Today's Post Standard features and Op Ed from County Executive Joanie Mahoney calling for increased consolidation of essential services throughout the county. In yesterdays post i spoke of the need to reduce the size of the legislative body and this article piggybacks on that same theme. Can we afford not to reduce government? Can we afford to continue spending our hard earned and dwindling tax dollars not on services actually being provided but on duplicated layers of bureaucracy?
There has been much talk of consolidation of police and fire services but little concrete action to date. Why the resistance? Well for one our elected officials are very entrenched and comfortable. And why shouldn't they be with incumbency an almost guarantee path to year after year reelection. Some have called for term limits but i feel this simply masks the larger issues at hand. The problem is that too few people vote and those who cast ballots with regularity fail to even research their candidates, choosing instead to vote across the party line blindly choosing any candidate so long as they are the same party as the voter. Many defer their obligation to know the people they are voting into power and leave it to the discretion's of the party elites to put forth a slate of "like minded candidates". Until we as tax payers begin to challenge our leaders: Democrats and Republicans we will be destined to elect the same stale old guard mentalities that got us into this mess.
At the end of the day we all want the politicians to cut our taxes-but they dare not cut our subsidies. The elderly want more programs for seniors but decry spending on sports of education. Younger families with children rail against more Senior offerings and demand more money be spent on education. People argue against merging police departments out of fear that they will no longer be safe though statistically that has not proven to be the case where consolidation was put into effect.
"Cut my taxes-cut someone Else's benefits" seems to be the battle cry of our once proud and powerful state" We need to get to a common ground of shared responsibility and shared sacrifice where hard choices are openly debated and votes taken. We need to get to a place where our revenues match our expenditures and our priorities are focused on "less being more" and on "the must haves-versus the nice to haves". Only then can we move forward.
http://blog.syracuse.com/opinion/2010/06/commentary_approach_discussion.html
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Friday, June 25, 2010
Challenges for the Onondaga County Legislature
There is a proposal being forwarded to reduce the number of legislators from the current 19. Each of these elected officials after just 5 years of service gets health insurance coverage for life. What is wrong with this picture? I mean i guess i can't argue with the fundamental capitalist ideal that any individual should try and get as much financially as he or she possibly can. But when this same "Greed is Good" (Gordon Gecko-Wall Street) philosophy extends to the realm of publicly financed and elected representatives i have a problem with the entire notion. Clearly elected official deserve to be compensated. But how many elected officials do we need to represent us in Central New York and at what cost. In business organizations determine relative compensation strategies through cost benefit analysis propositions. What litmus test should we apply to our elected officials?
Onondaga County is relatively small @ 459,805 residents per the 2000 census. In this same county we have over a dozen towns and villages all with elected officials. Could we not reduce the elected officialdom of our county? Could we not appoint the existing town supervisors to also serve 1 time per week in county wide legislative sessions? All the "talk" about consolidation of services and belt tightening has been just that...TALK!!! We need to take action.
Perhaps 19 legislators is too many, maybe 19 is just right...what do you think?
Onondaga County is relatively small @ 459,805 residents per the 2000 census. In this same county we have over a dozen towns and villages all with elected officials. Could we not reduce the elected officialdom of our county? Could we not appoint the existing town supervisors to also serve 1 time per week in county wide legislative sessions? All the "talk" about consolidation of services and belt tightening has been just that...TALK!!! We need to take action.
Perhaps 19 legislators is too many, maybe 19 is just right...what do you think?
Monday, June 14, 2010
Destiny USA-Boomtown to BUST!!!
So where did the vaunted Destiny Project go wrong? Was it one promise to far? Or was it a pipe dream from the very start. Clearly the entire CNY community was energized at the prospect of such a huge development coming to our hometown. Many people, politicians, businesspeople, everyday locals, all felt the sweetheart deals given to Bob Congel would end up netting little of the promise of Destiny. There is little argument that the project has been mired in legal wrangling for over 2 years with no direction and no action taken at the site. What is less clear is the future of the project as a whole. Clearly a new economic reality has taken the world by storm. The Great Recession has caused many an entreprenuer to recalibrate his or her vision for the future and Destiny is just another project in a long line of corporate excess and over reaching that has defined the last 2 years. Destiny for all its promise, its vision, it granduer is effectively dead. Caught in the halls of courtrooms both state and federal and destined to be tied up in legal brinkmanship for the foreseable future leaving an entire community to ask-if not Destiny then what, and if not now then when? You see CNY has lost its traditional manufacturing base with its good paying jobs...its young educated offspring have moved on and out of theri hometown in search of actual opportunity, not the illusion of opportunity.
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Lunch @ Juanitas
Anyone living in the greater Syracuse Area since 1982 has probably eaten Mexican food at Juanitas on Court St. The food is just as good as always. The new location is in Liverpool in the old Ponderossa. Walking in the dining room is spacious and the staff is friendly.
