Daily Star questionnaire: Prosperity

I just finished completing a platform questionnaire for the Daily Star.  I'll be posting the questions, and my answers.  Here's the third one.  The fourth one was about hydrofracking; I took it almost verbatim from my "Clearing Up The Onion a Little" post, so there's no need to repeat it.

If elected, what steps would you take or support to ensure the county's economic prosperity?

I think we need to be realistic about what County government can do to substantially impact the economic prosperity of Otsego County. I find it odd that the voices which strongly oppose government intervention or regulation (mostly in good times) are the first raised to demand that government improve the economic environment in bad times. 
 
Government – federal, state and local – can, at best, adjust some of the parameters at the periphery of economic activity. Tax policy, regulation, infrastructure and active marketing of under-used economic resources are its major tools. The primary responsibility for economic growth lies with private industry. I think that the County has a role, as well, but at most, a secondary one.

In Otsego County, we have some of the best conditions for economic activity that could be imagined. World-class tourism sites, breathtaking lakes, beautiful and accessible countryside; history, opera, geology, art. Clean, fresh air and water. Rail and highway access. We have two hospitals and two colleges. 
 
We have not suffered from a lack of economic development councils and the plans they have developed. It's hard to believe that, over the years, all that activity has missed major methods of marketing our County and workable ideas for stimulating business. We certainly need to keep doing this kind of thing: letting professionals examine what is, and plan for what could be.

Once again, of course, we need to consider just what role the County has in economic development, especially in a long-term economic downturn, when drastically reduced revenues require public and private organizations to make hard choices. Tax incentives, infrastructure upgrade and regulatory relief can encourage business growth, but they each have their cost: incentives and infrastructure cost the other taxpayers money, and regulatory relief often has a negative impact on their quality of life. How much of this cost are we willing to pay? Hopefully, it will depend on the priority level established by the Board, if they are able to – and choose to – take on that responsibility.

Daily Star questionnaire: County Manager

I just finished completing a platform questionnaire for the Daily Star.  I'll be posting the questions, and my answers.  Here's the second one. 

Do you support the establishment of a county manager? Why or why not?
I am in favor of hiring a County Manager, and the more I think and read and talk about it, the more convinced I become that this is the direction that the County (and the City) needs to go.

County Reps are all professionals but, for the most part, not in the area of running a municipal government. It's a part-time job in public service, and most do an exceptionally good job: they work hard, learn what they can, and do what they think is right. If I'm elected, I hope the same can be said of me. But we're not professional municipal managers. We're elected by the people, I believe, to guide the County through the longer-term, not to spend time on the shorter-term operational details.

County Reps are currently functioning as county administrators, rather than leading as a County Board. At full meetings and in committee, they spend time on administrative tasks such as approving requests for conference attendance, raising petty cash funds from $25 to $50, and deciding whether to approve Coke or Pepsi machines in the Manor. I do not believe that this is what we elect our leaders to do.

There are urgently important planning and prioritizing issues on which the Board should be focusing most of its energy. We need to establish very clear guidelines regarding what county government should be and what it should do; we need to create long-term goals and visions that will drive our functioning. Then, we need to do the hard work of aligning our planning, our organization and our budgets to those goals and visions. This cannot be done while the County Board is authorizing the purchase of vacuum cleaners.

There is a good deal of talk, from candidates and current Board members, about redistricting (which is a different subject), and the suggestion that the Board be reduced from 14 to perhaps nine members. I think this would be a great mistake without a County Manager. As we know, the urgent tends to trump the important, and with only nine Board members, the administration issues would continue to clamor for the attention of fewer Reps, and long-term prioritization and planning would fade even further into the background. With a County Manager taking responsibility for the day-to-day running of the County, I think that nine Reps could lead from a more global perspective.

Regarding the financing of a County Manager, we could start by eliminating a certain number of Representative Districts – for redistricting purposes, or just because so much of the Board's work has been shifted to the Manager's office. Other County positions could be eliminated (because the work was being done or directed by the Manager), and we would certainly expect the Manager to provide cost savings by cutting waste and improving efficiency – that's one of the reasons we'd be hiring him or her in the first place. There is every reason to believe (or even write into the contract) that the Manager's office would be paying for itself before long.

