On Friday, the newly organized state senate committee on reform and rule changes held their "Western New York" public hearing. You mean to say that you didn't hear about it, or attend to speak about the importance of reforming our "most dysfunctional" state legislature? I can't imagine why not, when it was held right downtown at City Hall...in, um, Syracuse... .
Coming just two months after yanking the promised chairmanship of the Senate Finance Committee from next-in-line Western New York Senator William Stachowski, the new state senate majority is now again snubbing New York's second-largest urban area--and this time including the third-largest (My Fair City) in the snub--by refusing to hold one of their public hearings on senate reform/rules changes anywhere west of Syracuse.
"This IS our Western New York hearing," the Manhattan-based chief staffer for the committee told me brusquely on Friday in no uncertain terms. Hearings will be held in Albany, Manhattan, and Long Island--but their plan does not currently include reaching out to the state's second- and third-largest urban areas. So in a New York version of "let them eat cake," they are telling all the citizens and government reform advocates from the state's Great Lakes urban areas, "let them go to Syracuse."
The staffer, Andrew Stengel (whose two phone numbers both have NYC area codes), admitted to me that Friday was the first time he had ventured as far upstate as Syracuse. I don't question his good-government credentials--until hired this year by the state senate, he was on the staff of the Brennan Center, the Manhattan thinktank which labeled the New York State Legislature the nation's most dysfunctional. Yet the Brennan Center crowed over the makeup of the senate reform committee, despite its inclusion among its nine members of just three senators from Upstate--with two of those being Republican (minority) members, and none within a 150-mile drive of the state's second largest city. My Fair City--the state's third largest--doesn't fare much better. This seems to be yet another case of the western half of the state getting short shrift from our overwhelmingly Manhattan-centric state leadership.
During the 19th-Century religious revival movement, the canal corridor south of Lake Ontario became known as the "burned-over district." Since the elections of 2008 gave New York a solidly Manhattan-dominated state leadership, it seems that we're now becoming the "screwed-over district." That was made additionally clear by the noted absence of key Western New York projects from the statewide list of federal stimulus projects.
Knowing I would be in Syracuse on business Friday, I took the opportunity to sign up to speak at the hearing. I also talked--the day before, and at the hearing--with Andrew Stengel about the possibility of also holding a hearing in Western New York. I mentioned the very strong coverage by the Buffalo News on state government reform, and that Buffalo's other media outlets such as Buffalo Rising would help get the word out if a public hearing were held in Western New York--but he was having none of it. That is when he shocked me by stating: "This IS our Western New York hearing." He went on to say that Syracuse was picked because it was "convenient" to folks from Rochester and Buffalo, as well as Central New York.
Oh, really? And how did that work out? When I arrived at the Syracuse City Council chambers, I saw from the list of the 15 speakers and their addresses that NOT ONE was from west of Rochester--and the one other speaker from Rochester besides me was someone I've never heard of, representing a good government group I've never heard of, and who was handing out homemade business cards with no phone number or e-mail address. Clearly, the two of us together couldn't possibly do justice to the ideas, experience, and passion for state government reform held collectively by all the residents of the state west of Onondaga County.
WGRZ (Channel 2) reporter Kristin Donnelly fared no better in her attempt to persuade the committee. The intrepid Kristin and a WGRZ crew made the 300+ mile round trip, only to be told by committee co-chair, Senator David J. Valesky, that there would be no Western New York hearing. But with characteristic Western New York pluck, she had come armed with a stack of e-mails with the input of dozens of Western New Yorkers. She produced the e-mails and put them in the hand of Senator Valesky. Could his choice of Syracuse have had anything to do with the city being in his district?
I think we can and should do better. I'd be willing to be that if we make a collective fuss, we might be able to embarrass the state senate into getting out their maps and finding their way west of Syracuse--to allow Western New Yorkers to really participate in bringing about REAL reform of our ever-dysfunctional state legislature. Not just a rehash of the same ideas and promises which have been trotted out in the past, then quickly put away again when the heat was off. Contact info for our state and federal legislators is below.
