Eye from Albany March 17, 2008
Spitzer, they saw what they wanted to see
By Paul M. Bray
Let's face it; we rarely know what our political leaders really are about when they are first elected to high executive office like governor or president.
Sandra Day O'Connor whose vote in the infamous Supreme Court decision that elevated George Bush to the presidency thought he was going to be a benign country club Republican kind of leader. She saw in Bush what she wanted to see. If only she had been right. Little did she or we know he would become a Rumsfeld-Cheney radical.
Eliot Spitzer's rise to the governorship took this not knowing to higher level. By this I don't mean his comet like departure as a "john", or the fact that no one could have reasonably expected that he would be a serial john.
What fascinated me was how many people pinned all their ideals on Eliot Spitzer and saw him as the embodiment these ideals.
At a dinner between Spitzer's election and his taking office I had a conversation with a progressive woman who was bubbling over with enthusiasm for what Spitzer represented. There was also a wise political observer in the conversation. The woman told me that once Spitzer got rid of Senator Bruno and the Democrats took over the State Senate, unbounded progressivism would reign in Albany and the State.
I told her I voted for Spitzer and had high hopes but they were tempered by realizing who Spitzer really was. I asked her, did she know that Spitzer supported the death penalty. "No!," she responded, "He couldn't support the death penalty". The wise political observer said, "Yes he does support the death penalty." I then said, did you know that Spitzer supports civil commitment? "No!, she responded again, "he couldn't support civil confinement." The wise political observer said Paul was right again. And this repeated itself when I mentioned Spitzer being closer to the State Senate than the Assembly on criminal issues, Spitzer being fiscally conservative on taxes and spending, and on other issues where Spitzer was not the progressive this woman imagined.
Demonizing Albany, a very easy thing to do, and attacking Wall Street were all Spitzer needed to do to become the progressive's white knight. The woman I spoke with was not alone. Just read "Confession: I thought electing Eliot Spitzer governor of New York was a really good idea. Now it's clear to me why some people refuse to register to vote. You never know" by NY Times columnist Gail Collins. She wrote in her column: "Sure, you think you're up on the issues. And you watch for character flaws -- we've been watching Hillary Clinton's for so long we could give them pet names. But we don't really know. What if she has a secret life as a French undercover agent or a space alien? The Spitzer scandal has completely undermined my confidence as a voter. You pull the lever for your feisty clean-up-the-government candidate with years and years of experience putting the bad guys in jail, and it turns out he's into high-risk, high-priced hookups."
One of the lessons from the Spitzer affair is to not let your prejudices, in this case being anti-Albany, overwhelm your judgment. Sure, politics in Albany is messy, sometimes dirty and often ineffective. But isn't what we see in Albany what we should expect in any Capital where governing decisions are made for a population and territory that has great diversity and varying levels of needs and wants. Albany carves up a big pie of over $100 billion in the State Budget and affects a very wide range of public and private actions worth many, many times that amount. Considering the graft and corruption in democratic nations and states around the world, it is amazing (albeit, not justifiable) that state government in Albany is as clean and effective as it is.
Governance in Albany and elsewhere is a power game and for the legislative parties you either win or you are out of the game at least until the next election. No wonder the political battles are intense and campaign money from lobbyists is so precious. There was a time when a governor was leading on cleaning up water bodies like the Hudson River and building a State University System. At that time legislative leaders would fight it out when their houses were in session and then go back to one of their offices, kick up their heals, have a beer and laugh about what just happened. There was a clear agenda for the public good and civility amongst the political contestants. Those days ended in the 70s.
From day one it was clear that Eliot Spitzer was not a leader. What was wrong wasn't just that he was tough -- you know the "steamroller" thing, but that he didn't even coalesce his natural friends (they were just as subject to his knee jerk attacks as his enemies). He thought of himself as a law unto himself ("smartest man in the room") and his cause was always right. Good governance doesn't work that way. We should be grateful not that he fell. That seems like it was fore ordained. Rather let us be happy it happened so quickly leaving us with a new Governor who has a sense of humor, civility and perspective.
Sure, reform needs to be on the political agenda in Albany. It just needs to be built on the base of real leadership. We need to be much more careful not to just see what we want to see. This especially applies as we approach the national election in November.
Paul Bray on 03.17.08 @ 10:46 PM DST [more..]
Eye from Albany December 2007
It's One State II
By Paul M. Bray
In my May 2006 column "New York-it's one State, Stupid" I pointed out strengths of upstate and the New York City metro area and the mutual advantage of fostering "the linkages and connections between upstate and downstate".
Not much has changed either on the divide between upstate and downstate and realizing the benefits from capitalizing on our common political and physical attachments. But "not much" is better than nothing and let us take a look at what is and might happen.
First remember the NYC Greenmarket that is a bonanza for truck farmers in the Hudson Valley selling directly in the Manhattan Greenmarket. Desire for healthy eating and carbon reduction benefit from eating local foods is greatly growing the market for local foods
Then think carrots. Schoharie County has great carrot growing soil and it has been selling its carrots in recent decades to the Green Giant type processors. According to an interesting article in the Times Union, farmers in Schoharie County are now trying to sell their carrots to the NYC School System-from upstate farms to NYS children. Upstate apple slices are already finding a market in NYC schools.
Nice idea, not so easy. The tiny carrots the NYC schools are providing students can't easily be carved from the type of carrot grown in the Schoharie Valley. A way needs to be found to process and package the carrots so that they can easily be distributed in city schools. Apparently, the farmers working with the upstate processor of the apple slices came up with away to krinkly cut the carrots and package them. The process will source this job out of state until he is sure the business will be large enough to justify buying the equipment needed to do the krinkly cut. A farmer was quoted as saying it took 40 years to change from marketing locally to selling to national processors and it may take 40 years to get back to marketing in the State. But do we have 40 years to go back to the future?
