Grains of Salt (v5): Overtime Overdrive

What's spilling out of the salt shaker tonight? Overtime. Lots and lots of overtime.

First up, a question for you: where you work, do department heads get paid overtime?

You know, managers and directors and VPs and the like? Or even supervisors, the ones we call 'front-line management' in the corporate world?

In that corporate world, at least that I've experienced, they don't. Once you're management, you're out of the hourly mix and paid a salary that covers the regular hours you're expected to put in, as well as a few extra. For, as I learned many long years ago, there are 168 hours in a week and if it takes you all of them to do your job, so be it.

Now, clearly that's harsh, and unrealistic, and not work-life balanced or any of those other things, but there's some logic in thinking that management folks are paid to do what needs to be done, and that they've moved beyond hourly wage responsibilities, and so have correspondingly moved beyond hourly pay and time-and-a-half for their extra time.

So, having always worked in an office environment (fortunately not long in one like the draconian 168-hours-in-a-week situation), I continue to be surprised that the Chief of the Syracuse Fire Department gets paid overtime. And so does the Chief of the Syracuse Police Department. And so do a whole host of 'managers' within the SFD and the SPD.

The top 90 wage earners for 2015 in the City of Syracuse are all either SPD or SFD. There might be more, that's just the slice of the data that shows folks who made more than Mayor Stephanie Miner, who has a salary of $115,000 - with no overtime. Collectively, the top 90 earned $4,954,489 more than their base pay - an average of $55,668 each.  Thirty-two are police officers, two are firefighters - and the rest are 'ranked' or 'titled' in some way, making it at least appear that they have some kind of management responsibility.

The city's adding some new officers this spring, we were told in the mayor's State of the City address, and at least on the SPD side, they are trying to address the persistent overtime recipients through counseling, or limiting how many hours they can get, but I'm not sure that's going to tackle the OT at the top of the org chart - and that's where it looks like we need some creative solutions.

Can't there be some way that we can pay a reasonable, no-overtime salary to the leaders of our finest and bravest, at least through the first few levels of the org chart, and still get good people to serve?  Can't we find a way to suitably reward them, but not pay out boatloads of overtime, and the corresponding bumped-up pensions that go along with these wages?

Anyone have any ideas?

Mitch McConnell Needs Me!

thinkprogress.org photo

Some time ago, I signed up to get emails from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, so I could keep my finger on the pulse of what was going on in Opposition Land (as if anyone actually has a finger on the pulse of what's going on over there).

Mitch needs my support -- now -- and I need to act quickly, if I am to be a good conservative. Here's what he's telling me:

I've heard a great deal from Americans across the country and know millions of Americans are concerned about the current vacancy on the US Supreme Court.  The future of our country will be greatly impacted by the next justice appointed to the US Supreme Court. This is a serious matter and one that deserves a great deal of thought and consideration. 

It's not a decision that should be quickly made in an election year.  That's why Senate Republicans are taking our role in confirming the next Supreme Court Justice seriously.

It is also why Senate Republicans have decided to give the American people a voice in the selection process, by waiting until after the American people have elected new leadership this November, to continue with the confirmation process. I hope you will stand with Senate Republicans in holding the line on the US Supreme Court. You can sign our petition to take action and stand with us here.

Support from conservatives like you is greatly appreciated and crucial to the future of our nation's Constitutional Republic. Thank you for your continued support. 

 The petition advises that

Justice Scalia's replacement could tip the ideological balance of the Supreme Court for decades to come. We must not allow President Obama to politicize this decision in an election year or place another rubber stamp for his progressive agenda on the Supreme Court.  

Stand with Senate Republicans: The American people deserve to have a voice in the selection of the next Supreme Court Justice. Join Senate Republicans in WAITING to fill the vacancy on the US Supreme Court until after the 2016 election.

I'm almost a little verklempt, thinking that Mitch McConnell needs me to help him do the right thing!

I'm touched that the Senate, under McConnell's guiding hand, wants to take their role in confirming the next Supreme Court Justice seriously. But now I'm quite concerned. Was the Senate not being serious when they voted on Obama's nominations of Elena Kagan (confirmed by a 63-37 vote) and Sonia Sotomayor (68-31)? Is it only the next one that matters? What about the one after that?

And I'm left wondering, Mitch, what else haven't you been serious about? Should we go back and check the votes on anything that was decided during an election year?

And what about the things you need to do this year, like the budget? I would think that the future of our country will be greatly impacted by the budget that eventually gets approved: funding for education, veterans, active military, safety net programs, immigration activities, Homeland Security - these are critically important. How can we possibly trust you to vote on a budget during an election year? Should that also be postponed until after the election?

And, frankly, wouldn't that apply to anything else you have to consider this year? Or is this your tacit admission that you can't be trusted to focus on anything other than the election, and trying to maintain your majority?