We started out with the Jalapeno popper appetizers which came out hot with just the right amount of spice. For the main entree we had Pork Burrittos, once again the main course did not dissapoint here. Washed it all down with a Corona and a lime and will definitely be back for more soon!!!
Juanita's Mexican Kitchen
207 Oswego St. Liverpool, NY 13088
478-2185
We started out with the Jalapeno popper appetizers which came out hot with just the right amount of spice. For the main entree we had Pork Burrittos, once again the main course did not dissapoint here. Washed it all down with a Corona and a lime and will definitely be back for more soon!!!
Juanita's Mexican Kitchen
207 Oswego St. Liverpool, NY 13088
478-2185
Monday, May 05, 2008
Credit Crunch and The Future of DestinyUSA
Its been a while since i posted to my Blog, but we are back and here to stay. For the last several years now the Destiny USA project has been billed as the future of the Central New York Economy but that future grows cloudier by the day with the slowdown in the overall economy. Destiny, billed as a privately financed mega resort, mall entertainment desitnation has laid off a fourth of its workforce all of who were tied to the construction of the phase two Grand Destiny USA. The Hotel is having trouble getting financing in the tightening private captial markets. The entire project earned 30 year tax exemption status-irregardless of whether or not the entire project is ever fully built out. A sweetheart deal for sure!!! The question is whether or not Congel will meet his vision for the Over reaching Destiny project or if he will use the credit crunch as his excuse for cutting his losses and running away with all those tax credits and leaving the taxpayers to foot the bill for the next three decades.
Monday, July 18, 2005
Mass transit blues
Syracuse is no stranger to mass transit. There is Ontrack the seldom used but often hyped low tech train that runs from Jamesville to Carousel Mall. It stops at Armory Square and at the bottom of 'heart attack hill' below the Dome. The system is almost 100%tax payer subsidized and never produced the jobs or riders that were promised. After the Madrid and London subway bombings who wants to ride a train anyways...Right? Wrong!!!
Everyone assumes that Americans don't want high speed rail. We want our cars, and our 1 1/2 hour commutes, and traffic jams and fender benders, and on and on. The fact is that the American people have never been shown a viable alternative. Well here it is:
Using existing state owned right of ways we build guideways for high speed maglev trains from Niagara Falls and Buffalo to Syracuse, Cortland, Binghamton, and finally New York City. Imagine getting on a maglev in Syracuse and 40 minutes later getting off at Grand Central Station or the Falls. Why should anyone care? Imagine needing a job in finance but unable to find work in your field in Syracuse. A quick maglev ride to NYC is just 40 minutes to thousands of finance job opportunities. Imagine wanting to see a Broadway show on a Friday evening and you live in Buffalo. An hour ride on the Maglev and a quick cab ride to Broadway and you will be there. Goods and people will be whisked at unheard of speeds across the Empire State. This vast state will be brought together in ways that no other state could even imagine. How much will it cost? How much does it cost to keep up the Thruway? Linking major cities and rural attractions like the Adirondacks and Wine Country will draw in tourists to our fair state. Cities will then need to build light rail, tramways, or yes, even gondolas to transit people from the main maglev lines to their citywide attractions. Imagine a gondola tacking you from the maglev center at Hancock airport to the fairgrounds or the Dome, or the malls....We need to be innovative and develop new high tech industry now. High speed rail is expensive to build, cheap to run and maintain and could prove to be just the boon we have been looking for.
Everyone assumes that Americans don't want high speed rail. We want our cars, and our 1 1/2 hour commutes, and traffic jams and fender benders, and on and on. The fact is that the American people have never been shown a viable alternative. Well here it is:
Using existing state owned right of ways we build guideways for high speed maglev trains from Niagara Falls and Buffalo to Syracuse, Cortland, Binghamton, and finally New York City. Imagine getting on a maglev in Syracuse and 40 minutes later getting off at Grand Central Station or the Falls. Why should anyone care? Imagine needing a job in finance but unable to find work in your field in Syracuse. A quick maglev ride to NYC is just 40 minutes to thousands of finance job opportunities. Imagine wanting to see a Broadway show on a Friday evening and you live in Buffalo. An hour ride on the Maglev and a quick cab ride to Broadway and you will be there. Goods and people will be whisked at unheard of speeds across the Empire State. This vast state will be brought together in ways that no other state could even imagine. How much will it cost? How much does it cost to keep up the Thruway? Linking major cities and rural attractions like the Adirondacks and Wine Country will draw in tourists to our fair state. Cities will then need to build light rail, tramways, or yes, even gondolas to transit people from the main maglev lines to their citywide attractions. Imagine a gondola tacking you from the maglev center at Hancock airport to the fairgrounds or the Dome, or the malls....We need to be innovative and develop new high tech industry now. High speed rail is expensive to build, cheap to run and maintain and could prove to be just the boon we have been looking for.
