Grains of Salt (v20): Full Consensus Transparency

In my last Grains of Salt post, (v19), I talked about a proposal from our Sonofa Gov, Andrew Cuomo, that would allow county executives to pretty much unilaterally move to consolidate governmental agencies in their jurisdictions, even going so far as to getting ballot initiatives in place this coming November.

And, I mentioned that we were still awaiting for a report from the Consensus CNY group, which had been tasked with coming up with a way to move towards 'government modernization' which is just another word for nothing left to lose. Oh wait, sorry -- that's freedom.

Government modernization is consolidation. It's not inherently a bad thing -- I want to be clear on that. Conceptually, I support reasonable consolidation, but at the same time I understand the not inconsiderable angst that even thinking about it can cause impacted residents, whether they live in the Syracuse, the city that would be absorbed? abolished? by the larger Onondaga County, or if they're suburban county residents who fear being saddled with the ills of the city, with no tangible (or even perceived) benefit.

Now that the report is here, we all have a lot of work to do, starting with reading it, and trying our best to understand what it means.  And, we then have to find out what other people think it means, and we have to find out what it will look like and feel like and what will our new home even be called? We all have our 'hometown' identities, whether it's Jordan or Fayetteville or Syracuse or The Valley... As I said, we have a lot of work to do, particularly if we want to avoid that unilateral county executive proposal thing.

I'm in the process of reading the report and getting my thoughts together. I know I promised I'd do that when we received the draft report (you can read other posts on Consensus here), but this time I'm committed to getting a handle on it now that we've got the real deal.

And as to making sure that I can learn what everyone else is thinking about? Well, today I sent the following email to all of our local televisions stations:

I’m writing to all of the Syracuse area television stations, asking that you work independently or collaboratively to ensure that all public meetings related to the Consensus report on consolidation are broadcast live, on air and online.

Now that we finally have the report, it’s critical that everyone in the city of Syracuse and Onondaga County has the opportunity to see and hear for themselves - from the Consensus team, local politicians, and other members of the community - what consolidation will mean and how it might work.

With Governor Cuomo’s planned legislation (introduced in his State of the State package) that will allow county executives to ‘go it alone’ and place consolidation initiatives on the ballot in November looming on the horizon, the Consensus report and the various community perspectives on it become even more important that they might have been otherwise – and there is greater urgency than before.

In addition to ensuring that scheduled meetings are carried live, I’d ask that you also please consider hosting sessions at SU, OCC, the Civic Center, and your own studios (similar to how you host candidate debates, for example) with panels of politicians and Consensus team members (together or separately), where questions from the community can answered by the experts. Allow questions to be submitted in advance, so that folks who can’t make it to a meeting still have a chance for their voice to be heard.

I appreciate your consideration of these and any other opportunities in which your station can participate, to help facilitate these critically important conversations over the coming weeks.

Thank you!

I'm hopeful they'll take these suggestions to heart, and do something similar, or better, using all of the creativity they can bring to bear. As always, I'll keep you posted on outcomes.

And if you're in my neck of the woods, I strongly encourage you to please do your part, too.  Click here to access the full report and learn more about what might be in store for us.

Grains of Salt (v19): Waiting for Consensus

I've been neglecting things that are going on around Syracuse and Central New York, what with all of the bluster and noise coming from Washington DC, so I thought it was time to throw around a few Grains of Salt.

You remember the Consensus Commission, right? The group of local businessmen, educators, movers and shakers that were trying t come up with some kind of recommendation for a metropolitan government in this neck of the woods?

I've written about this group a few times in the past, but not lately, as we're still waiting for their final report. The group itself has been quiet, so I guess I can go a little easy on myself.  For example, their official Facebook page hasn't been updated since August of last year, when they posted an article by Tim Knauss of the Post-Standard and syracuse.com stating that their report would be out by "mid-fall" according to Consensus co-chair Neal Murphy. Noting that "no deadline has been set" Knauss reported

Since any public referendum on the initiatives is likely more than a year away, the commission is taking time to deliberate and refine its recommendations...It's more important that we get this right than that we commit to an arbitrary timetable. 