I found a quote from the very needy Mitch McConnell; it came right after the November 2014 mid-term election, when the Senate flipped its majority to the dark side. I think it's applicable today:

I always like to remind people that divided government is not unusual in this country. When the American people choose divided government I don't think it means they don't want us to do anything, I think it means they want us to look for areas of agreement.(emphasis added) 

Isn't this a golden opportunity for you to walk the talk, and get the Senate on board with at least holding hearings on a nomination, as it your Constitutional responsibility, and maybe even accepting someone for the Court that this President (with the voice of the American people behind him), nominated, and who the Senate, (with the voice of the American people behind it as well), unanimously confirmed to a lower bench during this very Obama term?

If a person's 100% acceptable for the Federal Bench, what do you fear with that same person on the Supreme Court?

Or, is it really that you'd rather have Hillary Clinton fill the next vacancy?

Government 'Safety' Initiatives

Tech giant Apple is "doubling down" in their battle with the US government over back-door access to iPhones.

As I write this, there's a report on NPR noting that CEO Tim Cook has compared the software the FBI asked for to cancer; asking for this for one phone means getting it for all, that use of the access can't be controlled, and that it will spread beyond this one specific request.

I appreciate that we need to fight terror, and that we need to keep Americans safe, but who gets to choose?

For example, we have had bills that would make it illegal for someone on a terror watch list to get a gun. Those bills cannot pass, due to NRA-fueled opposition (and the related self-preservation instincts of elected officials).  Why? Well, someone might be on those lists in error, and heaven forbid we take that chance and prevent them from owning a gun.

Similarly, laws have been proposed that would allow physicians to collect information about guns from people who end up in ERs, but we can't ask about that, even though information gained may help save lives.

Imagine for moment that, in the interest of protecting us, the government ordered companies to make only 'smart guns' -- that would be great, right? The gun could only been fired by the owner, preventing countless deaths.  How long would it take before politicians, lobbyists and everyone else went crazy fighting that?

How about food labeling? Want to know how much salt is in your restaurant meal? We're ok with allergen labeling, but sodium? Don't go there. It could save lives -- heart diseases kill thousands of Americans year after year - but we can't intrude, it's too costly, it's too burdensome on businesses, etc.

And tell me, why do we still allow cigarettes to be sold?

Yet today, we have the government ordering a company to make a very specific product,  to override an already very specific product they make, in the interest of 'safety' and protecting Americans from an unknown threat.

With the support of many in Congress, law enforcement, regular folks, and the very same business world that so vehemently opposes regulations designed to protect us from their products and their customers.

All to see if we can find any additional information about two criminals, and with complete disregard for the people who might be in those phones who have nothing to do with terrorist activities.

When will these multiple constituencies come together to spend an equal amount of time and effort on the threats we already know?

Tuesday's Number: $565,058

Tuesday is the day my local paper, The Post-Standard, publishes the weekly business section. In addition to special features, tips from stock experts, budgeting advice and the like, we get the judgment and bankruptcy listings.

This is the fourth full year I’ve been tracking these numbers – I captured part of the year in 2012 – and the third year that I’ve captured filings by hospital. Included in the numbers are those filings that likely represent a patient debt owed to a hospital, nursing home, physician or physician group, medical supplier, and so on.

I do not include filings by insurance companies, many of which are so diversified it would not be a fair assumption that the filing is related to medical care or health insurance.

In the first three years, the overall total was $67,965,862 – a staggering amount of money for a relatively small metropolitan area that includes the city of Syracuse and her suburbs, the towns and villages of Onondaga County, and to a lesser extent, some of the even smaller neighboring towns and villages.  

As I reported in the 2015 recap, we turned sharply down last year – some $7M – and the hope is that we will continue to see progress in the overall total. Of course, a better sign of health would be an increase in the number of satisfied judgments; people’s ability to pay off their debt (or their willingness, as the case may be) is something else I’m hoping to see this year. 

This week, there were

• 21 new judgments, totaling $587,191
• three satisfied judgments, totaling $30,997 and
• one bankruptcy, for $8,864

Here's the breakdown for the Syracuse hospitals:

• Crouse had eight, including two of the repayments, for a net of $42,309
• St Joe's picked up the third repayment, leaving them with a $19,468 credit
• SUNY had sixteen filings, for a total of $542,222

The paper only publishes filings of $5,000 or more.

Listening to a One-Percenter

The senator is upset with a political and economic system that is often rigged to help the privileged few at the expense of everyone else, particularly the least advantaged. He believed that we have a two-tiered society that increasingly dooms millions of our fellow citizens to lives of poverty and hopelessness. He thinks many corporations seek and benefit from corporate welfare while ordinary citizens are denied opportunity and a level playing field. 

I agree with him.  