Recently, I heard a bigger idea for getting upstate farm products to NYC markets. How about an upstate farmer’s train filled with produce going across the State from west to east and then down to Hunts Point market in the Bronx? Hunts Point Cooperative Market is primarily involved in the production, processing, distribution, and sale of meat and meat products throughout the tri-state area. Fish is also available. It is one of the major facilities in the world's largest wholesale food distribution center and is located on 60 acres of property in Bronx, New York. At this point the Market is alive through the night and quiet during the day when it could become a major and festive retail market for fruit and produce, fish and meat. The upstate farmer’s train could be an attraction selling directly for specially designed rail cars and a gold mine for upstate farmers having this direct access by climate change friendly rail to the large City market.
Upstate-downstate linkage could also help the flow of capital to upstate as is starting to happen as Chinese investment is coming from New York City to Central Avenue in Albany. As reported in The Business Review, a Chinatown is taking shape in Albany. Drawn by affordable real estate, Albany’s place at the center of State Power and an attractiveness Wellington Chen, Executive Director of the Chinatown Partnership Local Development Corporation in New York City, points out in the Review when he says, “Upstate is attractive. Upstate has what China does not have: clean air and clean water.” Image that, Mr. Chen believes our natural environment is an economic asset.
Tourism should also blaze a trail across the State from the two very popular State international destinations of New York City and Niagara Falls. At present the rest of the State between these two destinations is a black hole despite its great waterways, mountains, valleys and heritage. At a travel agency in Rome I saw a travel book of tours for Europeans starting in New York City and going to Boston or Philadelphia. No tour when north up the Hudson River.
The upcoming Hudson-Champlain 400th anniversaries of the exploration in the corridor between Canada and New York Harbor should solidify the State’s rightful claim to be “where America began” and why America has flourished. It isn’t too late for the State to get its act together and showcase the whole State beginning with its heritage and its waterways.
Given what might be, it is a huge failure that so little is done by our so-called economic development leaders to bridge the upstate-downstate divide. Why, for example, aren’t there annual conferences upstate and downstate to identify and tap marketing opportunities within the State. Why aren’t economic development incentives fashioned to jump start intra state development such as marketing upstate agricultural products in New York City and tap the potential of Chinese and other investment from the City to upstate.
So much opportunity, yet so far to go to make New York State the more integrated and productive economic unit it could be.
Paul Bray on 12.23.07 @ 10:46 PM EST [more..]
Going green isn't enough
October 2007
Eye from Albany
Durability or lack thereof continues in the new green society
By Paul M. Bray
I recently read a book by Ved Mehta about his building a home on the Island of Ilseboro in Maine. Early in the process of designing his home, he asked architect Edward Larrabee Barnes “why do people use Sheetrock”. Mehta is blind and very sensitive to noise. Sheetrock walls are not great noise barriers.
Barnes replied: “It’s cheap, it’s easy to install-you just stick it on the studs and tape over the joints of the boards and paint it. And it gives the house a nice, clean, uncluttered look. And contemporary architecture is mostly about appearance. I just built a palace for a land in the Hamptons. She’s tickled pink. The poor dear doesn’t realize that she’s living in a cardboard palace whereas someone of her ilk a hundred years ago would have livid in a stone or marble palace.”
'
In the 70s I remember an article in the New York Times entitled, "The Jungle Law of the Shopping Center". It was about shopping center on Long Island when it was not uncommon to see a deteriorating and mostly empty center on one side of the road while across the road a brand new center was opening. While traditional downtowns evolved slowly, the auto dependent world of shopping centers is another part of our disposable society with a useful life sometimes as short as 15 years.
Even though we have passed the tipping point to into a period of becoming a "green" society emphasizing sustainability, we can't give up being a disposable society. LEED or the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Green Building Rating System "is the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction, and operation of high performance green buildings". It "promotes a whole-building approach to sustainability by recognizing performance in five key areas of human and environmental health: sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection, and indoor environmental quality".
It sounds good and green, but is it also short sighted when it comes, for example, to preserving historic structures. It fosters the same short lived building we accustomed to since the end of World War II.
Conservation underlines both historic preservation and the sustainable principles behind green technologies. Historic preservation is sustainable by its reuse of existing structures and interior components and to the extent it is associated with walkable, mixed-use and transit friendly land use patterns. It has been pointed out that the “embodied energy” in the bricks an historic or just old building can save the equivalent of scores or more of gasoline tanker trucks of energy. Green building has shifted the attention away from embedded energy in old buildings and in use durable, renewable natural materials that conserve resources in the long-term.
Losing sight of the value of historic buildings is an American cultural thing. We like what is faster, cheaper and newer and if we can wrap the virtue of sustainability around it all the better. But faster, cheaper and newer are not the qualities we need in the 21st century as we have an aging population and abundant environmental, resource and security threats.
We need to do is slow down enough to rebuild the caring communities associated with traditional neighborhoods we can romanticize but find so hard to replicate.
In other words, green including clean energy and recycling is good, but only if we anchor it with our best traditions and in caring communities. Otherwise we are just fooling ourselves as we continue to live in card board palaces.
Paul M. Bray is an Albany attorney. His e-mail is pmbray@aol.com
Paul Bray on 10.20.07 @ 04:35 PM EST [more..]