Blog Posts - August 2012

They Are Worse Than You Think

By Michael Smith, on Aug 27, 2012

Quite frequently, I read articles about the low approval ratings citizens give their elected officials. Unfortunately, that's the good news. If you were able to see all that I have seen over this current legislative term in the Westchester County Legislature, I am very sure that you would be convinced that many of our legislators should be rated even lower.

I personally ran for elected office because I was unsatisfied with the direction of my county particularly as it related to the Legislature’s behavior. As a business executive with Westchester employees, I have seen how a self-motivated legislative body has sought to deliberately obstruct the vision of County Executive Astorino. The County Legislature's handling of the Affordable Housing Settlement, aside from being unprofessional, more importantly places our county and our personal rights at great risk. When this legislative body should be talking about economic development and lessening the property tax burden of our taxpayers, they are doing the opposite.

Albeit very infrequently, I walk away from a legislative committee meeting with the hope that certain legislators’ public comments were indeed spoken honorably. Alas my faith in human nature in the honorable qualities of certain legislators was reduced when faced yet again with the truth of their behaviors.

Excuses

One long-standing legislator spoke extensively today about not pointing fingers in assigning blame for deficiencies in the current state of Westchester County finances, as evidenced by projected year-end results versus the budget for the 2012 fiscal year. While I thought that his statements were largely self-serving in that the prior legislative body (of which this particular legislator was a member) made quite a mess of several years of budgets for what you and I would identify as political foolishness. A mere few hours after the completion of the meeting in question, today's fictional press release by the Board's majority featured the prominent quotes of the aforementioned long-standing legislator pointing fingers and blaming anyone but the true offenders, the majority caucus of the last legislative session.

I implore the taxpayers of Westchester County to pay attention to these politicians that you all too frequently elect and re-elect. Let me assure you, if they worked where you work, it's entirely likely that they would have been fired long ago.

No Compromise Equals Bad Business

By Michael Smith, on Aug 20, 2012

Judge Robert Neary rendered his decision in the Jenkins, L. Williams, Harckham & Shimsky vs. Rob Astorino child care lawsuit completely and conclusively in favor of County Executive Astorino and the taxpayers of Westchester County. Not only did the Democratic legislators lose their case but they also negatively impacted many families in need.

The Democratic members of the Board of Legislators were offered the opportunity to try to negotiate this important and sensitive issue but their response was short and sweet: “No Compromise.” This is yet another lesson of how politicians with unclear motives operate compared to experienced business people. Very few successful organizations with competent leadership exist under the “No Compromise” framework. Contracts between two parties are virtually always negotiated. In a professional setting, if one party refuses to negotiate, quite frequently the transaction does not occur.

Poker Chips

The Democratic leadership made a high risk move by pushing all the chips to the center of the table, betting that they would win. They lost, and they lost big, but truly the real losers in this case are the families that need to avail themselves of the subsidized childcare in Westchester County.

There are too many other lawsuits initiated by the Democratic caucus members currently underway against the County Executive that in many ways follow the same logic as the Democratic majority’s position in the child care lawsuit. I call upon them to try to salvage what's left of this legislative session, to retract their lawsuits and make serious efforts to negotiate solutions to issues that will be in the best interest of more of the taxpayers in Westchester County. If they continue their “No Compromise” posturing through the 2013 budget vote, all Westchester County taxpayers will be losers.

Headline: Cat Rescued From Tree

By Michael Smith, on Aug 18, 2012

A County Legislator stated that she was "incredulous" over a process in which the county executive would decrease budget requests from county departments. Personally being the County Legislator that she publicly stated had the least business experience of anybody in the entire Legislature during one of her all too frequent moments of lapsed verbal control, let me tell you what I think as an experienced and successful business person.

If the county executive allowed the initial budget request from the department managers to go through as initially proposed, it would have equated to a 6% increase in County taxes. Most professionals with a rudimentary knowledge of budgeting understand that the majority of initial budget proposals from managers take three forms: 1) a wish list of everything they would like to have if the resources to fund it was no object; 2) an amount with a certain amount of “fat” in it so that when there are cuts, ideally they are reduced back to where they would like to be; and 3) a budget that meets the constraints of the overall consolidated organization.

Cat In Tree

I support the County Executive in his vision to make Westchester County more affordable to live in by not increasing the already highest-in-the-country property taxes. To do this, it requires tough decision-making, which he has been willing to undertake, much to the chagrin of the Democratic caucus. It's almost as if their eyes get caught by every shiny penny that gets waved in front of them in that all they have done so far is propose increased levels of spending without regard to the consequences to your property taxes.

I ask the Democratic caucus members how will it be that we can make Westchester property taxes more affordable if all they talk about is increasing spending on every idea they come up with? I guess it can only happen in the make-believe minds of politicians. As a business executive, I’ve never seen that economic model work. If you ask what I'm going to do about it, come the end of this year ,when it's time to the approve the budget, I will vote for a budget that has a 0% tax increase and looks to maintain the county's AAA bond rating.