Would it surprise you that a one-percenter, equally adored on the right and abhorred on the left, made the statement above, in reference to Bernie Sanders?  And that he agrees specifically that corporate welfare is bad, and our criminal justice system is screwed up, and that our Democrats and Republicans, through their actions, "perpetuate a cycle of control, dependency, cronyism and poverty in the United States" and that is has to stop?

This person is definitely not a Sanders supporter, however. Sanders believes big government has to solve the problems created by our political system of "picking winners and losers," where the author would instead focus on the results of throwing government money and programs at our problems. Those results -- that we we still have the problems -- proves, he feels, that more government is not the answer.

He retreats to his corner, and goes on to say,

When it comes to electing our next president, we should reward those candidates, Democrat or Republican, most committed to the principles of a free society. Those principles start with the right to live your life as you see fit as long as you don't infringe on the ability of others to do the same. They include equality before the law, free speech and free markets and treating people with dignity, respect and tolerance. In a society governed by such principles, people succeed by helping others improve their lives.

Thoughts?

• Is there a collision between "the right to live your life as you see fit" and not "infring(ing) on the ability of others to do the same" in a modern America?  Would there be marriage equality, or would that be infringing on those who disapprove? Could a business refuse to provide services to a customer living life they see fit by choice or by genetics (as a gay person, or a Muslim, or a person of color), or would that be a forbidden infringement on the customer? Can a business be forced to provide health benefits to employees, or is that an infringement on the company living life freely as it chooses?

• What does "equality before the law" look like? Would we really want to treat a poor person the same as a rich person in our criminal justice system? Provide them unlimited access to reasonable and viable counsel? Provide them with equal opportunities to stay out of jail, find alternatives, protect their rights the same as we would a rich person's?  What about people of color? Can we handle equality before the law?

• Is a free market that lays off American workers and gives the jobs to people who earn less in a year than an American earns in a month, or a week, or in the case of some CEOs, in an hour or even a half hour, operating in the same universe as "treating people with dignity, respect and tolerance?" Is a free market, charging whatever price someone pulls out of their hat (even for critical and life-saving services), or paying as little as possible in wages and benefits, acting in any way dignified, respectful and tolerant? And if so, of whom?

• What are the measures of how "people succeed by helping others improve their lives?" Is it providing an effective, adequately funded educational system, starting from the very beginning, that affords all who are willing the chance to learn and grow and succeed whatever their aspirations? Is it affordable post-secondary education, including trade schools, apprentice programs, community colleges, state university systems, and private colleges and universities? And jobs in your field when you when you complete your chosen path?  Is it a reasonable starting wage and benefit package, with opportunity for growth and longevity at a company?

• Will our free will, and our free markets, make today's situation better or worse? Reduce poverty and income disparity, or make them worse? Help people become more self-sufficient, or be even less able to support those who are at the bottom of the scale? Move us towards greater tolerance, dignity and respect, or make it even worse, if that's possible? Will the homeless be housed, the hungry be fed, man's inhumanity to man go poof into the air? 

I'm not convinced that Bernie has the right answer, any more than I'm convinced that this guy, Charles Koch, has the answer.

We do agree, though, on this, his closing thought:

I don't expect to agree with every position a candidate holds, but all Americans deserve a president who, on balance, can demonstrate a commitment to a set of ideas and values that will lead to peace, civility and well-being rather than conflict, contempt and division. When such a candidate emerges, he or she will have my enthusiastic support.

Hear, hear.

The Irony Board: The Pope and The Candidate

Today's headlines are eye-caching for sure, aren't they?

We've got that rascally pontiff, Pope Francis, saying that if Donald Trump really said what it's reported he's said about immigrants and having Mexico build a wall and all that, then he's "not a Christian" because people who only look to build walls instead of building bridges are not acting in the true spirit of Christ.  The pontiff also noted that he would give Trump the benefit of the doubt, in case he didn't really say all of those harsh, hateful things.

Trump responded that it was disgraceful for a religious leader to question another person's faith, which is kind of bizarre because I think religious leaders more than anyone have that right and responsibility, to challenge people to be more faithful and their behaviors to be more in keeping with a faith-based life, right?

The other part of Trump's response is by far more fascinating:

If and when the Vatican is attacked by ISIS, which as everyone knows is ISIS' ultimate trophy, I can promise you that the pope would have only wished and prayed that Donald Trump would have been president because this would not have happened.

Do you see what I see?

If Trump gets elected, which he's been telling us is going to happen, he would crush ISIS, destroy ISIS, kill the Muslims and their families, and on and on and on.  But now, in his Franciscan retort, seems either he's not elected, (the pope would have only wished and prayed for such a thing) or Trump can't defeat ISIS, because they're going to attack the Vatican...

People have been talking about the irony of a man who lives in a walled city questioning someone else looking to build a wall; I don't see the irony there at all. The Vatican City (officially the Vatican City State) is a country within a city within a country, The walls are not new; they were built in the 1500s and 1600s (parts predate that by several hundred years).

