Clay — To the editor:
There are many good, reasonable and practical recommendations in the Consensus Options Report and Preliminary Committee Recommendations. I agree that we, as a community, certainly can do better. In fact, after looking through the report, we must do better. The argument for changes is compelling. My comments refer to governance.
If the final report from the Consensus commission endorses a metropolitan form of government, I believe that it should put forth a good idea as to what a metropolitan form of government would or could look like for Onondaga County. I believe it is too much to ask voters to approve a referendum to “pursue consolidation” (Jim Walsh’s words) without knowing what a merger would look like structurally, and in terms of political representation. I haven’t read journalist Jeff Greenfield’s latest essay “In Nothing We Trust,” but recently on PBS, he discussed how we became a nation of doubters and how there is a lack of trust in public institutions. With that theme in mind, I don’t believe that voters would approve a referendum to “pursue consolidation”” without more information, a specific framework, more “meat on the bones” regarding some of the basics as to how our metropolitan government would be organized. I don’t believe that voters will give selected elected officials a blank sheet of paper and trust them to “hammer out” all of the details, as is currently proposed.
If and when the referendum is approved, then elected officials from all across Onondaga including town and village boards (not just the county executive, mayor, city council and county legislature as currently proposed), would be empowered and motivated to establish a process and an organizational structure and then work together to “hammer out the details” consistent with and guided by that framework. The stakes are too high for this initiative to fail, and, given our community’s reluctance to embrace change, it will fail unless there is an understanding of the major elements that would define our own form of metropolitan government.
continued — To raise awareness of the compelling need for government modernization, I believe that the preliminary report should have named the 15 of 19 towns or the 20 of 35 towns and villages that face a budget deficit at the current rate of spending in the next decade. That information would bring the message home to the dissenters of government modernization and consolidation and it should be in the final report.
I also believe that the Consensus final report should address the property tax impact of consolidation on those few towns and villages that are not financially distressed and have low town and village property taxes. While efficiency, lack of redundancy in performing basic services and economic development are worthy goals of government modernization, taxpayers in these low property tax towns and villages are understandably concerned that their property tax burden will increase substantially under a metropolitan form of government. Specifically: the final report should address what’s in it for them, the more efficiently managed, low cost towns and villages.
Donald J. MacLaughlin
Former Clay Town Councilor