While the commission has been deliberative (the latest was that the report was expected by the end of January, which has come and gone with no update), and while I've been neglectful, I can assure you our Sonofa Gov Andrew Cuomo and our local county executive, OnJoanie Mahoney, have not been sitting idly by, oh no sirree.

Cuomo announced a plan to Empower Voters to Approve Plans to Lower the Cost of Local Government as part of his Rolling State of the State Address, delivered in various cities across the state. This 23rd recommendation from Cuomo requires county execs to come up with consolidation plans, put them in front of their county legislature (not the impacted jurisdiction) by August 1, 2017. If the county's elected officials don't get the plan implemented, it goes to the voters on the ballot in November for approval or, if not approved, the process starts all over again the following year, with similar August and November deadlines.

Sounds like fun, right? Because, after all, according to the Gov,

The property tax is the most burdensome tax to homeowners and business owners in every part of the state, inhibiting their ability to grow and contribute to our economy. By challenging local governments to create a plan to streamline government bureaucracy for voter approval, this innovative and powerful initiative will empower communities and lead to real, recurring property tax savings... this proposal will reduce the burden of the tax and establish New York as a national model for government efficiency.

OnJoanie has said that she thinks people want consolidation, and she'd put a proposal on the table; for example,

We're good at parks, and we can take on the city parks. I would put it on a referendum if I thought the public wanted that, really, regardless of the other political agendas in town. 

We'll see whether Mahoney's judgment on what the people want is on target or not when the final report from Consensus gets here, but if the open comment period last year is any indication, there may bes less support for it than she thinks.

And, of course, we'll have to wait and see if the state legislature, or the three men in a room, even approve the Gov's plan. There's no guarantee the local politicians will set aside their spiteful political agendas and support this, and state senators and representatives are very likely to get an earful.

Consensus, anyone?

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.

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.

Consensus? We'll Find Out

Consensus Report

With little surprise, a preliminary report was issued today recommending consolidation of governmental services across the city of Syracuse and Onondaga County.

The report, from Consensus, the Committee on Local Government Modernization, was long awaited and frequently hinted at by politicians including our Sonofa Governor, Andrew Cuomo, and his pal, County Executive OnJoanie Mahoney.

Today's releases include the full report  as well as a summary version. I have yet to plow through all of the documents, but wanted to share some of what's in the report, including this from the summary:

Our public servants have an opportunity to lead us in the direction of a bold new vision for the Syracuse-Onondaga community. One that will make our community even better and more reflective of what we desire and deserve. We can do better. The next step in that journey is here. 

Noting that the preliminary recommendations "have not yet been formally accepted by the full commission", they recommend the following in the Governance bucket:

• Establish a process toward creating a new city-county government and service delivery structure that leverages function and scale similarities of the City of Syracuse and Onondaga County.
•  Create a formal mechanism and process whereby towns and villages can join the new city-county framework over time. 
• Vest the new city-county government with responsibility for specific regional matters, including the regional land use plan, overseeing infrastructure planning and economic development using a county-wide model.
• Local government leaders must work together to see local relief from statutes and mandates that drive up cost and limit government efficiency.

Other buckets of recommendations include infrastructure, municipal operations, public safety, and economic development and include cost-saving ideas ranging from combining economic development agencies, parks, courts and more, as well as expanding 'shared services' across the county, modernizing processes and technology, and more. 

Who else has done this successfully, you might ask?  Indianapolis, Nashville and Jacksonville, and the Twin Cities area in Minnesota are referenced in the reports.  

What comes next? Public comment - lots of options, from emails to Facebook to public meetings - heck, you can even host a meeting --are included in the report.  

I encourage those of you in the Syracuse area to read either the summary or the full report, and make your voice heard. You have until mid-March to get your word in edgewise. 

The Update Desk: Consensus on Consolidation

In a recent post on the Consensus commission, the group that's going to help us here in Onondaga County and the city of Syracuse figure out how we can reduce the number of jurisdictions we have, I mentioned two examples of why we need to come up with ways to do exactly that.

One example was the village of East Syracuse, faced with an almost 22% tax increase; the village board was looking for opportunities to help reduce that burden, and looking again at possibly making the painful decision to get rid of the village police department and instead have police services provided by the town of Dewitt.

