Are we going to get any kind of theater in Ren Square? Will there be a Ren Square?

As recently as January 20, in a "Speaking Out" piece in the Democrat and Chronicle, County Executive Maggie Brooks was still talking positively, promising "the largest development project in Monroe County's history." That same week, county officials told this newspaper that the Ren Square plan was under review by federal officials. And in an interview this past August, project director Mark Ballerstein said that the county hoped to break ground in the fall.

But apparently, county officials already knew that wouldn't happen. At the project's public meeting on Friday, officials said that last spring, they became concerned about construction costs and decided to slow the design process. And, said Brooks, they decided to "go under the radar" while they figured out what to do.

Now, they're not clear about what they're going to build - and they won't make that decision for more than a year. Not until April 2009.

I'm willing to admit that I may be too cynical about Maggie Brooks and other county Republicans. Maybe they haven't been devious about Ren Square. Maybe they're simply trapped: maybe they came up with a good idea, couldn't raise enough money to carry it off, and kept trying until the delay became intolerable.

But this is what happens when government does things behind closed doors. Brooks et al might have kept the community behind them had they kept everyone informed. At the unveiling of Moshe Safdie's design, there was quite a bit of public enthusiasm. Now we may be preparing to bury what could have been an important public project.

Next week, I'll pass along some insights from former Mayor Bill Johnson. Maggie Brooks may have whomped him in their county executive race, but on Friday, Johnson was sounding sympathetic to her.

Johnson doesn't think there's been any subterfuge in the Republicans' actions about Ren Square. The source of the problem, he said, is not the Republicans. It's lack of private community support - financial support - for the performing arts center.

"I feel badly that Ren Square is getting all the whipping that it's getting," he said.

About the countyRepublicans: It hasn't helped my mood, or my assessment of the Brooks administration - or my suspicions of Republican Party Chair Steve Minarik's role - to watch how the selection of a new public defender has played out.

Brooks and the legislature's Republicans should have let a non-partisan committee conduct the search and the screening. That was done successfully in the past, for good reason. And I still maintain that there's only one reason the Republicans have dug in their heels on this: they want the public defender's office to be a patronage source, as it once was.

The Republicans' choice for a public defender, Tim Donaher, is a highly respected attorney, with years of experience in the defender's office. Maybe he can resist pressure from the Minarik machine. We'll see.

Meantime, the all white, all male, predominantly suburban Republicans in the County Legislature have alienated African-American community leaders and turned the selection of an important public official into a racially-charged issue. (Now where are those new Republican legislators who promised that they'd be independent?)

And by the way: you might have gotten the impression that the only people opposed to the Republicans' selection process are State Assemblymember David Gantt and a few African-American activists. (There was a good bit of anti-Gantt name-calling among the comments on the Democrat and Chronicle's website following Saturday's County Lej committee meeting.)

But the call for a non-partisan selection process has come from a wide variety of people, including the leadership of both the Rochester Catholic and Episcopal dioceses, the Monroe County Bar Association, and the Democrat and Chronicle and this newspaper.