Archive: News

She came to the Star to be interviewed on August 12.

Lansing Star: Why are you running for another term on the County Board?

Dooley Kiefer: That's a reasonable question. I've been in the legislature for three terms now. I'm not tired of it. It's still interesting and challenging. It amazes me how long it takes to get things done. I'm proud of a lot of the things that have happened at the legislative level while I've been on (the board), but there are hanging fire that I would still like to be part of.

LS: What are some of them?

DK: We have a county jail that is sorely in need of repair. It's cramped for space. It doesn't have room for storage and classrooms, good medical service... A lot of basic things. The State Commission of Correction will not let us expand or fix the jail unless we expand it to the size that they dictate to us, which is much larger than any of us think we'll ever need, and cost us a lot. So that's one of the things that I'd like to see settled.

I've been working for the last several years trying to protect our residents' privacy with respect to what the County puts up on the Web site. People give the County information. They have to by law. And they give it with the expectation that it will be used for the legal purposes required, and not displayed for all and sundry to do what they want with. And it's very difficult, because at the State and Federal level so much information is already on the Web. But that's something that I still consider an unfinished piece of work, to try to make sure that the way we collect data and manage it minimizes what we put out about individuals for privacy purposes.

LS: What kind of information?

DK: For example, you're a property owner, and your property gets assessed. A lot of descriptive material is in our county clerk's office. We don't put it all up on the Web. Several years ago, the committee I was on... one of the big things I fought about was minimizing what we put out so that house plans wouldn't be up there. The number of exemptions if you are a veteran or your are elderly... it just sets you up for a robbery. That kind of thing that not everybody thinks about right away, but we worry about that kind of thing.

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

DK: Financing needed services is always the biggest challenge. When I mentioned the jail, that's a challenge. We have a public health department that needs new headquarters. And we have an airport that we want to keep open, and that's a challenge. We have a wonderful library which is under funded. By the way the airport and library are not required. Counties don't have to have those things, but we think they are very important to our residents.

Our road and bridge maintenance has gotten woefully behind. We put a big infusion of money in last year's budget, but it's still not where it needs to be. We hear complaints from some of the municipalities about lack of sufficient road patrol. Road patrol is something else we're not required to provide. We have to have a jail, but we don't have to have road patrol. Nobody wants to do away with road patrol, but it's very expensive also.

Keeping our health and human services that we have, and are very good, and not letting them become overshadowed by the physical infrastructure needs is very tricky also.

LS: According to the census figures that are in the Citizen's Guide that is published on the County Web site, it looks as though Lansing Village and Town has about 48 1/2% of the equivalent population of the City of Ithaca, but only 30% of the representation on the County Board. Do you feel that Lansing's point of view is represented adequately?

DK: That surprises me, what you just said, because when we redistricted I didn't vote for what we did, but I didn't think it was that far off. That is two Lansing reps and five city reps, is that how you are comparing it?

LS: One and a half Lansing reps and five city reps.

DK: Well, it's five, but they don't just represent the city. Maybe one of them does, but most of them are City and Town of Ithaca together so they overlap municipal boundaries. I guess you could say the Town of Ithaca probably has nine representatives on the legislature. So that is very hard. If our county election district boundaries followed municipal boundaries, that would be one thing. But they don't. So I'm not sure that the question you are asking is premised accurately, but I will try to answer it anyway.

LS: OK.

DK: Since it was based on census and it's within the 10% margin of error that my colleagues allowed, yes I think Lansing's voice is heard adequately. It's not as though the Village of Lansing and the Town of Lansing ask for the same things, or want the same things. I feel in a very anomalous position, because I represent two villages. you would think they'd be the same, but they're not the same at all. So when I speak or vote I'm thinking of the Southern part of Lansing, not the whole of the town. Within the Town there is the North and Southern parts of the Town which have different wishes. So it's very hard to say what the Town's perspective is.

To the extent that you think of Lansing as a rural municipality there are other rural municipalities saying similar things. We get comments from Caroline and Danby and Enfield and Newfield that echo some of what I hear Tom (Todd) say, representing Northern Lansing. So in that sense I think that point of view is as well heard as the city point of view. They feel that they are outnumbered by others. So it's really interesting to hear.

LS: Do you view the one and a half Lansing seats as a voting block?

DK: Tom and I rarely consult ahead of times on things, if that's what you're asking. So, a voting block, no. I guess I feel pretty independent, period. I don't feel a part of a voting block at all.

LS: Tim Joseph says in the budget summary that future tax increases are largely in the hands of the State and Federal governments. And the tax increases have been high.