Last night, the village board voted to eliminate the police department, by a vote of four to one. The one board member who voted against the local law noted that the voters made their decision back in 2012 when they voted down a similar opportunity.

Times have changed since then - I think the tax increase is indicative of that. And while this decision wouldn't completely eliminate the cost of police protection for village residents, it is projected to save about $164 in taxes annually on a house assessed at $100,000, or more than half of the 2014 increase, if my math is correct.

Next step? Another public vote, coming on April 2nd.  We'll see if things will be different this time, or if the residents stick to their guns (and the higher taxes) again.

Consensus Commission Gets a Pass

There's a whole lot of government going on, going on -- if not a whole lot of governing -- in New York State, that's for sure.  At last count, there were around 10,500 separate jurisdictions, according to Governor Cuomo in his State of the State address. That includes counties, cities, towns, villages, fire districts, water districts, sewer districts, district districts...

Onondaga County Executive Joanie Mahoney mentioned consolidation in a live chat on Syracuse.com last week. Here's what she said.

Consolidation is a hot topic and we are talking on many fronts. Parks is part of that discussion. County parks are one of the things we do best in county government and if we can help the city or towns and villages, we want to. The discussion has been about an inter-municipal agreement and we are in the early stages. Ryan McMahon and Bob Dougherty are the two leads at this point.  Food for thought: We have (State Senator) John DeFrancisco, (Assemblyman) Bill Magnarelli, Ryan McMahon, Stephanie Miner and myself as former city councilors. It seems like as good a time as any to talk about how to do this in a way that protects everyone.

A state senator, a state assemblyman, the mayor, the county executive, the leaders of the county legislature - seems like they could figure something out, doesn't it? So then, why do we need the Consensus CNY group, which I learned about reading an editorial in The Post-Standard?

Here's what caught my eye:

The commissioners visited with the Editorial Board last week. 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 old arguments from the usual suspects. 

Consensus commission? Are you wondering what the heck that is? Here's the explanation in a recent article.

So local government officials are teaming up with leaders from business, labor, schools, and neighborhood groups to figure out how to shrink the layers of public bureaucracy in Onondaga County. The group, called Consensus, plans to use the bulk of the money to hire a consultant. They plan to meet once a month and report their findings within the next 12 to 18 months.

The group, which was announced towards the end of January, already has a slick website, which identifies  the members (many of the names are familiar ones) and also the partner organizations, including Syracuse 20/20, CenterStateCEO, Focus Greater Syracuse, the local chapter of the League of Women Voters,  the Onondaga Citizens League, and the Homebuilders and Remodelers Association of CNY.

Right off the bat, I'm confused. Why on earth would these high-powered civic leaders, wise businessmen and women, all these community organizations need to spend 'the bulk of" the $250,000 state grant that Senator DeFrancisco helped get, on a consultant to try and figure out what to do?  Isn't 'figuring out what to do' pretty much the mission of these organizations, some of which have been around since the 1990s, or even earlier?

And CenterStateCEO?  Heck, this organization itself was born from a consolidation: the merger of the Greater Syracuse Chamber of Commerce and the Metropolitan Development Association. When I see that they're part of a group that is going to spend a quarter-million dollars on a consultant, I'm left scratching my head, because I think they already know where to get the analysis done. Check out this snippet from the Message from the President on their website.

In a knowledge economy, smart regions prosper. CenterState New York is rich in intellectual resources, with the third highest concentration of colleges and universities in the nation.  In this region, there are 35 campuses educating more than 138,000 college students and conducting more than $2 billion in research and development annually.  

Uh, how about we tap into those colleges and universities, where we have people with no particular skin in the game, and send their best and brightest out across the county to come up with ways to solve our problems, as part of their course work?  Maxwell School anyone?

You don't have to go too far to find examples of where what we have today doesn't work well. For example, to the west, we find one fire department that has filed suit against, well, pretty much everyone: the town, the town board, the village where the fire department is located, the village trustees, the neighboring village, those village trustees, their volunteer fire department, their village fire department, another neighboring fire district, that board of fire commissioners, and their fire company, the second village's ambulance company, and Onondaga County. Had there been any reasonable consolidation in this neck of the woods, there likely would not even be a lawsuit.