Daily Star Questionnaire: Otsego Manor

I just finished completing a platform questionnaire for the Daily Star.  I'll be posting the questions, and my answers.  Here's the first one.

Do you support the privatization of Otsego Manor? Why or why not?

Otsego Manor takes up a very substantial proportion of the County budget. This suggests that it is one of the most important things that Otsego County does. If this is not the case – if, after careful planning and prioritization of County functions by the Board, running a nursing home is not very high on the list – then the work of generating and considering options should begin.

First priority for this work is the current residents of Otsego Manor. Not only must we honor the written and unwritten commitments Otsego County has made to them, but they must understand this clearly and completely. The Otsego Manor committee must meet with residents and their families personally, throughout whatever process is chosen, and continue to assure them of the stability of their position at the Manor.

What this means is that the Board needs to articulate the difference between the County's commitment to current residents, and the County's view of nursing home services as a major priority in the future. We may decide that the latter is not something a County should be doing; nevertheless, that decision should have no substantive effect on the former.

If, in fact, the County decides that it should not be in the business of running a nursing home, privatization would seem the only option. However, as with the MOSA decision, there are varieties of privatization. As this issue evolves, we will learn a good deal more about how this might work. One thing I hope that we can remember throughout this process: the private sector has a single goal, which is to maximize profits for its stockholders. This often works well, but in human services, it often results in “collateral damage” - in people being left out. Decisions regarding the future of the Manor really have to be made with this in mind, and efforts need to be made to make sure that our older citizens do not become collateral damage.

Without having been close to the work and decision-making involved in running the Meadows and the Manor all these years, I would certainly like to learn more about all this before taking a definitive stand, but at this moment, it seems to me that, given the required commitment of resources, the County should not choose to be in the business of running a nursing home.

Clearing Up the Onion A Little

I got an e-mail yesterday from a District 11 resident, asking if I'd summarize my position on hydrofracking clearly. That's not the only request I've gotten on this issue; sometimes when I get a little too wordy, my fundamental position gets obscured. On the other hand, a lot can be lost when a complex issue is boiled down to a short sentence. So let's see if I can be clear without losing some of the important bits. Here's my reply:

I am completely against having any methane drilling - any hydrofracking - occurring in Otsego County.  There is no question that the potential dangers are real, and that they (the dangers) have come to fruition in other areas where hydrofracking has gone forward.  There is a high probability that our water, our roads and our way of life will be damaged beyond repair.  We (both the citizens and the legislators of various municipalities) would be irresponsible if we did not oppose this kind of environmental damage in our county.  I am amazed at the fact that there doesn't seem to be anyone presenting evidence that the opposite is true.

Two things stand out for me, in this issue.  One is that we are not sure, at this point, whether Town Boards, the City Council here in Oneonta, or the County Board, will have any authority to ban or regulate hydrofracking.  I feel strongly that we should have that authority, and that our efforts should be focused in that direction.  The anti-hydrofracking community has done the citizen and legislative education, raised awareness, and built networks.  All this needs to be mobilized in the service of bringing the authority to ban and regulate back to the local municipalities.  Sometimes, a locality needs to sacrifice a little for the good of the wider community - siting of prisons, dumps, wind turbines, etc. - and some localities get lucky - parks, schools, transport - since these things are necessary.  Hydrofracking is not necessary, and no locality in New York State should be required to 'take a hit for the team,' just because there are those who predict that jobs will be created.  We should be able to say 'No.'

The other issue is:  If we win, we are leaving a large amount of (relatively) clean energy in the ground.  We need to make up for that, with alternative energy eventually, but conservation now.  How can we, in Otsego County, after successfully opposing the use of a large methane reserve, help make that reserve unnecessary?  What if we all spent the next year working at reducing our fossil fuel usage by 10%?  It's the right thing to do.

I do have clear and strong opinions on many issues, but as you can see, I get interested in the pieces that make up the puzzle, and sometimes led astray from the simple conclusion.  I hope I've been a little clearer than I have in the past. 

Thanks again for the conversation -

Economics

I recently got an e-mail from a neighbor, who was concerned about rising costs of government.  He wanted to know how I stood on entitlements, and whether my approach included cradle-to-grave assistance.  Good questions, hard questions.  He's retired, on a fixed income (as I am), and his property taxes have doubled since his retirement; the last two years, he has had to borrow money to pay them. 