This, in contrast to the Trump Wall (large enough to support the giant block golden Trump name), which will be bright and sparkly new, designed to isolate the one country that has, for most of its existence, been considered a shining star of freedom, a beacon of hope and democracy, a place like none other in history - America, the land of the free and home of the brave - from her southern neighbor.

The Trump Wall, to be built by the administration of The Man Who Wants To Make America Great Again, is but one irony here.

It's also ironic that the party of no, the party of go help yourself, the party of trickle down, the party of rape defenders, the party of eliminating healthcare, the party of companies are people too, the party of hate towards anyone they deem not Christian enough, is upset by someone challenging them and their standard-bearer's faith

The party that invites a leader of another country, a walled country at that - to come here, to blast our President, to slam our principles and our policies, and walk away with billions in aid - that same party is upset about a foreign leader calling out their bad behavior?

That it's Trump - the thrice married, daughter-ogling, violence-exhorting, loudmouthed, race-baiting, everyone-baiting candidate, the man lied about which church he belongs to - questioning the pontiff, calling his comments 'disgraceful', calling him a pawn?

Ah, the irony.

Consensus: To Boldly Go (Part 2): Let's Do This

Let's look again at the guidance in the editorial that followed on the heels of the Consensus report that dropped at the end of January:

Citizens and leaders of our community and our region need to talk a lot more, think more deeply about the commissions's recommendations, question the assumptions of each other and ourselves, and summon the will to change the status quo.

(If you're interested, here's the full report, or a summary, and I encourage you to read these if you live in the Central New York area.)

Public officials have been asked to not comment extensively on the recommendations, and I think for the most part they appear to be paying attention to that request. There have been several public meetings, some in the city and some outside, and many comments shared on the news, on articles published about the recommendations, and on social media generally. What seems to be clear is that there is a divide in sentiment based on where a person lives. I'm over-generalizing here, but not by a lot:

• Many city residents appear to fear a lack of standing, a lack of voice, if the city gets absorbed into the county. The economic savings, or the opportunity for the 'city' itself to survive, are positives, but the thought that people of color would have "less consideration" under a county government where they would be in the minority, seem to be outweighing the benefits in many people's minds.
• On the other hand, people from the suburbs are concerned with the lack of savings that will come from consolidation, and fear being saddled with all of the city's problems in return for their $200 or so savings. The city's problems, as perceived by some who've commented, have crime and poverty high on the list, and from a suburban perspective, having "their (own) resources" go towards fixing "their (city people's) problems" is wrong. 

Where have we seen similar divide in community conversations?  Just about everywhere, I think -- most notably in our long conversation on what to do with I-81 that cuts the city in half.  Again, over-generalizing here as well:

• Folks who live in the 'burbs want to maintain their reasonably fast commute into the city and the reasonably fast exit from it at the end of the work day. Many have been less interested in the 'city' as other than a place they have to go to for work, and leave quickly, and don't want to see that changed. They don't want to see tax dollars wasted on anything fancy, because they're not interested in putting the city back together.
• City residents, some of whom are still living where they lived when the interstate cut through the heart of the city, through some of its oldest, most culturally-thriving yet economically challenged neighborhoods seemingly without a thought, want to get "their city" back, want to tear down the divided highway that divides the city, and are either not concerned with or perfectly OK with a tunnel, or a boulevard or some hybrid solution that moves traffic more slowly. 

John Cleese/Monty Python

So how do we bridge the divide? The Consensus folks paved the way for us. They put the road map on the table, with a lot of  easy-to-understand facts and figures and, to their credit, not a ton of editorializing. 

They believe, and I agree, that we need to do something to save what we love about living in Syracuse and Onondaga County, and I think that something  has to be something completely different if we're to have the chance to thrive. 

Now, it's up to us, just us, to think deeply, to listen, and to talk. 

If you're a city resident, put yourself in the position of someone in the suburbs and picture this whole Syracuse-Onondaga community from their perspective. And then, think about what sacrifices we can reasonably make for the greater good, and how we might be better off if we let some things go. At the same time, think about how the new plan can be structured to balance everyone's needs for fair representation so no voices get lost in the shuffle.

If you're a county resident, do the same thing - pretend you live in the city (there are some really beautiful neighborhoods here, by the way) and think about what your future will look like if we don't make some critical decisions on how we allow the city where you work, where you attend concerts and SU games and where you go to restaurants and hospitals, and museums. Picture there being no 'city' here. And think of a way to support the city that supports the majority of us in the county.

If you don't want the empty shell of a city, and the bloated multiple jurisdictions that exist in the county, the choice is clear. The path is not completely defined (more on that later), but the choice is clear.

Let's build our Syracuse-Onondaga community.

Tuesday's Number: $141,561

Tuesday is the day my local paper, The Post-Standard, publishes the weekly business section. In addition to special features, tips from stock experts, budgeting advice and the like, we get the judgment and bankruptcy listings.

