Community Members

Again, City Council President Lovely Warren, in a document filed with this lawsuit, stated she held a council meeting at Council Member Elaine Spaull's home, an illegal meeting in violation of the Open Meetings Law, www.dos.state.ny.us/coog/openmeetlaw.html
on December 29, 2010. At this illegal city council meeting, another illegal act was performed. City Council decided on this date, BEFORE Mayor Duffy even resigned, that they would say to heck with the word, the law, SHALL, as in "shall appoint a Mayor." They set the date of the "Special Election" on March 29, 2011. City Council should have been debateing every day since the end of December and voting every day to find a replacement for Duffy. That is the law, plain & simple. Read it at the public library if you want. The law states: "The Council SHALL fill a vacancy in the office of Mayor arising otherwise than by expiration of the term by appointing by a majority vote a person who is registered in the same political party as the person who vacated the office." Period. In legalese, the word "SHALL" mean you will do this. It is the law.

Rather than do the heavy work, Ms. Warren & her cronies, Gantt & Richards, aided by this media, made a resolution on December 29, 2010: "Resolution Establishing The Date For The Special Election Of The Mayor." ..."The date of the special election will be March 29, 2011. This date allows for the full 90 days to be utilzed in order for the community to prepare and educate themselves on the candidates that will be running to fill the seat." The reason for this illegal act is to make Tom Richards Mayor without a full campaign or the 6 weeks normally allowed for a candidate such as myself to collect petitons. Lovely Warren wants to be Mayor after Tom Richards. She is telling us the law be damned. btw, in court yesterday, Judge Ark suggested that Ms. Warren have a city coucil meeting ASAP to appoint a Mayor. Ms. Warren said it will occur today at a committee meeting. I have called city council today and there is no meeting scheduled. Maybe it is at Elaine's house and they can't be bothered with the law.

We just want the city to obey the law. The city charter states that upon the mayor vacancy, council SHALL appointment a mayor! The respondents, city council & Lovely Warren, ignore the meaning and significance of the charter's use of the word "shall." "Fails to appoint" is not equal to "choose not to appoint." In legalese, "shall" mean you MUST! On December 29, 2010, City Council President Lovely Warren stated in official documents,a "Resolution Establishing The Date For The Special Election Of The Mayor," even BEFORE Mayor Duffy resigned, that the date of the special election will be March 29, 2011. So the dog & pony show at the city council meeting in January where many people expressed their displeasure with a special election, was all for naught!

The die had been cast by Lovely Warren & her powers, Gantt, Duffy, Richards, I believe, to make Lovely Warren, who I have personally know for many years, even before she sat on city council, to be the next Mayor of Rochester after Tom Richards! This is just not fair! Our voting rights are being stolen by our government!! Let's hope Judge Ark makes the correct decision next week.

@ Art. No local lawyers are brave enough to do this.

Hosni Mubarak this week! Rochester's Acting Mayor Carlos Carballada next week! Long Live Democracy in Rochester & Around the World! :)

A City needs to have a simple, straightforward plan in place when a Mayor resigns before the end of his or her term in office. The City of Rochester has such a plan. It was approved by Rochester's voters as part of the City Charter in a referendum held in November 1984.

The mechanism approved by the voters is clear. When a vacancy in the office of Mayor occurs for any reason other than expiration of term, the City Council must appoint a new Mayor to fill the position. The obligation to appoint a person to the mayoral vacancy is explicit, and contains only one condition. In the words of the City Charter, the Council SHALL fill a vacancy in the office arising otherwise than by expiration of term by appointing by a majority vote a person who is a member of registered in the same party as the person who vacated the office.

According to the plan approved by Rochester's voters, the person appointed to the office of Mayor is to hold the office until January 1st when the winner of the annual November election takes over as Mayor for the remainder of the unexpired term. Had Rochester's City Council met its obligation and appointed a Mayor following Mayor Duffy's resignation, there wouldn't be the current confusion and the need to turn to the courts for clarification. There would be no questions regarding Acting Mayor Carballada's authority to exercise the powers and duties of the Mayor's office. There would be no uncertainty regarding the legality of the special election scheduled for March 29, 2011. There would be a person, perhaps Mr. Carballada, perhaps Mr. Richards, perhaps a member of the City Council, unquestionably holding the office of Mayor, with an election to take place in November.

Unfortunately, a majority of the City Council decided to let politics dictate their actions, rather than following the voice of the People as expressed in the City Charter. They decided to give former Mayor Richards the political advantage of an election for Mayor in March rather in November. Potential contenders for the mayoral position would have less time to organize, less time to obtain signatures on petitions, and less time to effectively campaign. So instead of appointing Mr. Richards Mayor and letting him serve in that post for the remainder of the year, with an election in November, the City Council has distorted the language and intent of "emergency" provisions and insisted that Mr. Carballada is "Acting Mayor."

