Schoolyard bullies pick on other kids. We recognize that as adults in the workplace the same thing happens. Still, we teach that bullying is wrong and try to discourage it. Why? Well, of course we recognize because its wrong and someone should stand up for the little guy, yet it goes on and on at all levels. On the schoolyard playground, it teaches you a number of measures to cope with it such as avoidance, fighting, verbal sparring, tolerance and of course humiliation and defeat. Whether it has worked or not is still being learned.
From the playground bully to local, County, State and Federal government, we still see and experience bullying. You can choose to keep your opinions to yourself or you can stand for your principles and be attacked. This time however the attacks go beyond verbal abusivness. Its costing us money as County Executive Rob Astorino has stood up to the HUD "schoolyard bully" by refusing to bow to this new adult version of the bullying.
In 2009 when then-County Executive Andy Spano signed the HUD settlement, agreeing to a number of "easy solutions" designed to get the County "out from under" the HUD debacle. He admitted he said to the County's legal department to, "how can we make this go away?" Being good soldiers, as well as attorneys, they took the easy way out and Spano agreed, signing the settlement. Many Republicans running for office at the time objected, claiming this was nothing more than partisan politics. Whether this exercise was partisan politics or not remains unknown, but now it seems to have become that and the schoolyard fight continues between the little guy, Westchester County, and the "school yard" bully, HUD.
CE Astorino has claimed that we have complied to the stipulations in the contract and are being coerced into doing more at the whims of the HUD monitor. Astorino has been standing up to him on the grounds that the County has complied and is in fact ahead of schedule with the settlement's requirements. Mike Kaplowitz, the County Chairman, is trying to do the usual Democratic end run and find a way to acquiesce to the bully and get back to starting the financial gravy train of HUD's millions of dollars. Why? The legislators all rely on this money for what's called "member items". Member items, conveniently named something innocuous so as to not indicate it is a cash cow the legislators can tap into to bribe various groups into supporting and ultimately voting for them. The County's legislators are losing votes and by gosh this must stop!
While CE Astorino tries to make a name for himself in Westchester with his laid back, Richie Cunningham style, he is succeeding in spite of his opposition by not only lowering taxes, but holding the financial line with no tax increases for each year he has been in office. So much so that his good buddy Republican Chair Ed Cox, son-in-law to former President Richard Nixon, tapped CE Astorino to become the gubernatorial candidate to run against Governor Andrew Cuomo in the upcoming election. There's nothing wrong with having good buddies pushing your career, even though he has no money to effectively run a campaign against Cuomo. But the Republicans will put their best financial foot forward and do what they can. They will also probably tap John Rogers, who the Republicans moved to Albany. Rogers, a great Republican foot soldier, ran Astorino's comeback campaign when he won the County Executive race against Spano.
What does it all mean? The County Legislators continue bickering over what's in it for them, not the constituent. The Democrats sue the County Executive when they don't like something he does. Why wouldn't they all just sit down and formulate a plan? That will probably never happen. Its not because everyone of them are bad people, its just that they all have their own agendas, and it doesn't really include us. They write about the willfully ignorant voters on another site, www.ABetterGreenburgh.blogspot.com where they discuss the illegal actions by the Greenburgh Supervisor and Town Board. But the constituents ignorance must change if we are to get better government.
Showing posts with label Ken Jenkins. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ken Jenkins. Show all posts
Friday, May 9, 2014
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Let’s See How Much Better We Can Do!
For the second year in a row, the Westchester County Legislature submitted their version of the County’s budget to County Executive (CE) Astorino. After three heavily attended rounds of public hearings around the county, the representative public clamored “no!” when it came to CE Astorino’s proposed cuts. And with the County Legislature’s 12 Democrats and 5 Republicans on the board, the vote appeared it would once again be a partisan split, as it was during last year’s budget vote. The balance of the Legislature will change on January 1st, when two more Republicans get sworn in. Still, Legislator Jim Maisano’s public wish to not be the minority leader still seems elusive for him.
I agree with CE Astorino’ goal of reductions to the budget. There seems to be an awful lot of excess in certain places. However, it seems like both years he’s gone after the same cuts for the same reasons. And the legislature restores the same cuts he proposes. Is this what our government representatives see as good government? It appears to be their preordained deadlock. I and others are amazed at comments like the one County Legislature Leader Ken Jenkins made when he said, “The budget is done. The problem is not with the legislature. The majority of things we do, we do unanimously.” With about 15,000 budget items, Jenkins said most were supported by both the board and executive branch and that they disagreed on only 27 items, with 40 overrides, including some not directly tied to the budget. Of the 27 budget vetoes, 19 were overridden along party lines. Was it just something they did because they could or are these items of real value to the county? We can’t really know the accuracy of what each side says because each side blames the other, abandoning the public at the sidelines. This type of partisanship has to stop.
There are four legislators not returning this January either because they are simply stepping down or lost in the last election. These are all democratic Legislators, Jose Alvarado, John Nonna, Bill Burton and Marty Rogowsky. I have had dealings with the last three and know them to be concerned, involved and responsive public servants. But they too, have played the partisanship game that I believe the public is so weary of. The last election will increase the Republicans numbers but not enough to put this ship back on an even keel. We need to have better balance, new and different ideas, with better ways of operating our County government. The old ways are failing us. We must have relief from the state induced mandates if Westchester and New York wish to return to any competitive markets again, yet we see no action from them.
