Archive: News

On August 4th he invited the Lansing Star to his home to talk about his candidacy.

Lansing Star: Why are you running for County Board?

Cliff Buck: I received numerous phone calls and conversations that I've had with both sides, Democrats and Republicans. People are looking for a change. I think that the incumbent is not strong in the area of business and finance, where I am. I believe that she has hung onto values of the past. I read her bio. She's been an activist in blocking nuclear and coal powered plants on Cayuga Lake. She's very much into ecology and conservation, which I think are noble causes. I myself have been a board member of Cayuga Nature Center and when I was Trustee of the Village I was liaison to the planning board which also governed the conservation advisory council.

LS: What are the key challenges for the County as you see them?

CB: I believe (the challenge) is getting taxes under control, and getting the spiralling assessments under control. I think they go hand in hand. I think it's a travesty that over the past four to six years we have had spiralling assessment and taxes.

To that end I think programs that are sponsored by the County need to be reevaluated. I know there are programs that we've been throwing more money at year after year after year, and we have not gone back to check the effectiveness of them. I would make them financially accountable for the results that they produce.

LS: Using the 2000 census figures in the Citizen's Guide on the County Web site, and Lansing has the equivalent of about 48% of Ithaca's population, but only has 30% of their representation on the County board. Do you feel that Lansing's point of view is represented adequately?

CB: Probably not, but that isn't a driving force for me. I'm representing District 10, which covers Cayuga Heights, parts of the Town of Ithaca and the Village of Lansing, which is in the Town of Lansing. You raise an interesting point, one that I hadn't given a lot of thought to. But listening to your statistics I would have to say the Town of Lansing is not being heard fairly.

LS: With the town growing is this something that you think the County will address?

CB: I can't answer that question. Certainly when I become the legislative representative I will be pushing in that direction.

LS: The Town also has a seat, District 6. DO you view the two seats as a voting block?

CB: No, I do not. Because I don't see that we're on the opposite side of the fence, so to speak, with the Town of Ithaca. Being a candidate I'm not tuned into all the little issues that are dealt with with the County. I expect to have cooperation with the Town of Ithaca. I will be representing part of the Town of Ithaca. SO I don't enter into this saying I have a battle to fight. I'm looking for cooperation.

LS: Tim Joseph says in the budget summary that future tax increases are largely in the hands of the State and Federal governments. Last year taxes went up about six and a half percent. The two years before that they went up about 13% each year. Even the 6.59% tax rise is pretty high, isn't it?

CB: Yes. I mean when we're seeing 20, 30, 40 percent increases in assessments it's hitting us twice.

LS: Do you think that programs can be or should be cut?

CB: I think they need to be reevaluated and streamlined. I'm looking for the County to get bang for their buck. I think what Tim says is an over-simplification. Sure, the State is passing on more and more things to the County, so we have more State mandated requirements to spend our money. We have to look at cutting costs just like any Fortune 500 company has to.

LS: Is the County spending more money than is mandated on these programs?

CB: I suspect they are. I can't say for certain that they are. It's not until I get in there and get access to information that I'm going to be able to say for sure whether they are or not. But I'm certainly going to be looking at it.

LS: The zero increase budget. Do you think the County can achieve that?

CB: No.

LS: Why not?

CB: Because they've failed in the past to meet targets. I think it's too idealistic. Zero increase. There's bound to be some increase. I'd like to see it closer to inflation than it has been. In the five of the seven years prior to 2002 the County raised taxes at a rate, on average, less than that of inflation. During that period of time they spent down the seven million dollar surplus that they had. I read in the paper that the Board did not think that the public could handle that reality, that taxes were going to go up. Then in 2002 or 2003 we got hit with 22% -- well it didn't wind up being 22%. We got hit with 14 point something percent. And interestingly enough that 14 point something percent was the amount of the deferred taxes that were not raised in the five or seven years prior.

