Blog Posts - June 2012

The Best Decision Maker I Have Ever Met

By Michael Smith, on Jun 17, 2012

I recently had the privilege to award a proclamation from the Board of Legislators to Larry L. Luing, Chairman Emeritus of Berkeley College. Among the many accomplishments that we in particular recognized Mr. Luing for were his entrepreneurial accomplishments.

Of all of Mr. Luing's skills, the one that I most admire is his decision-making ability. Not that he was always right (although much more often than you and I!), it was his ability to make decisions quickly without over analysis. He would quickly synthesize several data points and then make a decision. But in addition to that, if there was a decision that was inaccurate or needed change, he would make the change quickly. This would be done without assigning blame or pointing fingers.

What a great lesson for all of us to apply to every area of our life.

Can you pass the test?

By Michael Smith, on Jun 12, 2012

I have a very simple quiz for you to see what kind of Westchester County Legislator you would be. It goes like this: let's say you were faced with two choices.

a)      A fire training facility has a severely leaking roof that has already caused two firefighters to slip and fall and incur injuries.  It requires a vote from the legislators for the funds to repair the roof, or

b)      You are not happy that a county employee, although he is following the county charter’s requirements, has not provided you with information that you would like to have. You, a legislator, have not adequately made a case to receive this data. You can vote to issue a subpoena to a Westchester County employee (who works for the legislators) to mandate that he provide the data for you.

If you chose b, the subpoena, then you exhibit the aptitude found in most of the Democrat majority members of the current Board of Legislators. On Monday, that's exactly what they did.  They chose to ignore the public safety of our county's firefighters in the interest of wasting more of the taxpayer’s hard earned tax dollars.

Government by Lawsuit? You’re FIRED.

By Michael Smith, on Jun 6, 2012

June 4, 2012 shall forever be noted as a dubious day in Westchester legislative history.  This was the day that the Democrat majority of the County Legislature publicly acknowledged their own lack of competency. On Monday, they voted to institute five separate lawsuits against County Executive Rob Astorino. They effectively told the taxpayers of Westchester that they personally are incapable of performing the job that they were elected to do.

The appropriate response of the taxpayers of Westchester in November 2013 should be to “fire them”. By instituting five lawsuits they are acknowledging that they lack the ability to work with other members of the County Legislature and the County Executive to solve problems. Even though the taxpayers elected them to represent the taxpayer’s best interests, those ineffectual legislators are looking to abdicate their responsibilities to a judge.