This is the fourth full year I’ve been tracking these numbers – I captured part of the year in 2012 – and the third year that I’ve captured filings by hospital.  I include anything that is likely a patient debt owed to a hospital, nursing home, physician or physician group, medical supplier, and so on; I do not include filings by insurance companies, many of which are so diversified it would not be a fair assumption that the filing is related to medical care or health insurance.

In the first three years, the overall total was $67,965,862 – a staggering amount of money for a relatively small metropolitan area that includes the city of Syracuse and her suburbs, the towns and villages of Onondaga County, and to a lesser extent, some of the even smaller neighboring towns and villages.  As I reported in the 2015 recap, we turned sharply down last year – some $7M – and the hope is that we will continue to see progress in the overall total. Of course, a better sign of health would be an increase in the number of satisfied judgments; people’s ability to pay off their debt (or their willingness, as the case may be) is something else I’m hoping to see this year. 

This week, there were

• nine new judgments, totaling $144,060
• two satisfied judgments, for $16,409 and
• Two bankruptcies, totaling $13,991

Here’s the breakdown by hospital:

• Crouse had nine, with a net of $120,037
• St. Joe's had one, with a net credit of$6,420
• SUNY Upstate had two, totaling $15,427
• Community General, a part of SUNY, had one, for $12,517

This was the first filing for Community in fourteen weeks, and only their seventh filing since 2014. 

The paper only publishes filings of $5,000 or more.

Quick Takes (v6): The Rich Really Are Different

Quick Takes

We've long been told that rich people are just like the rest of us. You know, they put their pants on one leg at a time, and they have great kids and wonderful pets and they go off to work, and they donate to charity and all that.

And of course, they cheat on their spouses and their taxes, and they have addiction problems and they lose their jobs and stuff, just like regular Joes and Josies.

They tend to have bigger houses, sometimes even nicer houses. And also just like regular folks, some of them think about downsizing when they retire, moving into something smaller, getting rid of clutter and whatnot.

Today, however, we learn that they really are different from us regular folks, if they're willing to partake in this new project that's splattered on the front page of our newspaper.

In the east suburbs, which is where we have the highest concentration of wealth in our neck of the woods, there's a plan to build a new luxury apartment retirement community, with a full gym and a movie theater and other amenities which the developer tells us will make it like being on a 5-star cruise ship, without the waves and American Idol wanna-be singers, I'm guessing. Here's the pitch:

Our all-inclusive resort-style senior living communities are the ideal senior living options for adults 55 and over who seek an elegant, comfortable and safe place to call home. Designed to complement your lifestyle, our luxurious accommodations, unmatched amenities, flexible dining options and leisure activities set the tone for the retirement of your dreams.

Importantly, the 128 apartments will range in size from 566 to 1206 square feet, or around the size of the average walk-in closet in the homes of people who could be anticipated as potential residents of the new community.

The developer asked for (but admitted they don't need) a $3.4 million tax package on the project, or about 10% of the project's $33.85 million cost.  Two folks from the company told OCIDA, the Onondaga County Industrial Development Agency that they'd be creating 35 jobs, and that they'd like a break because it

would make the project more economically feasible and would lower the monthly rent for tenants from $3,800 to $3,500, making them more affordable for the growing population of residents reaching retirement age.

You are reading that right - $3,500 per month for a three-bedroom, 1200 square foot apartment, plus luxury cruise amenities.

I wonder if the residents will have to dress for dinner at the captain's table?

Consensus: To Boldly Go (Part 1)

It was just shy of two years ago that I first learned about the Consensus group, the gang of volunteers who undertook the mission of modernizing government for us here in Syracuse and Onondaga County.

In this post from February 2014, I recounted how Consensus had been awarded a $250K state grant to hire a consultant to help come up with a plan, and how commissioners visited with the editorial board of the Post Standard, and that the editors of the paper were going to be firm with this group:

We intend to hold them to their promises of real results. We urge them to be bold. Listen to the naysayers, but ignore the ones who put their self-interests above the community's. We urge them to include new voices in the discussion, not just the same arguments from the usual suspects. 

And, at that time, I wondered why we were going to be patient for some 18 months to have this group and their consultants come up with a plan to do something about our 15 villages, 19 towns, 16 police departments and 55 fire departments. And of course, the City of Syracuse.  I closed the post with this thought:

When it gets to that point (when one or more of these entities was no longer able to provide services) will people look back and say, boy, I wish we had worked slower on this and hired more consultants?

Well, the Consensus team released their preliminary recommendations three weeks ago, outlining several significant areas of overlap of the many and varied governmental jurisdictions in Onondaga County. And again, the folks at the paper are chiming in, encouraging us now, the citizens, not the experts.  Here's part of the editorial from January 29th, a few days after the report was released:

Citizens and leaders of our community and our region need to talk a lot more, think more deeply about the commission's recommendations, question the assumptions of each other and ourselves, and summon the will to challenge the status quo.