So it seems the story of a County Executive doing exactly what the taxpayers elected him to do probably has just slightly more news value in it than a cat being rescued from a tree.

Never-Ending Parade of Stupid

By Michael Smith, on Aug 16, 2012

In the latest effort to prove that there is little need for the current County Board of Legislators, yet another lawsuit was filed by the Chairman of the Legislators (on behalf of the Democratic caucus) against County Executive Astorino. This lawsuit boils down to the Democratic caucus thinking that it is okay to spend $8,000 per rider for a bus route in Rye; hardly a surprising move by those politicians.

As Motormouth Maybelle in Hairspray says, we better brace ourselves for the “never-ending parade of stupid.” While I shouldn't be, I'm simply staggered by the fact that not one member of the Democratic caucus has said “stop the foolishness.” Not one member.

No Stupid

Last week, they were accusing the County Executive of fraud as well as castigating him for spending the very amounts that the Board of Legislators themselves explicitly approved. This week, it's yet another waste of the taxpayers’ hard-earned tax dollars. I have yet to meet a constituent congratulating me on all of the lawsuits the Board of Legislators has been throwing at the County Executive.

What part of wasting a quarter of a $1 million a year sounds like a good idea to you? We are so fortunate to have a County Executive who's willing to make the best long-term decisions on behalf of our county without pandering for political purposes. On the other hand, I look across the aisle at those caucus members and eagerly await someone to do the job that they were elected to do, which is to serve the taxpayers of this county rather than focusing on their re-election campaigns.

In his State of the County address, County Executive Astorino pointed out that it would be less expensive to obtain a luxury car lease for each of those bus riders than to spend $8,000 a year per rider as an alternative. I will tell you one thing: we can no longer afford the luxury of having County Legislators who waste our tax dollars in this “never-ending parade of stupid.” I recommend you keep this in mind in November 2013 when you hopefully re- elect County Executive Astorino and look to build a Board of Legislators that despises wasting money as much as he does.

Here's one question: when faced with a choice between a politician and a business person, who do you think is going to respect your tax dollars more? Vote for that person.

Recommendation: Press Conferences Should Have a Point

By Michael Smith, on Aug 10, 2012

I invited myself today to the Democratic legislators' press conference ostensibly to hear about the “Future of Playland”. My take away from the proceedings: if that's their vision of the future, Playland is in big trouble. Today's presentation just highlighted for me the difference between politicians and business people.

The stream of consciousness type discussion started with a call for a financial audit of the Playland operations. This raises two questions: 1) don't those legislators know that the entirety of Westchester County government’s financial results is audited independently on an annual basis?; and 2) would they be so “political” to imply that County Executive Astorino is cooking the books? Do they really have the audacity to say that the county executive is acting fraudulently?

In a 2% cap constrained environment, where every tax dollar is important, why would the county executive try to create the “appearance” that Playland is losing money? Are they accusing former County Executive Spano of fudging the books also, because Playland lost money under his terms as well? If Playland was losing money under the prior administration, and the attendance has been dropping steadily since then, how does an amusement park operation like that generate a positive operating margin? One of the legislators said that Playland only appears to be losing money because they are being charged for their capital investments and repairs at the property. How do you think your personal financial statements would look if you didn't have to pay for your mortgage or your rent? As I have said previously, if you torture the data enough, it will admit to anything.

Then there were complaints about spending for advertising. Our politicians said that more money should be spent on advertising. Now I am a first-term legislator and even I know that the County Legislature has the ability to add additional expenses to virtually any expense line they want during the budget process. Don't they know that? If they thought this advertising idea is what the “Future of Playland” required, what stopped them from doing it? Last summer, the Legislature was falling all over themselves with special meetings so that they could change the fees for Playland. That worked out as well as all their other financial tinkering, not well.

The legislators also questioned why there were no more capital investments or new rides in the park over the past year. A competent business person would tell you not to make major capital investments in a property that may be undergoing significant redevelopment; something that the politicians may have not learned in politician school.

The final idea proposed today was for the Board of Legislators to take over the Playland RFP process. Seriously? Based on the track record of this legislative body’s lack of achievements over the past seven months, such a "take-over" is a scarier thought than Playland’s haunted house.

The shame of all this today is that I believe the Democratic legislators and their press machine spent more time preparing for this pointless press conference than they did trying to speak to the county executive and his staff on real ideas to make Playland a more financially viable operation.

It's the Taxpayers Stupid

By Michael Smith, on Aug 8, 2012

This week while riding the elevator to leave the County office building, a majority party staff member very politely introduced herself to me. She told me that she avoided taking sides and just wanted to do her job well. I fully understood that her county job was her livelihood and that the partisanship games the professional staff witness is not the best environment for those seeking career stability.

I told her the only side we all should be taking is that of the taxpayers.

How much better do you think life in this County would be, if we were able to elect more individuals who not only said that they had taxpayer’s best interest at heart but actually acted as if that were true?