16 August 2004
Leona Czolgosz
Dear Mr. Wilmers
M&T Bank president Robert Wilmers recently offered to underwrite the search for a new Buffalo schools superintendent and to subsidize that superintendent's salary. In a city on the fringe of bankruptcy, any offer of help sounds good, which is probably why former Buffalo News editor Murray Light wrote a column in the News saying the city should accept Wilmers' offer, no questions asked. But people have been asking questions, especially after Wilmers let it be known that he wanted to pick 3 of the 7 members of the search committee. If Wilmers is paying part of the salary does the school superintendent have to answer to two masters? It's good for the community when local richfolk try to help (Jeremy Jacobs' help was critical in the recent search for Bill Greiner's replacement at UB), but it's not so good when richfolk try to use their money to shape the community to fit their preferences. In this open letter, Leona Czolgosz (the presudonym of an individual deeply involved in Buffalo civic affairs who has written previously for Buffalo Report), suggests ways for Wilmers to help without doing harm..
Dear Mr. Wilmers:
There is a way to do things and a way not to do things.
You like doing things the way you want to. As God and Alan Greenspan know, you’ve been a successful bank chairman. Operating mainly in areas where the economy is going down, down, down, M&T Bank’s profits are going up, up, up. I don’t know how you do it. Hats off.
But a few days ago, you made a very public offer to fund a national search for a new Buffalo school superintendent and to subsidize the new superintendent’s salary. The proposal made quite a splash.
Sometimes splashes just get people wet.
Let’s say you really wanted to accomplish the goal: “Making sure the Buffalo Board of Education hires the best possible new school superintendent.” There was a way to do it. It goes something like this:1. Contact the head of a neutral party, one that can receive money: say, the Community Foundation of Greater Buffalo or the Dean of the University at Buffalo School of Education.
2. Ask them to work with you quietly to come up with a proposal on how to fund a national search and how to supplement a new superintendent’s salary. Maybe the foundation or school could convene the search; maybe the salary could be supplemented through speaking honoraria or teaching or a housing allowance.
3. Ask the foundation or school to float the ideas by those who have an important role to play in the search: the Board of Education, elected officials, and, yes, the teachers’ union. Ask them to amend the original proposal based on the feedback they receive.
4. Help the foundation or school raise the money required. Kick off the funding with a signature gift. Challenge your friends—and maybe even some non-friends--to do the same.
Easier said than done, I know. But it might have worked.
Of course, it takes time and effort—and lots of negotiation--but you have many good staff people at your bank who might rather work on this for awhile than, say, reconciling accounts.
And it takes trusting other institutions and other good people in the community. I’m not sure you have that trust, or engender it.
In successful cities, business leaders know how to get civic things done, and, though money is good, it’s not always about money.
Either you don’t know how to get civic things done (or screwed up this time, at least), or your real goal was something other than “Making sure the Buffalo Board of Education hires the best new school superintendent.” Making a splash, perhaps? Or something else?
Murray Light, retired editor of The Buffalo News, a grizzled media veteran, uncritically lauded you in his Sunday column. “Wilmers has never to my knowledge, used his personal contributions or those of M&T Bank to inappropriately influence the organizations assisted by his philanthropy,” Mr. Light shined.
Mr. Light is right that M&T has been, by many measures, “a good corporate citizen.” We’ll probably rue the day that Chase Manhattan or Citigroup or Wells Fargo pays a premium to buy M&T, makes the bank’s shareholders (including you) even richer, and “achieves instant market share” in our Land that Time Forgot.
But I do think M&T’s influence—verily, at times, control—over institutions like the the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, the Buffalo Philharmonic and, especially, your public mouthpiece, the Buffalo Niagara Partnership, haven’t been all bad for the bank’s business either.
And whether you and the bank exert your influence to create a better community or to create a better balance sheet, in our cynical age and in our political environment, many people believe the latter.
You should be smart enough to know that. If you aren’t, maybe we need someone else picking the next school superintendent.
Faithfully yours,
Leona
Copyright 2004 by Buffalo Report, Inc.