Why I am Running for Pittsford Supervisor
Michael Slade, Democratic candidate for Pittsford Town Supervisor
My reasons can be summed up in three words:
Frustration.
Despair.
Hope.
Frustration: I’ve lived in the same house in Pittsford for more than thirty years now. During this time my interest in town government has waxed and waned. I’ll go to town board meetings for a time or two before becoming frustrated again over how tight knit and resistant to change it is. If you aren’t a member in good standing of the Republican in group, forget it.
Even if a Democrat wins a single seat on the Town Board they would be outvoted 4-1 so there would be only exposure of what is going on but not much of a change.
Despair: Over the years there seems to be less interest in what is going on inside our local governments.
When Andy Wolfe ran the Brighton Pittsford Post, there seemed to be at least some coverage, even if it did seem biased. Now the BPP looks like one person is writing the whole paper each week. Notice I wrote writing not reporting! The way to get good press is to send in press releases for verbatim or lightly rewritten coverage.
Gannett coverage of Pittsford Town Government has essentially disappeared. Coverage of Town elections barely is more than a listing prior to Election Day and the results the day after Election Day. Gone are the days of a reporter appearing at Board meetings or even following up on a press release. Of course there are the feel good Pittsford sections occasionally but little hard news coverage.
Pittsford government has learned how to look good. The Supervisor has his own column in the BPP. There seems to be a full time PR person churning out releases and pictures that get put up on the Town’s revamped website (more on that in a future post). At taxpayer’s expense the newsletter this summer touts the good works AND photos of guess who – the Republican candidates for election Bernacke, Zute, Lusk . Should it be a surprise that Bill Carpenter’s photo is on the front again?
Local television coverage of Pittsford? Essentially once a year when the Bills pre-season training camp is here.
Unlike surrounding towns with extensive government and public access cable channels, Pittsford still shares channel 12 with East Rochester which has Thursday, Friday and Saturday usage. Only rarely does the Town have anything else but a bulletin board.. There is no broadcast of any town meeting, ever! Pittsford Schools has a program during the Pittsford part of the shared channel. Left to Time Warner to run, there no programming on the public access channel 15 while East Rochester fills their time on Channel 12 with public access programming. More on public access cable in other posts.
And then there is the cost of campaigning and the raising of money. Suffice it to say that as of the campaign finance disclosure reports of July 1, 2009, Carpenter has a $55,000 plus warchest. The details are available online at http://www.elections.state.ny.us:8080/plsql_browser/getfiler2?filerid_in=C20248 . I’ll be posting some of the more interesting details in a future post.
Hope: Time has, however, changed Pittsford. Each year Pittsford voter registration becomes less Republican and more Democratic. Now the margin is down to a range that even locally the town could go Democratic. As a forecast for the future, Pittsford’s statewide and federal voting record has been regularly Democratic. Spitzer, Clinton, Schumer, Massa (both 2006 and 2008) all won in Pittsford usually by more than a thousand vote margin! For details look at the yearly canvas books on the Monroe County Board of Elections Election Results page – http://www.monroecounty.gov/elections-results.php .
While Pittsford has changed, so have news media. As the Main Stream Media weakens locally there is the Internet. Local blogs are gaining some traction and there is Youtube with at least a single Pittsford town government feature http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOl4bITu5Q0 that I posted two years ago. So if individual can get it together there are ways to have their message out in public view – if anyone finds it!
And then there is the Obama phenomenon- more people are engaged and concerned about their government today than any other time since the Vietnam era.
So while, despite the recent stock market performance, I am happily and comfortably retired for the past 11 years, I have decided to fill out the Democratic Pittsford ticket and run for Supervisor. The Pittsford Democratic Committee has collected sufficient signatures which have not been challenged.
Our slate this year is
myself for Town Supervisor
Christopher Ciaccio, Esq. – Town Justice
Linda Kelly, Esq. Town Council
Neil Doran – Town Council
My political home page is http://mikeslade.org and I twitter at @mikesail.
The new home page for Pittsford Democrats is http://Pittsfordsfuture.org.
And you have found our blog http://democratspittsford.org which I and I hope the other candidates will give a more extensive versionof our views than can fit on a key card or even in a press release.
Please register and add your comments or write your view of Pittsford issue, too!
My goals for this campaign are threefold:
Open a new level of discourse on how, what, why and at what expense our Town governs itself
Win the Supervisor race
Lose at least ten pounds while walking each Election District
And I’ll be happy with reaching any two out of the three!