Sunday, July 03, 2005
Tale of 2 cities, Syracuse Versus Baltimore Maryland
I just got back from a family outing to an old fashioned summer baseball game in Baltimore. Aside from the long drive I was eager to see a quality professional sporting event. Baltimore did not disappoint. The stadium was built in a revitalized downtown center. Syracuse's minor league stadium is built on a side of town not often frequented by folks from the suburbs. Baltimore's stadium was clean, packed full of screaming fans and it was architecturally beautiful. Skychiefs stadium in Syracuse is none of those things...Least of all packed.
Baltimore did it right. The BART trains disgorge their passengers right at the gates of the stadium meaning the fan faithful can park far from the crowded inner city. The vendors were plentiful, selling BBQ ribs, pulled pork sandwiches, and crab cakes. In Syracuse you get a Hoffman hot dog and a soda.
The smartest thing about the Baltimore stadium is it's location. The placement of Camden Yards @ the heart of downtown ensures that a good portion of the fans will remain in the clean neighborhoods surrounding the stadium after the game. It ensures that many folks will eat a meal or tip back a cold one in the nearby restaurants and pubs. For the out of towners there are multiple hotels within a blocks walk from the front gate of the stadium. The Syracuse stadium was built miles away from downtown and the rejuvenated Armory Square district. The few fans who do attend games pay 3 bucks to park (there is a train but it can't reach the stadium) and then they go home. They go home because there are no shops or restaurants nearby for them to stop into.
And herein lies my point; Syracuse development has been done here and there and over there. But nothing is linked together. There is no central vision of how projects are being built. The restaurant district (Armory Square) is beautiful but there is hardly enough parking. And just recently it was decided by the powers to be to convert one of the few free parking lots into a sewage transfer station. Talk about a waste.
The sporting venues like the Skychiefs and the Crunch hockey teams play their games at opposite sides of the city. The War Memorial and Skychief stadiums are clear across town from one another. There is no convenient link between them, no vision was applied. Now take a trip to Baltimore and you will see the Orioles and the Ravens stadiums a stones throw from one another. Both stadiums sit in the midst of a booming downtown. Both sit at the cross roads of modern highways and railheads. Both sit astride clean city streets filled with shops benefiting from the traffic of the thousands of fans.
Syracuse needs to get smart. We need to send our community development folks out into the world and emulate the successful downtowns in the nation. We need to learn from their lessons. IF you build it, they will come, unless.... they can't park...they can't get a meal... they don't feel safe...And most of all not if they don't find it fun!!!! And downtown Syracuse isn't very fun these days. We need to fix this and keep Syracusans happy to be living in Syracuse.
Baltimore did it right. The BART trains disgorge their passengers right at the gates of the stadium meaning the fan faithful can park far from the crowded inner city. The vendors were plentiful, selling BBQ ribs, pulled pork sandwiches, and crab cakes. In Syracuse you get a Hoffman hot dog and a soda.
The smartest thing about the Baltimore stadium is it's location. The placement of Camden Yards @ the heart of downtown ensures that a good portion of the fans will remain in the clean neighborhoods surrounding the stadium after the game. It ensures that many folks will eat a meal or tip back a cold one in the nearby restaurants and pubs. For the out of towners there are multiple hotels within a blocks walk from the front gate of the stadium. The Syracuse stadium was built miles away from downtown and the rejuvenated Armory Square district. The few fans who do attend games pay 3 bucks to park (there is a train but it can't reach the stadium) and then they go home. They go home because there are no shops or restaurants nearby for them to stop into.
And herein lies my point; Syracuse development has been done here and there and over there. But nothing is linked together. There is no central vision of how projects are being built. The restaurant district (Armory Square) is beautiful but there is hardly enough parking. And just recently it was decided by the powers to be to convert one of the few free parking lots into a sewage transfer station. Talk about a waste.
The sporting venues like the Skychiefs and the Crunch hockey teams play their games at opposite sides of the city. The War Memorial and Skychief stadiums are clear across town from one another. There is no convenient link between them, no vision was applied. Now take a trip to Baltimore and you will see the Orioles and the Ravens stadiums a stones throw from one another. Both stadiums sit in the midst of a booming downtown. Both sit at the cross roads of modern highways and railheads. Both sit astride clean city streets filled with shops benefiting from the traffic of the thousands of fans.
Syracuse needs to get smart. We need to send our community development folks out into the world and emulate the successful downtowns in the nation. We need to learn from their lessons. IF you build it, they will come, unless.... they can't park...they can't get a meal... they don't feel safe...And most of all not if they don't find it fun!!!! And downtown Syracuse isn't very fun these days. We need to fix this and keep Syracusans happy to be living in Syracuse.
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