The status quo has history, time and inertia on its side. But the status quo is, in a word, unsustainable.  

Hindsight being 20/20, both of these editorials are spot on: we needed the Consensus commission to be bold, and we all need to pay attention, think about what they recommended, and participate in the discussion on what the report and its recommendations mean to us.

On the former, the ask to be bold, what do you think?  Did the preliminary recommendations go far enough?

The most-talked-about idea, under the bucket of Creating Regional Governance Capacity, includes moving to

Establish a process toward creating a new city-county government and service delivery structure that leverages the functional and scale similarities of the region's two largest local governments...(where) there is approximately $20 million in potential cost elimination through combination of governance, administrative and service delivery infrastructure over time

At the same time, the group recommended a

formal mechanism and defined process whereby towns and villages in the Syracuse - Onondaga community can join the new city-county framework over time - an "opt-in" process whereby they can join by a vote of the constituents in that municipality. 

Is it truly bold to recommend combining city and county government and leave the towns and villages out of it? And why is it left to those who live outside the city to pick and choose the time at which they come online with the new thinking, if ever, when city residents are expected to swallow the bitter pill of metropolitan government first, and quickly?

It seems, at least on the surface, that saving $20M is the highest priority, unless you're in the suburbs and beyond, in which case constituent service is still the measure of good government. It seems that, as long as we figure out how to save the money, we can let that history and inertia, that status quo, remain in effect for those who have left the city in the rear-view mirror of their moving van.

And while I certainly don't disagree with saving the money - as I noted above, there's some low-hanging fruit for the City and County to pick, which they should harvest quickly - it seems that there's much that could be done by the County Legislature to move everyone in the "towns and villages in the Syracuse-Onondaga community," as the Consensus report calls it, into the fold as quickly as possible, not as slowly as they would choose.

I hope the final recommendation address this aspect more forcefully.

That idea of a "Syracuse-Onondaga community" looks to be one of the bigger stumbling blocks to the success of this whole concept. That's where we have to talk a lot more, and think a lot more deeply.

More on that tomorrow.

Quick Takes (v5): Brokaw and Trump

Quick Takes

I don't think Tom Brokaw likes Donald Trump.

For the second time in about ten days, Brokaw has offered commentary on Trump and what he's doing to this election cycle, and perhaps, to all elections in the future.

On Meet the Press at the end of January, Brokaw allowed as how the thrice-married Trump, a man who has had affairs all over the world, was doing just fine with evangelicals in Iowa (although he under-performed the polling and only finished second).

Tonight, on NBC's Nightly News, Brokaw lamented the loss of civility personified by Trump. The name calling, Brokaw pointed out. The finger-wagging; the shushing; the sneering, the whole mess that is Trump on the campaign trail, he left out.

The latest example of this?  Trump's repeating of an audience member's comment (a woman's comment, by the way) that Ted Cruz is a "pussy."  Which, of course, drew a huge roar from the crowd. We would expect nothing less.

It is hard to imagine any other candidate lasting a week using his language and style. But it is working for him, helped by the echo chamber of social media and cable television. 

Brokaw is right on one point - no one else could get away with this. But he's wrong on one very significant point: it's not just social media and cable TV that are keeping Trump alive. It's the mainstream media, like his very own NBC, which keeps Trump alive, in the news, all the time -- and for free.

While other significantly more civil candidates struggle to get air time, and have to pay millions to get ads on television, Trump is there, every night, for free. It's so ridiculous, he even points it out to them, and they do it anyway.

Brokaw notes that

By tonight we'll know if the Trump 'take-no-prisoners' style adds up to a big victory.

The answer, we have learned, is yes.

Trump was projected the winner with barely over 10% of the vote counted; as I write this, now less than a quarter of the votes have been tallied, and Trump, at 34%, is leading John Kasich (15%), with Jeb! and Ted Cruz tied at 12%.

Tuesday's Number: $131,474

Tuesday is the day my local paper, The Post-Standard, publishes the weekly business section. In addition to special features, tips from stock experts, budgeting advice and the like, we get the judgment and bankruptcy listings.

This is the fourth full year I’ve been tracking these numbers – I captured part of the year in 2012 – and the third year that I’ve captured filings by hospital.  I include anything that is likely a patient debt owed to a hospital, nursing home, physician or physician group, medical supplier, and so on; I do not include filings by insurance companies, many of which are so diversified it would not be a fair assumption that the filing is related to medical care or health insurance.

In the first three years, the overall total was $67,965,862 – a staggering amount of money for a relatively small metropolitan area that includes the city of Syracuse and her suburbs, the towns and villages of Onondaga County, and to a lesser extent, some of the even smaller neighboring towns and villages.  As I reported in the 2015 recap, we turned sharply down last year – some $7M – and the hope is that we will continue to see progress in the overall total.  Of course, a better sign of health would be an increase in the number of satisfied judgments; people’s ability to pay off their debt (or their willingness, as the case may be) is something else I’m hoping to see this year.  

