27 October 2005
Leona Czolgosz
What We Should Be Asking Byron Brown
“Set your watches back 20 years,” the airline pilot chortles. “We’re landing in Buffalo.”
So goes the hackneyed joke. True, you do see a mid-1980s supply of gelled hair on zaftig lasses and red, white and blue Zubaz on ample asses at American Eagle’s Buffalo gate at O’Hare, but the joke really isn’t funny anymore.
We Buffalonians do have a way of focusing on things that have already happened, though, as opposed to things we might influence that are about to happen.
• We pounded on the Peace Bridge, snoozing while the Power Authority was doling out millions for power plant relicensing. (Credit to SUNY-Buffalo environmentalists for staying awake.)
• We promote the need for more downtown housing, unaware that more high-priced rental units already are in the pipeline than Buffalo’s sluggish market can possibly absorb. (Credit to UB Architecture Dean Harold Cohen and Mayor Jim Griffin for pushing downtown housing before it was fashionable.)
• We expect visitors to flock to Buffalo as if it were 1901, when Buffalo was the eighth-largest urban place in the country, not understanding we’re now a secondary market to Toronto the Good and Niagara Falls (Ontario) the Bad.
And we focus on a Mayor’s contest that isn’t a contest, instead of focusing on what’s next—who he will bring with him to help him run the city.
The Buffalo News has been acting for the past two months like there is doubt about the next Mayor of Buffalo. There hasn’t been any doubt for more than a year.
Byron Brown would have to be caught with the proverbial dead girl or live boy to lose the Mayor’s race. (“No,” a friend said. “Dead girl or dead boy.”)
Kevin Gaughan was a fun guy to listen to, for the first 10 minutes. While not shilling for Erie County Executive Joel Giambra, Buffalo News columnist Donn Esmonde kept hopes for Gaughan’s campaign reasonably alive with a column about his buddy every so often, but to no great end.
Restaurateur Steve Calvaneso’s Pittsburgh steak salad had more seasoning than his virgin campaign.
Republican Kevin Helfer isn’t really running a campaign. His campaign office lacks life. His fund-raising mailings are amateurish, seemingly run off mimeograph machines. His money comes from developer Carl Paladino’s various real estate holdings and his vendors and business buddies. The Buffalo-Niagara Partnership’s endorsement will give pause to a few entrepreneurial capitalists who might otherwise have considered voting for Helfer.
The News is slathering coverage on the race—trying to make a race where there is none. The News’ motivation? Guilt.
Guilt that the News slept through 2003’s Giambra-Dan Ward County Executive race, where it might have made a difference. Guilt that the News yawned during Masiello’s 1997 and 2001 re-election campaigns. Guilt that the News has developed a reputation as a place where features (and vapid columns and the Bills) matter and, well, news takes second place.
Memo to The Buffalo News: the news is that the mayoral contest isn’t a contest. Dog bites man.
• Best party affiliation? The Democrat Brown over the Republican Helfer.
• Most money? Brown.
• Best organization? Brown.
• Highest name recognition? Brown.
• Distance from the toxic Giambra? Brown.
• Race? Brown with blacks; Helfer with whites. Tossup.
• Best message? Huh? What message?
God bless the News for publishing a Zogby poll Sunday, showing Brown leading Helfer 60-19 percent. Brown will hold the 60, Helfer will pick up a number of voters between now and election day, and the minor candidates, the Independence Party’s Charles Flynn and the Green Party’s Judith Einach, will pick up a decent number of votes from protest voters, unhappy with Brown.
Now—before Election Day--not later, is the time for the News—and all of us-- to be probing the Mayor-to-be in detail on
• Who he will appoint to his senior staff.
• Who he will appoint to chair important boards and commissions.
• How he will interact with the Buffalo Fiscal Stability Authority.
• How he will interact with the Buffalo Public Schools.
• How he will interact with the University at Buffalo.
• What he will ask Governor-apparent Eliot Spitzer.
Staff. The 2005-06 budget shows the City of Buffalo being roughly a $400 million a year organization. “Off-budget” agencies whose boards are controlled by the mayor—e.g., the Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority, Buffalo Urban Renewal Agency and the Buffalo Sewer Authority, each are tens of millions of dollars more.
Does Steve Casey, Brown’s campaign manager and former protégé to former Democratic Party Chairman Steve Pigeon, have the experience—or the temperament--to be the chief administrative officer of a more than $400 million-a-year operation?
Football Hall-of-Famer Jim Brown used to sniff at running backs who did dances in the end zone. “When you score a touchdown, act like you’ve been there before,” he said.
Buffalo needs some people who’ve “been there before.” Each department or agency is the size of a good-sized (and complicated) Western New York business or nonprofit organization, with the Mayor’s office as the headquarters. The jobs pay well compared to unemployment, but not so well compared to the global marketplace and the stress of good job performance.
How today is Brown planning on filling his top spots?
Boards and commissions. The same as above, even moreso, with city boards and commissions. The Planning Commission, the Civil Service Commission, the Housing Authority board, the Buffalo Economic Renaissance Corporation board and dozens more all require smart, motivated change agents (and those without conflicts of interest) to make the city competitive. Most board seats pay nothing. Most require a city residency. Done well, the jobs require more than 100 hours of work a year.
If Brown lines up the “usual suspects,” rife with conflicts of interest, for board seats, watch out.
How today is Brown planning on filling these boards, especially the critical boards, and especially, the board chair seats?
Control Board. The City of Buffalo, whatever its shortcomings, has developed a productive relationship with The Buffalo Fiscal Stability Authority (or Control Board). Commissioner of Administration and Finance James Milroy has been the point person of what could have been a publicly contentious relationship, but instead has been one of tough talk behind closed doors, but, in public, mutual cooperation and respect.
How today is Brown planning to manage the relationship between the city and its fiscal keepers?
Schools. Mayors are in a tough position when it comes to public schools. The Board of Education and school superintendent are in charge of management, but the mayor is in charge of setting tax rates and, beyond that, needs good schools to help create an excellent city.
Some mayors have moved for legislation to become the schools’ chief executive officer. Others have run their own slate of candidates for the school board.
How today is Brown planning to interact with the Buffalo Public Schools?
UB. Cities that have improved this decade and the last have done so largely through collaboration among major universities, the community and City Hall. The University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie-Mellon University and the City of Pittsburgh. Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland State University and Cleveland. The University of Cincinnati and Cincinnati.
The 1960s move of the guts of the University at Buffalo to Amherst has left most UB initiatives toward economically, physically and socially improving the city have been scattershot at best. The new administration of University President John Simpson holds promise for a deeper, more productive relationship.
How today is Brown planning to manage the relationship between the city and UB?
Spitzer. Like Brown and the Mayor’s race, Spitzer seemingly has sewn up the Governor’s job more than a year before Election Day 2006.
Some mayors (Griffin) fight the governor, even when the governor is a member of his own party. Other mayors (Masiello) cooperate with the governor, even when the governor is a member of the other party.
Buffalo, like other poor upstate cities, depends upon state funding, while suffering under state regulation.
As a former city councilman, Brown knows city government. As a state senator, he knows state government.
What today is Brown planning to ask Spitzer to do as governor to help Buffalo?
Today is important. Election Day is fewer than two weeks away. Inauguration Day is fewer than 10. Tick, tick.
Copyright 2005 by Buffalo Report, Inc.