I think it's very arrogant to say that the public couldn't handle it. I would not have voted for that sort of thing. I would have made it public and told the public why we needed to raise taxes, and raised them just at the rate of inflation, if nothing else. I don't know the numbers... I don't know if raising taxes to the rate of inflation in that period would have prevented us from having to go into the seven million dollars. I don't think that's realistic. But we could have raised taxes at a reasonable rate a couple of percent over inflation, because programs mandated that.

I think it's contributory. Certainly the mandates that are passed down to us offer us challenges. I'm not sure if we're meeting those challenges in the proper way.

I know that hindsight is 20/20 but I think that the fault in spending down that budget to defray the increase of taxes, the fault was in caving into public opinion. I'll go beyond that: caving into assumed public opinion. It wasn't public opinion. It was presumed that the public could not handle the reality of tax increases.

LS: I heard someone on the radio expounding on how he felt government below the County level is unnecessary. The reason that he gave was economy of scale. That the county could save a lot of money like Wal Mart by buying in bulk for the various schools, Sheriff and police. Do you think that is a good idea, and do you think Tompkins County could accomplish it?

CB: What an interesting question, and I can categorically say that no, I do not think that is a practical direction to take. Having served on the Village of Lansing board under Don Hartill. I really really respect this man and how he runs this village. This village in Lansing is the most fiscally responsible governmental municipality in the area. I can't imagine the County coming close to managing the affairs of the Village of Lansing as cost effectively as the Village of Lansing does right now.

I mean there are planning issues, zoning issues... The County government would get so huge trying to do that... I shudder at the thought of it.

LS: How do you think the County is doing with the airport?

CB: I think recently they've been doing a good job. With their help they brought Northwest Air in. I know that they're working on keeping US Air here. I think so far they've been effective.

LS: Public safety. Do you feel that the Sheriff's Department and the D.A.'s office are adequately supported by the County?

CB: No, I do not. I can't wait to really take a look at that. The only thing that I've really had a chance to delve into is the ATI program. back a month or so ago I looked at a compilation of numbers from the Probation Department on ATI. The bottom line was $701,000 needed to administer ATI. Absent from those numbers was the District Attorney's office which has indirect expenses for ATI, the Sheriff's Department which has direct and indirect expenses, and DSS which probably has a huge chunk of indirect expenses in Medicare and whatnot... doctor's visits, dental visits, all sorts of things.

I think ATI is probably costing us in the area of a million dollars a year. The graduates from the ATI program... over the last seven years we have averaged less than ten graduates from that program per year. There was a chart in the newspaper.

In 1999 there were 12 participants and zero graduated. In 2000 there were 27 participants and four graduated. In '02 there were 24 participants and 11 graduated. In '03 25 participants, 16 graduated. '04 24 and 17 graduated. '05 17 participants and 4 graduated. Aside from 2005 and I don't know where those numbers stop. It looks like we may be falling down a little bit in 2005 but we won't know until December 31st. Graduates from '99... the number of graduates is increasing. Of course we're throwing more money at it. With a macro view of it you could say it's working.

LS: That's an average of around eight and a half graduates a year. Do they know how many stay on the wagon, so to speak?

CB: Then you look at how much it costs to keep somebody in jail. Let me preface this. I'm in favor of the ATI program. I think it's a good thing. I will support it. At what level I don't know. I'll have to look at that carefully. If on average over seven years we have 8.5 graduates, how much is the ATI program costing per graduate, per success?

LS: Also are those successes remaining successful?

CB: We could say at the average of 8.5 if you assume it's costing a million dollars a graduate is costing us 100+ thousand dollars a year. But with the graduates increasing to... maybe this year it will be 18 or 20... then we would be looking at $50,000 per year per graduate.

What does it cost to keep somebody in jail? $35,000, $36,000 per year. That's the disparity. Is it $36,000 to $50,000 or is it $36,000 to $1000,000? We've got a big difference there. I think we have to look at the numbers accurately and i don't think that the County has looked at the numbers accurately. That's what I hope to get the County to do.

