able to help meld
them across the dissonance into a common sense of vision and direction.

What would be your
role as mayor? The public face of City Hall? The chief
administrator?

It is the person who can reach outside of city government
and engage the other levels of government: the voluntary sector, the for-profit
sector, individual families, health care, higher education, and tap into their
investments so that their efforts become part of a collective whole.

I would hire department heads and commissioners who are able
to run their department so that I can engage with them on how their
department’s activities mesh or fail to mesh with what’s going on in the
broader world. I don’t think that the job of the mayor is to make sure that the
widgets are produced but rather to make sure that the widgets work with the
sprockets to make the machinery move.

What will be your
most important appointments?

City development. In my view, we
have done ourselves a disservice by decoupling economic development,
specifically neighborhood commercial development, from housing and neighborhood
development. What we see in our thriving real-estate markets is that housing
sales are supported by the presence of neighborhoods supporting retail within
walking distance. And retail follows rooftops, so retail needs sound
neighborhood planning.

From there, I’d say it’s public
safety services, the police chief, and the fire chief and then I’d say it’s the
deputy mayor who’s able to assist the mayor in long range and strategic
planning so that we’re working and operating not only in 2006 but also in 2010.

What’s the role of
the mayor in the MonroeCounty Democratic Party?

To be the leader of the Democratic Party.
Someone has to serve as a figure that can knit together or partner with each of
the various factions that exist and will always, thank God, exist within the
Democratic Party. We are a different political community. We do not need a
strong boss that comes in and commands everyone’s discipline and obedience.
What we need is someone who can be a facilitator, a facilitator of conversation
and of common action.

One of my knocks is that within the Democratic Party I’m
everybody’s friend. But certainly I think it is one of my strengths that among
those who are supporting other candidates, I count a good number of my friends.
I have been able to bring people together, to say, Now,
how do we become a team? How do we get things done on behalf of this community?

What will be your
position on open government?

I believe that the best government and the best politics is sharing information. There are times where information
cannot be shared, and at those times my government will be very clear on why it
is. I do not believe that everybody in city government should stand up and speak
for the mayor, because only those who are privy to the mayor’s thinking should
speak for the mayor. But line workers should certainly be free to discuss those
views insofar as they’re able to do so with accurate information, and I would
try to make sure that people understand the lines between the two. I’m very
proud that I insisted on language that made sure that this fast ferry board
operates by the very same information and openness standards as does City
Council.

I find that the more information people have, the more
thoroughly people can understand the limitations of government, the more
forgiving they are when errors are made or when things just don’t pan out.

This article appears in Aug 17-23, 2005.