And to the east, we have another village that, in the face of an almost 22% tax hike, is again trying to garner enough support to abolish the village police department and sign on with the town police. This was defeated a couple of years back, but that was before the tax hike. In the same village, on the other hand, the fire department is hoping to split off from the village, and - wait for it -- form their own district, which is the exact opposite of what's needed.  But imagine how this could look, if village residents were willing to consolidate or share police services with the town,and be better positioned to make a decision on their fire department.

Something's got to give, somewhere, somehow. Because, as the editorial noted, Onondaga County has 15 villages, 19 towns, 16 police departments and 55 fire departments. We have more heavy rescue trucks (40) than New York City (5), when we have 7.5 million fewer residents. This is no way to run a rodeo.

Frankly, I think the editorial board went easy on the Consensus commission; I'm surprised they're satisfied with it taking another 18 months or so to come up with a plan - and that's just the first step. Instead, I would have loved to see some encouragement to get this figured out faster, using readily available resources from within our knowledge community, and make something happen quickly.  Because either we figure out a way to consolidate and share services, or some of our Rubik's cube of jurisdictions may have to stop offering services all together.

When it gets to that point, will people look back and say, boy, I wish we had worked slower on this, and hired more consultants?

Seeds of Collaboration

Last week, I offered up several of my wishes for 2010. This was one of them:

• Let 2010 be the Year of Cooperation between all levels of government including village, town, city, county, region, state and national jurisdictions. They should learn to play well with each other, consolidate services where possible, and think  about what is truly best for their constituents in these trying economic times.

Clearly I don’t pretend that I’m the first person who thought of that – like it says in the song, "...I know it's been said many times, many ways..." over the years. Some of the local folks who said it actually were sincere; others were more interested in being seen as favoring consolidation and cooperation, but less interested in doing anything about it. Sadly, when those two sides butt heads, the constituents are the losers.

But there is hope. A couple of interesting things occurred recently here in Syracuse that make it clear that kind of message is not lost on people.

• Republican Onondaga County Executive Joanie Mahoney and newly elected Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner, a Democrat, had lunch.


• Greater Syracuse Chamber of Commerce President Darlene Kerr and Metropolitan Development Association President Robert Simpson had a press conference.

These are important events for the greater Syracuse and Central New York area for a few reasons.

If we are to move forward, and move forward well, it will require Joanie and Stephanie to come together frequently, reasonably, and without ego. It will likely require them to convince their parties, their employees, and both the County Legislature and the Common Council to give up territory, to give up power, to give up titles and likely even jobs, for the greater good.

And, if this level of discussion, collaboration, and progress can happen at the city and county level, maybe folks at other jurisdictions (towns, villages, etc.) would look to find ways to have similar conversations. Of course, they have to pick the right issues to collaborate on - police and fire services seem to be real hot buttons, maybe picking something a little less touchy to start might make sense.

Last, the reason why the Chamber and MDA seem ready to set aside long-standing power struggles and egos is mostly because they have new leaders who are able to see that shared opportunities can be better than separate accomplishments. This is a great lesson which can be expanded across governmental agencies, businesses, and educational institutions.

(They're are also proof that sometimes the folks that have been around the longest may not be the best ones to lead us forward. Hmm…in an election year…where we have lots of stagnant, long-term, short-sighted people in power… Getting any ideas?)

The other thing that’s really cool about this is that changing the way we approach economic development was the one of the cornerstones of Stephanie’s plan for the city. In her 50 Point Plan for a 21st Century City, the first section of the Plan includes references to us “…need(ing) a new direction and a new approach…cogent regional economic development principles and practices…” The first strategy she outlined called for the city to “work with the County, MDA, Chamber, Convention and Visitors Bureau, MACNY and others…” This collaboration is shaping up to be easier that many thought it might be.

That we’re already seeing this level of cooperation is remarkable. That others besides just Stephanie and me see the benefits is a huge plus. That we're seeing immediate action on a critical strategic issue for the region is exciting. 

Hopefully it’s the real deal, and not just a flash in the pan.