The City Council can end the confusion and waste of taxpayer money fighting the pending lawsuit. It can follow the will of the voters and appoint a Mayor as mandated by the City Charter.

On Alex White taking the Green Party nomination:

"Now we have two candidates advocating the Green Party platform. Unfortunately, the green support vote will now be split in two as we continue our campaign on much needed transportation reform and development issues such as high speed rail, housing and stopping the Mortimer Street Bus Barn Boondoggle. We will continue to the MCDC convention this weekend and collect enough signatures to be on the ballot on March 29."

Where does Alex White stand on the Mortimer Street Bus Barn boondoggle?

Remember, back in 2003, Mayor Johnson said in private to me that he was against the underground bus barn at Main & Clinton which became ren square which became the Mortimer Street Bus Barn Boondoggle. But he said there was nothing he could do to stop it. It was Jack Doyle's deal, not his even though it was in the heart of his city, Johnson said. At the time, city council said they could do nothing also. Back then, Johnson told me to go after Bill Nojay who was then the CEO of the RGRTA. What abut YOU, Bill? You were running for County Exec. Poor politicians and the lack of planning and not having a strong core of beliefs that make sense for a city to grow. Do we want more of this? PAETEC will spend $55million for it's Vanity Building at Main & Clinton. The City of Rochester will spend $80 million on it. This kind of money COULD pay for 6-7 miles of streetcars in Rochester, as Howard Decker said last night.

When I am Mayor of Rochester, this kind of poor planning will not occur. We will have strong development around the high speed rail coming to Rochester. We will have solid REGIONAL planning for Rochester & Monroe County. Have you ever heard of strong walkable communities like Manhattan or Washington, DC offering subsidies to big companies to move in? No. Growing communities invest in infrastructure, not tax breaks for big companies. They make the "sense of place" strong so more people & business WANT to be there! We need to invest in transit oriented development....And buses...as Christopher Leinberger said last night, have you ever seen even one dollar's worth of business happen at a bus stop (aside from a drug deal?) No. But there have billions of dollars in commerce at a well planned transit centers. When you enter a bus, you pass through an imaginary sign that says: "Only The Poor Can Enter". Look, transportation DRIVES development. First build transportation, then the region will grow. The land value will grow and the increase in property values will subsidize the high speed rail.

With anymore of this insider/elitist "stability" Mary Anna, Morelle, Lovely, Tom, Carlos, Lois Geiss and all of their sympathisers will all be so "stable" under the crushing weight of the collapse of the entire city, they will not be able to move a single muscle from all the rubble above them.
How about those new parking meters designed to make more money for the city while creating more reason for people to not want to drive into the city? But fear not, apparently the solar panels meant to power them do not work so without the sunlight, we can park free! Let's get rid of this entire gang that can't shoot straight!

The current fluidity in the Rochester mayoral situation provides an opportunity for the working people to challenge today’s managerial elitist domination of our city politics.

Our City logo proclaims Rochester as “One City” ― but it is one city for the bosses calling the shots, and one city for the working folks.

We see this in policies and rhetoric that blame working people for the city’s problems:

• City employees’s salaries too big a budget item? Blame the working folks, not the
manager salaries.

• Teacher salaries take too much budget funding? Blame the teachers, not the
superintendents.

• Pension budget line too high? Don’t blame management, who have today the highest pensions. Instead, blame the unions.

• Worker health costs too high a budget item? Trim them, even though the workers
need them.

• “Even better,” privatize the jobs and cut them from the city personnel budget, so that
workers will not reap the benefits of laws that protect the interests of workers in the public sector.

What else could we expect from a City power structure that rigs the election process to favor a multimillionaire former utility executive as Rochester’s Mayor?

We need a Mayor who makes policy decisions not just by handing them down, but by actually collaborating with the workers “in the trenches.”

Let us not allow a system where the Mayor usurps power and authority from an elected school board, for example, and controls our city’s education system from the third floor of City Hall.

Elsewhere, that “Mayoral Control” system shuts out teacher and parental input into policies which govern school operations. We need a Mayor who collaborates with the grass roots.

As we watch the City budget being prepared and presented for the next fiscal year, we can expect to see workers faulted for the high cost of government and unions blamed for such “excesses.”

This is demagogic and just plain wrong.

Rochester needs good jobs, with fair pay and fair benefits, where workers are not treated as scapegoats for all sorts of government problems.

We need a good climate for entrepreneurs to create new businesses in Rochester. Our biggest employers are all home-grown. We need to focus on the factors that encourage and facilitate the origin and development of such job-producing engines right here in River City.

One such factor is the creation of jobs related to the trends of sustainability that represent the future of the market for new jobs.

We must maintain essential services at a good level for the community.

We need to see Rochester as truly “One City” ― and not one city for the elitist bosses and then one city for the rest of us.