Nothing the Minarik machine does surprises me anymore, so it wasn't a shock when the Monroe Community College board failed to pick a new president on Saturday.

Five board members resisted the push to appoint former County Legislator Bill Smith, Republican Party Chair Steve Minarik's choice. But five others - each with strong ties to the Minarik machine - held out for Smith. And so the board will do exactly what the Minarik minions wanted: start the process all over again.

We have lost two fine non-local candidates. And I won't be surprised if the board's leadership rigs the process so that the more qualified local candidate, businessman Dennis Kessler, won't have a chance in this next round.

Bill Smith will be the next president of MCC. Count on it.

He'll take office a little later than he and Minarik had planned. But take office he will.

I keep searching for the reason Minarik and friends want Smith so badly. This kind of pigheadedness feeds the suspicion that the Republican Party owes Smith something - or that Smith will open the door to patronage appointments and contracts for Republican friends and donors.

We should be grateful for one thing: some local Republicans finally stood up, publicly, to Minarik. Every single member of the MCC board is a Republican except one: the student member, who is a registered Conservative. He and the four other resisters on the board have declined to talk publicly about the selection process. But they have spoken volumes with their opposition to Smith.

It would be bad enough if this fiasco involved only the presidency of an important community college. But the struggle over the selection of a new MCC president is, in a very real way, a proxy for the struggle over the future of Greater Rochester.

What kind of region do we want to be? We say we want to be a medical center, a center of higher education, a research center, a high-tech center. We say we want to attract bright, talented young people: scientists, doctors, educators.

But we let the Minarik machine pick a college president and a public defender.

While the MCC sordidness has been playing out, another little drama has been taking place, less publicly, but important nonetheless.

As we reported last week, the airport authority has been passing out a survey to travelers, asking their opinion about the airport: its cleanliness, the parking, that kind of thing. But the first three questions have to do with art in the airport. It's clearly an attempt to get support for airport officials, who have removed some important artwork commissioned for the building.

There's no reason why the arts and commerce can't exist in the airport side by side, as they do in many airports. Art in the airport makes a statement about the kind of community we are. And some airport officials apparently think art's too hoity-toity for Rochester.

A vision of a different kind was on display at a recent reception celebrating Kodak's gift for the Eastman Theatre expansion. On hand were Eastman School Dean Douglas Lowry, RPO Music Director Christopher Seaman, and University of Rochester President Joel Seligman. All talked about the importance of downtown Rochester as a cultural center. They praised the development of downtown housing. They emphasized the significance of local arts institutions to the region.

And Seligman came up with a slogan that could rally this community, help us regain our pride, and, frankly, attract business, researchers, and bright young workers.

"We are," Seligman said, "the city of the arts."

That's a vision of a vibrant, forward-looking region. But it isn't the vision of Steve Minarik. Is it the vision of County Executive Maggie Brooks? If so, it's time for her to stand up to her party chair.

And if it's the vision of the business leaders of Greater Rochester, it's time for them to say so. And start staring down Steve Minarik.