RES PUBLICA - Gloversville, NY Edition

I recently wrote a letter to the editor regarding Jo-Ann Clear's bid for Mayor. Unfortunately, such a letter cannot tell everything that I believe needs to be posted in 400 words or less. While I understand the limitations the paper happens to be under, I think I'll take this opportunity to add a little more to the tapestry of my opinion.

By now most of you have reasoned that my perspective on Jo-Ann Clear's candidacy is somewhat different than the personal and cozy viewpoints recently offered by Mrs. Joan Esper and Mrs. Margaret Pedrick. What you may be asking is why, with so many potential candidates, I would single out this one person. If that question is running through your mind, hopefully what follows will provide an explanation.

Prior to 2003, I had no idea who Jo-Ann Clear was. I was introduced to her briefly as the wife of a new councilman, Pat Clear, who was joining the Gloversville Common Council at the same time I was. With the exception of the councilman-at-large, Duke Caruso, we were all new. Jo-Ann offered to give us some budget pointers, having been Gloversville's Commissioner of Finance, and most of us eagerly accepted that offer. We met at Pat and Jo-Ann's house in December 2003, before we were all in office.

It was during this meeting that she spoke about her opinions on the Fire Department and Police Department. It would be a few years later before I fully understood her and her husbands antipathy for the Transit Department too.

Prior to 1988, all of the municipalities in Fulton County operated under a revenue sharing agreement based for the most part on population. The County received 50% of all sales tax receipts. About 45% of the remaining 50% were divvied up by the various municipalities. Since Gloversville was the largest city, it tended to get the largest share of the pot.

About 1986, the City of Johnstown decided that it simply wasn't getting its fair share of the pot. It reasoned that since much of the sales tax was being generated on its "Miracle Mile," Comrie Avenue, it should acquire a larger share of the proceeds. Eventually, after much wrangling back and forth, in 1988 the City of Johnstown left this county-wide sales tax plan to collect sales tax only from within its borders (preemption).

While this was going on, Gloversville's Mayor Hammond was touting the notion that Gloversville might also have to go on preemption to protect its interests. One can only imagine her Finance Commissioner, Jo-Ann Clear, had a hand in this plan. If not, the rather thick surviving pile of correspondence maintained by Mayoral Secretary Penny Russell is surprisingly silent on any disagreement she may have had with the idea.

Not long after Johnstown reached its decision, in a very short-sighted decision of its own, Gloversville reacted by doing the same. As Finance Commissioner, Jo-Ann Clear should have been intimately involved in this decision. She simply cannot get away from the notion that she was either responsible for providing the suggested course of action to Mayor Hammond and the Common Council, or responsible for remaining silent if she had a disagreement on such an important issue.

Why was it important?

More background. In the mid 1960's, the Arterial was to be constructed. At first it would have been within the city limits traveling down what is now Hollywood Avenue. Later the current location was chosen and Gloversville was given the option of buying the land around it. Two Gloversville council members sued the City to prevent the city taking over that land and were somehow successful in doing so (how they managed it would be an interesting story, but is not important to this one).

Construction soon began on strip malls in the area, such as Britts, and it was just a matter of time before that location, coupled with a decline of industry in Gloversville, sucked the tax dollars right out of the city. As bad as this was, the county-wide sales tax formula in place at the time buoyed the city's finances, even if it did nothing for reviving downtown, and allowed us to reap some of the rewards for the amazing growth out on the Arterial.

Preemption changed all that. Preemption caused the loss of 50% of Gloversville's sales tax revenue because the city no longer had access to the wealth being generated just outside its borders, and it led to huge property tax increases starting in 1989 and continuing to this day.

There can be absolutely no doubt that Jo-Ann Clear was in part responsible that the decision to preempt was made. It was such a monumentally bad call and she has never even hinted at having been culpable for it.

Since that fiasco, Jo-Ann Clear has remained involved in the city in various capacities, most recently as part of the City Republican Committee - a political insider, part of the "machine." In that capacity, she proposed reducing the taxpayers' burden in other unworkable or financially dubious ways.

For example, despite her website's claim that she wants to "continue to provide outstanding police and fire protection for our citizens," she has taken the opposite position on several occasions over the last 6 years. Most notably, in 2003, she informed new council members of her idea to eliminate the Fire Department and downsize the Police Department.

Being the kind of guy who needs to perform formal or informal studies of major decisions, in 2004 I conducted a study on the viability of her ideas. I found them to be potentially dangerous, in violation of NYS law, and/or not cost effective. That study was shared with the members of the 2004-2007 Council, including her husband Pat Clear. I provided a personal copy to Jo-Ann Clear as well. I've attached a link to that report for all of you to read:

http://docs.google.com/View?id=dwrkfd7_24dw72mkf2

Yet, in 2006, at a town hall meeting held at Fremont (Foothills) United Methodist Church, she again promoted these ideas in a citizen packed forum. In fact, she went so far as to indicate that citizens should make it a grass roots effort to put a volunteer Fire Department in place despite the Taylor Law. This not only indicates that she read my report, but further indicates she is more than willing to thumb her nose at the law - a decision that could easily result in hundreds of thousands of dollars of lawsuits against the city.

To me, the results of the study seemed to make both ideas silly to entertain. You have no idea how many ideas seem to make a lot of sense before one digs down beneath the surface to find out what rules would affect implementation. Once those rules are known, good idea or not, it would need to be re-evaluated in light of reality. Since Jo-Ann Clear appeared not to entertain the "reality" before announcing her positions publicly in 2006, I question her ability to avoid blundering the city into serious labor, financial and legal problems (and I should know since I'm the resident expert on blundering legal issues).

Finally, for a former CPA and City Finance Commissioner, I find Jo-Ann Clear to have a questionable grasp of city financial issues.

I use her view on the Transit budget as a recent example that is emblematic of the problem. On her website she lists Transit's portion of the city budget as a 'deficit.' What does she mean by this? In financial lingo, a deficit results when one overspends the money in their account. So, to use the term 'deficit' implies Transit is routinely financially mismanaged by overdrawing whatever monies they have been given for the year.

In truth, no unexplainable cost overruns have ever occurred, and the majority of those cost overruns that have occurred did so in the first couple of years of Al Schutz term as Transit Director, and were the result of him uncovering contractual obligations no one knew were even out there. There were also issues with budgeting for fuel that, let's face it, no one could have predicted would shoot as high as it did.

But none of that measures the success that Transit has witnessed in the last 6 years. While Jo-Ann Clear, and her husband Pat, have had a definite bone to pick with Transit for years (Pat was notorious for voting against Transit appropriations during his 4 year term on the council, including proposing to eliminate Transit in his only resolution in the entire four years of his council term), the fact is that Transit's meager 1.8% of the budget has steadily decreased since 2004 due to the creative use of improved contracts, expanded advertising, partnerships with other bus utilizing government agencies, and seeking out new and increased state and federal grants. No other department is in a position to bring in such a return on investment. Two thirds of our Transit Department's operating expenses are not paid for by the citizens of our city. That's just incredible!

While I might stand alone on my interpretation of things, I believe Jo-Ann Clear is complicit in the most financially devastating decision in this city's history (preemption).

I also believe her previously stated positions, if implemented, would leave citizens defenseless, and the least fortunate essentially housebound. Couple this with her disregard for facts, figures and a trend of not listening to others, and she is clearly not the best choice for mayor of our city.