Image credits:
City Hall: Preservation Association of Central New York, WGRZ, Frank Cammuso/Syracuse Post-Standard
Get Connected -- WNY state and federal legislators: WNY state legislators
WNY federal legislators
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Coming just two months after yanking the promised chairmanship of the Senate Finance Committee from next-in-line Western New York Senator William Stachowski, the new state senate majority is now again snubbing New York's second-largest urban area--and this time including the third-largest (My Fair City) in the snub--by refusing to hold one of their public hearings on senate reform/rules changes anywhere west of Syracuse.
"This IS our Western New York hearing," the Manhattan-based chief staffer for the committee told me brusquely on Friday in no uncertain terms. Hearings will be held in Albany, Manhattan, and Long Island--but their plan does not currently include reaching out to the state's second- and third-largest urban areas. So in a New York version of "let them eat cake," they are telling all the citizens and government reform advocates from the state's Great Lakes urban areas, "let them go to Syracuse."
The staffer, Andrew Stengel (whose two phone numbers both have NYC area codes), admitted to me that Friday was the first time he had ventured as far upstate as Syracuse. I don't question his good-government credentials--until hired this year by the state senate, he was on the staff of the Brennan Center, the Manhattan thinktank which labeled the New York State Legislature the nation's most dysfunctional. Yet the Brennan Center crowed over the makeup of the senate reform committee, despite its inclusion among its nine members of just three senators from Upstate--with two of those being Republican (minority) members, and none within a 150-mile drive of the state's second largest city. My Fair City--the state's third largest--doesn't fare much better. This seems to be yet another case of the western half of the state getting short shrift from our overwhelmingly Manhattan-centric state leadership.
During the 19th-Century religious revival movement, the canal corridor south of Lake Ontario became known as the "burned-over district." Since the elections of 2008 gave New York a solidly Manhattan-dominated state leadership, it seems that we're now becoming the "screwed-over district." That was made additionally clear by the noted absence of key Western New York projects from the statewide list of federal stimulus projects.
Knowing I would be in Syracuse on business Friday, I took the opportunity to sign up to speak at the hearing. I also talked--the day before, and at the hearing--with Andrew Stengel about the possibility of also holding a hearing in Western New York. I mentioned the very strong coverage by the Buffalo News on state government reform, and that Buffalo's other media outlets such as Buffalo Rising would help get the word out if a public hearing were held in Western New York--but he was having none of it. That is when he shocked me by stating: "This IS our Western New York hearing." He went on to say that Syracuse was picked because it was "convenient" to folks from Rochester and Buffalo, as well as Central New York.
Oh, really? And how did that work out? When I arrived at the Syracuse City Council chambers, I saw from the list of the 15 speakers and their addresses that NOT ONE was from west of Rochester--and the one other speaker from Rochester besides me was someone I've never heard of, representing a good government group I've never heard of, and who was handing out homemade business cards with no phone number or e-mail address. Clearly, the two of us together couldn't possibly do justice to the ideas, experience, and passion for state government reform held collectively by all the residents of the state west of Onondaga County.
WGRZ (Channel 2) reporter Kristin Donnelly fared no better in her attempt to persuade the committee. The intrepid Kristin and a WGRZ crew made the 300+ mile round trip, only to be told by committee co-chair, Senator David J. Valesky, that there would be no Western New York hearing. But with characteristic Western New York pluck, she had come armed with a stack of e-mails with the input of dozens of Western New Yorkers. She produced the e-mails and put them in the hand of Senator Valesky. Could his choice of Syracuse have had anything to do with the city being in his district?
I think we can and should do better. I'd be willing to be that if we make a collective fuss, we might be able to embarrass the state senate into getting out their maps and finding their way west of Syracuse--to allow Western New Yorkers to really participate in bringing about REAL reform of our ever-dysfunctional state legislature. Not just a rehash of the same ideas and promises which have been trotted out in the past, then quickly put away again when the heat was off. Contact info for our state and federal legislators is below.
Image credits:
City Hall: Preservation Association of Central New York, WGRZ, Frank Cammuso/Syracuse Post-Standard
Get Connected -- WNY state and federal legislators: WNY state legislators
WNY federal legislators
Western New York, I always thought Buffalo was upstate.