This week, there were

• eleven new judgments, totaling $20,289; 
• one satisfied judgment, for $41,969; 
• and two bankruptcies, totaling $53,154.

By hospital:

• Crouse had nine, for $94,667;
• St Joe's had two, for $19,411; and
• SUNY Upstate had two,including the $41K repayment, for a net credit of $20,768

A local radiology group and a North Country medical center accounted for the remaining $38,074. 

The paper only publishes filings of $5,000 or more.

My Middle-aged White Lady Perspective: A Special Place in Hell

There are probably lots of special places in hell, for all kinds of special people.

People who harm children. People who kill animals, like the two most heinous recent cases in my neck of the woods one involving a horse, another a family's dog. Pedophile priests. The folks who put Bruce Springsteen and Beethoven on Muzak. The people who 'gummied' the world. Those who prey on senior citizens. The people who make up drug names. Whoever it was who decided that sagging pants and side boob are fashion statements.

And now, there might be a special place for me; I'm seriously on the fence about Hillary Clinton (that's a subject for another post), but I've been put on notice by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, on the stump for Hillary in New Hampshire, who told us,

Just remember - there's a special place in hell for women who don't help other women.

The crowd roared, as it was supposed to -- after all, the folks who were there were most likely already in the bag for Hillary, as Albright said she was, back in November. She also noted, referencing Bernie's stump speech line

So people are talking about a revolution. What a revolution it would be to have a woman president.

A 78-year old successful woman, a trailblazer, tells us there's only one kind of revolution, and there's only one vote a woman can make and go to heaven.

If I were 30 or so years younger, and a Bernie Sanders supporter, it would be even worse: I'd not only have a special place in hell, but I'd be supporting a candidate simply because of a penis. Not the candidate's penis, heaven forbid - the penises of his supporters.

Just listen to Gloria Steinem, in response to a question from Bill Maher on Hillary's gender gap with young women.

And when you're young you're thinking 'where are the boys?' The boys are with Bernie.

And she said it after noting the exact reason many young women actually say they're Feeling the Bern:

I did not say 'thank you for the vote.' I got mad on the basis if what's happening to me. And I think that's true of young women too. So they're made as hell because they're graduating in debt and they're going to earn a million dollars less in their lifetime to pay it back. You  know, they're mad about what's happening to them.

An 81-year old, trailblazing feminist, telling us that young women are just in it for the boys.

This is the same Gloria Steinem who, back in 1996, endorsed Bernie Sanders, a progressive and a feminist, according to people who spoke on his behalf, in his Congressional race against a woman. At a college where the audience is not surprisingly young, and appears to be mostly women.

Steinem began her talk by saying

I'm only here today to make Bernie Sanders an honorary woman.

That was a close as she came to mentioning a penis.

Now, I don't think that Madeleine Albright really thinks that Gloria Steinem should rot in hell for supporting Bernie Sanders in a race against a woman 20 years ago. And I don't think that Gloria Steinem really believes that young women support male politicians because they're looking for boys.

That may have been the case back in their day, but it's specifically because of women like Steinem that women don't need to be thought of as being involved in something just to hook up with guys, or, heaven forbid, to find a husband.  And it's specifically because of women like Albright that young women and even middle-aged white ladies like me can see themselves as more than just a wife, just a mom, just a low-paid worker in the service sector, and actually be more than that if they choose.

I think both of them know better than to say what they said, even if they were kidding. Because we know, you and I, that anyone - male or female - who had made that kind of statement to either Albright or Steinem would not have been thought funny by these women.

There's a great definition of 'feminist' about six minutes into the video that contains Steinem's endorsement of Bernie, which starts around 15 minutes in.  The definition was provided by Sally Conrad, a former Vermont state senator.

To be a feminist, a person doesn't have to be a woman. A feminist is  person who challenges the power structure of this country. A person who realizes that every decision whether made by government policy makers or corporate executives, is colored by the race, class, and gender of the people in power. A feminist is person who tries to shift that imbalance of power away from those who have it all, to those who don't have any.

By that definition, and by his own words, Bernie Sanders is a feminist, and he's been a consistent feminist all along. In fact, absent references to specific dates and people, you'd be hard-pressed to know that the speech he makes in the 1996 video is not the speech he gives on the stump today, 20 years later.

We women can support any candidate we want, for whatever reason we want, and we shouldn't be shamed by other women who hold different viewpoints. After all, blindly following the female candidate back in 2008 could have led us to a two-term-VP Sarah Palin presidential campaign today.

Had I contributed to that, I'd surely deserve a special place in hell.