LS: The library's budget woes have been in the news a lot this year. What action can or should the County take to address that?

CB: You know this is a very tough question for me, because you know that I love libraries. I was a co-founder of the Lansing Community Library Center and have been Treasurer there for the last five years. I can honestly say that in an environment nationally where libraries are struggling, the Lansing Community Library Center is thriving, and we are financially solvent. Very financially solvent.

So I look at TCPL and my love of libraries carries over to TCPL. I have not picked apart their budget. I used them an example when I was nurturing along LCLC I was encouraging our board not to grow too fast. We struggled for about five years to hold the reigns back until we couldn't do it any more, but we were very solvent when we moved forward with this current expansion.

I haven't been part of the everyday operations of TCPL, the move from the old library to the new library. I wasn't tuned into how, you know, how practical was that? How needed was that at that time? Did they get ahead of themselves? I think that they might have gotten ahead of themselves and I think they have done very well in finding areas where they can cut back. Maybe there's more, I don't know.

But should the County support the library? Absolutely yes, they should. How much more than a million dollars a year can they do reasonably? Well, heck, I just saw in the paper Monday or Tuesday that the space committee of the County is proposing three new buildings at a cost of thirty million, thirty-five million dollars, and we're talking a million dollars for the library that we might be able to increase by six or eight or ten percent or whatever. I think the COunty has to help the library figure out how they can keep their expenses down and then reach in their pocket and help them out as much as they can.

LS: Do you think recycling has been a success for the County?

CB: Oh yes, absolutely! All I know is that I used to put out tons of garbage, two garbage cans full of garbage. Now I put garbage out once a week and it's less than a 20 gallon garbage pail, and I put out three bins of recycling from cans to cardboard to newspapers to office stuff. So is it working for me? I walk down my street and I see two, three bins on everybody's corner every other Tuesday. I'd say it's working, but that;'s the only evidence that I have.

Years ago there would be one bin out there. Now there are two and three bins out there.

LS: So anecdotally people are getting on board with it?

CB: Yes they are. Because garbage tags cost money.

LS: What unique benefits will you bring to the County as a Lansing representative?

CB: My 30 years of being in business and working with businesses. Counselling on benefit programs for small businesses. I bring a certain expertise to the board that might be lacking right now, certainly in my opponent. My experience as a Trustee and working under Don Hartill. My work with the library. I think all these things are pluses.

I have a strong sense of practical business. But I also have a background in conservation and ecology. And I think it's a very nice marriage. I'm not fanatical about conservation and ecology. I am sympathetic to it and practical about it.

LS: What should I have asked you that I didn't?

CB: The million dollar tobacco settlement, taking the million dollars today versus the four point four whatever million over ten years starting in ten years. Immediately I ran the number in my head with the rule of 72, how long does it take money to double, and I'm saying "That's a pretty deep discount from four point four million."

And then low and behold at the last minute Tim Joseph realized that it wasn't such a good deal and he changed at the last minute to make the board deadlock on that issue. And of course it failed, because (the board) was split on it.

One of the fears was that maybe the tobacco industry would not be able to honor that obligation ten years from now. And that made me smile. Since when does the Tompkins County Board of Representatives gain any expertise into what companies can and can't do? If they were all that good at that and they thought that the tobacco companies couldn't pay it then in year nine they probably ought to sell that short and make a bundle on it!

Look, they call it the cigarette industry. It isn't the cigarette industry. It's the tobacco industry. It's not just the tobacco industry. They're into numerous different things and they are very smart people. And as time goes on they're going to get into other things. You know just like Time Warner is cable, then it's telephone, and then it's Road Runner and now they're into security systems. They're broadening their base. And the tobacco industry will broaden its base sufficiently to keep their stock holders very fat and happy.

So I was happy to see that they finally shot down the idea of taking the money early, but it was very clear to me early on that it was not a good deal.

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