Astorino said he expected many of the overrides to his vetoes but it was important to “take principled stands on items” that he thought were detrimental to taxpayers and effective government. Imagine what might happen if the two sides sat down and tried to work together, forging solutions to the budget before it was due? Imagine if, instead of campaigning for their “sides”, they brokered a balanced, effective and realistic solutions that didn’t provide broad-brush sweeping cuts that pit one neighbor against another? Imagine if, instead of playing the partisan games of one-upmanship sound bites in the media, all the representatives actually represented us and created a budget that held or reduced the dollars taken from the County’s beleaguered and abused tax payers? Imagine how much better off everyone might be?
CE Astorino may be on the right track. He wanted to have a one percent tax reduction last year when he proposed his first budget. The County Legislature trumped him and offered a two percent reduction and kept all the positions he sought to eliminate. This year was almost an exact duplication of his efforts with the similar actions taken by his presumed “adversaries”. Imagine if he and his people had worked closely with the legislature before the budget was introduced? That would have caused everyone to take notice of a sharply honed representative government in action! If the CE can only offer cuts of one nature, and the legislature can only offer to override them, how much longer before the public says enough? The CE and the Board of Legislators may respectively have some good ideas. But until we see true collaboration, an honest joining of forces, we are destined for a repeat of the same antics every year. The public is frustrated with these games. I look forward to this new year with local politicians acting and working differently. Let’s see how much better we can do.
CE Astorino rejected $10 million in spending after the county board approved a $1.69 billion budget. This included $1.9 million for neighborhood health centers, $990,000 for Cornell Cooperative Extension, $378,000 for Invest-in-Kids programs, $4.3 million in day-care subsidies, $100,000 for ethnic festivals and restoration of the Route 76 bus line between Rye and White Plains. No doubt we could use scrutiny with some of these dollars. I continue to find it interesting that CE Astorino would cut one bus route while touting another bus route with the Tappan Zee Bridge proposal that I’m convinced comes as an Obama reelection/Cuomo presidential campaign ploy. If we can’t afford a small bus route between Rye and White Plains, how will we be able to afford a much larger one from Rockland to Westchester? The same can be said about last year’s proposed cutting and then saved Bee Line Express Bus Route to NYC.
Republicans and Democrats agreed on a few areas, in particular, money for Cornell Cooperative Extension; $49,000 for Greenburgh Nature Center; $59,790 for business training; $42,500 for the Jewish Council and four positions with the Board of Elections.
I agree with CE Astorino’ goal of reductions to the budget. There seems to be an awful lot of excess in certain places. However, it seems like both years he’s gone after the same cuts for the same reasons. And the legislature restores the same cuts he proposes. Is this what our government representatives see as good government? It appears to be their preordained deadlock. I and others are amazed at comments like the one County Legislature Leader Ken Jenkins made when he said, “The budget is done. The problem is not with the legislature. The majority of things we do, we do unanimously.” With about 15,000 budget items, Jenkins said most were supported by both the board and executive branch and that they disagreed on only 27 items, with 40 overrides, including some not directly tied to the budget. Of the 27 budget vetoes, 19 were overridden along party lines. Was it just something they did because they could or are these items of real value to the county? We can’t really know the accuracy of what each side says because each side blames the other, abandoning the public at the sidelines. This type of partisanship has to stop.
There are four legislators not returning this January either because they are simply stepping down or lost in the last election. These are all democratic Legislators, Jose Alvarado, John Nonna, Bill Burton and Marty Rogowsky. I have had dealings with the last three and know them to be concerned, involved and responsive public servants. But they too, have played the partisanship game that I believe the public is so weary of. The last election will increase the Republicans numbers but not enough to put this ship back on an even keel. We need to have better balance, new and different ideas, with better ways of operating our County government. The old ways are failing us. We must have relief from the state induced mandates if Westchester and New York wish to return to any competitive markets again, yet we see no action from them.
Astorino said he expected many of the overrides to his vetoes but it was important to “take principled stands on items” that he thought were detrimental to taxpayers and effective government. Imagine what might happen if the two sides sat down and tried to work together, forging solutions to the budget before it was due? Imagine if, instead of campaigning for their “sides”, they brokered a balanced, effective and realistic solutions that didn’t provide broad-brush sweeping cuts that pit one neighbor against another? Imagine if, instead of playing the partisan games of one-upmanship sound bites in the media, all the representatives actually represented us and created a budget that held or reduced the dollars taken from the County’s beleaguered and abused tax payers? Imagine how much better off everyone might be?
CE Astorino may be on the right track. He wanted to have a one percent tax reduction last year when he proposed his first budget. The County Legislature trumped him and offered a two percent reduction and kept all the positions he sought to eliminate. This year was almost an exact duplication of his efforts with the similar actions taken by his presumed “adversaries”. Imagine if he and his people had worked closely with the legislature before the budget was introduced? That would have caused everyone to take notice of a sharply honed representative government in action! If the CE can only offer cuts of one nature, and the legislature can only offer to override them, how much longer before the public says enough? The CE and the Board of Legislators may respectively have some good ideas. But until we see true collaboration, an honest joining of forces, we are destined for a repeat of the same antics every year. The public is frustrated with these games. I look forward to this new year with local politicians acting and working differently. Let’s see how much better we can do.
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