Wondering, on Wednesday (v47)

Add Rand Paul and Rick Santorum to the list of the fallen on the Republican side.

Paul announced today that he's suspending his campaign, and will go back and fight in earnest to keep his Senate seat - because only in America, or maybe only in Kentucky, do we allow a person to run for two different offices at the same time.

Santorum, who last time out was the favorite of the evangelicals and the winner of the Iowa caucus, never garnered any fervor for his message which, I think, was basically that he was an evangelical, too. Once, that was enough - but now, not so much. This time out? Dead last. He's thrown his support behind Marco Rubio.

Jeb! is reduced to asking people for applause, and may soon be asked to step aside by the same folks who put $100,000,000 into getting him elected, and that won't be pretty.  I'm wondering, this Wednesday, if the Bush example will make people think twice about investing millions and millions and millions in someone before a single vote has been counted?

Meanwhile, the rest of them meander acrosss New Hampshire, at least for a little longer. I wouldn't be at all surprised if Carly Fiorina gives up before, or shortly after, the voting next week.

Living here in reliably blue New York, I don't get to see any of the presidential candidates. The Ds trust they don't need to ask for our votes, and the Rs don't bother asking for them.  Doomed to irrelevance, I wondered if my New Hampshire brother was going to make a point of seeing any of the candidates this time around.

He's much more quietly political than I am; it's not that he doesn't care as much, he cares differently. For more years than I can remember, he's been in plastics, working at companies large and small, owned by Americans, by Germans, by Chinese. He's worked to keep other Americans working, sometimes successfully and sometimes, less so - and he understands what it's like to have his own job disappear, leaving him scrambling to find something so he could pay his bills.

If I were him, I'd be out there trying to see all of the candidates, listen to what they have to say about our economy, and good old fashioned American jobs, the kind where we build things instead of serving things, and our educational system, and yes, maybe a little bit about immigration, less still about terrorism and war.

But instead of searching the schedules to see who was going to be in his area, he said he was searching for a candidate that matters, and he added,

What a circus. The world must be in hysterics watching this.

We talked a little about the UK debating on whether they should ban Trump (they chose not to), and he went on to tell me that he gets frustrated just watching the snippets of their speeches and appearances on television, that he'd definitely not be able to sit through the real thing. He lamented the lack of real plans on the part of most of the candidates, the lack of logic, and the abundance of rhetoric and hate.

While I don't think many of the candidates are talking to me, I thought they'd be talking to my brother. But it seems he's waiting for one of them to make sense to an ordinary American without any particular agenda of hate.

I wonder, how long will he have to wait?

Tuesday's Number: $355,713

Tuesday is the day my local paper, The Post-Standard, publishes the weekly business section. In addition to special features, tips from stock experts, budgeting advice and the like, we get the judgment and bankruptcy listings.

This is the fourth full year I’ve been tracking these numbers – I captured part of the year in 2012 – and the third year that I’ve captured filings by hospital.  I include anything that is likely a patient debt owed to a hospital, nursing home, physician or physician group, medical supplier, and so on; I do not include filings by insurance companies, many of which are so diversified it would not be a fair assumption that the filing is related to medical care or health insurance.

In the first three years, the overall total was $67,965,862 – a staggering amount of money for a relatively small metropolitan area that includes the city of Syracuse and her suburbs, the towns and villages of Onondaga County, and to a lesser extent, some of the even smaller neighboring towns and villages.  As I reported in the 2015 recap, we turned sharply down last year – some $7M – and the hope is that we will continue to see progress in the overall total.  Of course, a better sign of health would be an increase in the number of satisfied judgments; people’s ability to pay off their debt (or their willingness, as the case may be) is something else I’m hoping to see this year.  

This week, there were:

• 33 new judgments to hospitals, doctors, or other medical providers, for $355,713
• no satisfied judgments and
• no bankruptcies 

Here’s the breakdown by hospital:

• Crouse had four, totaling $29,699
• SUNY Upstate had 17, totaling $296,350

A local rehab center ($21,977) and a physician practice ($7,687) account for the balance.

The paper publishes only those accounts of at least $5,000.

The Voice

America, or at least a strongly evangelical, college educated young group of them (the high voter turnout segments in Iowa) has.

They rejected the establishment Republicans pretty handily, and dealt a blow to the establishment Democrat as well.

Trump's second place finish was, to me, a good Deal, and an affirmation of sorts, but somewhat overshadowed by the Cruz victory. Do we now hope for Rubio to pick up speed and support?

And how does the Clinton camp get out from under the heavy burden of 'inevitability' after the dead heat with Bernie Sanders? Will we see full attack mode, or will she try to maintain some sense of calm and 'presidentiality'  as they move down the road?

On to New Hampshire, where we're likely going to see more folks drop out of the race (Huckabee and O'Malley are the immediate Iowa suspenders) and even  more scrambling for the precious early votes that drive this crazy game.