It's the same kind of concerns that most middle-class Americans are expressing, about real financial setbacks.  Here's what I wrote to him:

Thanks for your thoughts.  None of that is easy, and we ran out of simple answers a long time ago.

I'm glad you mentioned my thoughts about government's role.  I think there are basic needs that, as a community, we can provide for each other.  But I really mean 'basic' here.  I'm retired, too, and on a fixed income, and I'm no more in favor of cradle-to-grave entitlements than you are.  It would be great if the free market could provide enough prosperity, spread around equally, that anyone who wanted to work could work, and enjoy at least a basic standard of living, without going hungry, or having to borrow to pay taxes.

But the free market doesn't work that way, as you know.  I assume you worked all your life, but the free market didn't leave you the means to retire with a basic standard of living.  I assume you receive Social Security (as I will, soon), which is our community's (our country's) way of helping out our older citizens who had no retirement plan, or one that didn't meet their needs.  For many of us, yourself included, even that isn't working so well.

But it's not really the market's job to provide us all with that prosperity, even when we work hard all our lives.  It's the market's job to maximize profits for corporations.  When this works well, prosperity affects a large proportion of us - but never all of us.  And when the market doesn't work well, like these days, there are a lot of us who get left out.

So what I'm saying is that I don't want to leave these folks behind.  In a country like ours, even in this economy, it's still a pretty small proportion.   9% unemployment is awful - but it still means that 91% of us are working. 

How do we run a government - Otsego County, for example - with increasing costs and falling revenues?  We cut to the bone, of course.  That means, to me, that everyone sacrifices.  You already have, paying interest on the loan to cover your taxes.  There are some who haven't.  So as we look for ways to pare down the size and scope of our County government operations, we have to make sure that those who have the least don't give up the most.  That's the way it generally works, and that has to stop.  Those who have a lot - not you or I, but those who have a lot - must be asked to help out.  Our solution has to be fair to everyone.

So I don't have a detailed plan to lay out for you (yet), but I hope I've been clear (if a little wordy):  1.  We have to examine every dollar we spend.  2.  The solutions have to be fair to everyone.   3.  We have to identify the really basic needs of those who are left out   4.  No one's entitled - we respond to basic need emergencies. 

Your questions really got me to think on a deeper level - thanks - and I really believe that 'no one's entitled.'  It's not about entitlement.  It's about responding to really basic human needs.  In my career, I met a whole lot of really poor folks.  Many of them worked very hard - some harder than I ever had to - but they never got ahead economically, and they often were short of food, or heat, or utilities, etc.  They got left out.  That's what I mean by 'basic human needs.'  If we can help them meet those needs through the free market, that would be my first choice, by a long shot.  That hasn't worked so well.

As I said, no easy answers.  Neither I, nor my opponent, are economists, nor have we served in County government before.  If I'm elected, I intend to learn and listen.  Thanks for being part of that conversation.

What do you think?

Democrats

I was at the annual Democratic fundraiser dinner a couple of weeks ago, and ended up sitting next to Tom DiNapoli, the New York State Comptroller, who is responsible for all things fiscal in the State. He was a featured speaker, and his remarks included this:

There may be some satisfaction in the knowledge that the rate of home foreclosures has declined, but I don't think that helps the family which has lost their house and don't know where they're going to go next. We may celebrate a downturn in the unemployment rate, but that always makes me think about the worker who is still looking, still jobless, and losing hope.

I think that this kind of wraps up an important reason why I'm a Democrat. There's a approach to economic policy that assumes that a certain level of 'collateral damage' is acceptable for the good of the majority. This leads to policies which enrich many, but leave way too many others less well-off than they had been. Too often, those who get left behind are those who are already poor and powerless.

This isn't my idea of American democracy. We need to work on reducing the economic damage across the county, state and country, of course, but we also have a duty to address the needs of our neighbors, who are real people, whose lives reflect the economic damage done far away from our homes and theirs. And when things get better, we need to remember that 'better' is always relative. If you look, you'll find folks who aren't following the rest of us into 'better.'

I think American democracy is about everyone, every last citizen, with noone left out. I'm not sure that either party does that really, really, well, but over the forty or fifty years I've been following politics and government, the Democrats seem to have been trying harder.