DK: The percentage increases have been much higher than any of us wanted.

LS: What would you do about taxes in your next term?

DK: That's been the hard thing. In fact, in an attempt to keep taxes down we have already cut some of our departments beyond what they should have been. We've restored some positions in recent times. We lost very experienced public health nurses. You can't do the job without sufficient people do do home visits if necessary. The private sector has home care services, but they decline to take certain ones. They are the difficult ones, and the County, of course, has to pick them up. That's the kind of safety net human service activity that we do that I think is terribly important.

The question was taxes. I was very supportive of the push back effort (in which Tompkins County got surrounding counties to join together to lobby the state to reduce or at least hold the line on mandated spending) to make the state aware of what the increases were doing to us, and they've capped the growth rate now. They didn't cap the absolute rate, but it isn't growing as fast as it had been. And that's better than nothing. So trying to get our message across at the State level was and will continue to be very important.

With respect to the jail, you may not think of that as a tax problem, but we've got to somehow deal with that and it's going to cost money. I think what we have done and what we should do is try to get State legislative clarity on the authority of the Commission of Correction. Do they really have the right to dictate to us how big our jail should be? As I read the law they can tell us how big cells should be, what so-called amenities we have to provide to prisoners. Those are very reasonable. The conditions of incarceration they should be very worried about. But to tell us how many cells we have to build... they just look at it sort of like the electric utility industry. "Demand is going to grow. It just grows in a straight line." That's wrong.

And so, if we could get the State legislature to clarify through law exactly what their authority is, then we would feel free, I think, to put as much money as we think is needed and we can afford into fixing our jail. That's not a typical way you deal with taxes, but almost anything we do affects taxes. You can look at that as looking for other sources of income, but it's not really. It's trying to relieve what is being dictated to us. Looking for other sources of income always sounds good.

We did have an income tax study committee, which was a non-County legislature committee, it was citizens. They did a good job. They pointed out the pros and cons, which were pretty obvious anyway. And their bottom line was that we should use their study as the basis for further study.

OK. They thought it would be very difficult for a county to get an income tax on its own. It would be much easier to do state wide. I completely agree with that. That's an obvious statement. But I don't see it happening at the state level, so I think that still is a viable thing to pursue. One of their comments was that it will only affect about a quarter of the residents' taxes, because the County's amount of tax compared to the school district is about a quarter of what the school district's is. So it may not be worth doing, because it's so small.

I don't agree with that at all. If we could really reduce our taxes that would be great. If the schools wanted to work with us to have income tax as a source of (income) that would be excellent. So these are large unfinished things to work on.

How else to deal with taxes? We have already asked our County Administrator over the last several years to scrutinize the details of every department and every program. And he has, and things have been cut. And as I said I think we went too far in some respects. I don't think there is anything left to cut unless we simply stop doing certain things. Nobody I talk to can suggest what they want us not to do. It's that simple.

So keeping taxes down is very desirable. Trying to have our employees understand that we don't undervalue them if we don't give them big raises. We're trying to think of the people who pay the taxes. We have to balance both. I think it's extremely difficult, and if we can have a zero percent tax levy increase I will be delighted. I will also be surprised.

What I'll do every year is the same thing. I don't think there is anything we do that is more important than to figure out and adopt a budget using taxpayer money. We take a fair amount of time doing it. We get complaints that we don't vote on the budget until after the election. I think that is an unfortunate bit of timing, but the law prescribes when elections are and when budgets are due, and I don't think we should shorten our budget calendar to insure a vote before an election because we don't have as up to date information as we need to make as good a decision as we can.

LS: I heard someone on the radio talking about his theory that we don't need any government below the County level. He justified that by saying that there was an economy of scale. The County could purchase things for the schools and police departments and so on in bulk like Walmart does. I thought it was interesting academically.

DK: Yes, it's an academic idea. There are lots of different models of how states are organized. In New York State there are more levels of government than any place else. I'll talk about purchasing first. Most municipalities at all levels buy off of State contracts, because that's where you get the bulk purchase price the best. So the Sheriff buys his cars off of State contract, we buy computers off State contract, things like that. So I don't think there would be savings that way dramatically different from what we have now.

The kinds of services that our constituent municipalities provide are to some extent duplicated at the county level. Like roads we all have, public safety that some municipalities have, some don't. But the costs of them wouldn't change that much. We build roads for heavier traffic loads so they've got a bigger base and different structural characteristics. If we were responsible for town and village roads we'd be building them to lesser standards, because they they don't have as heavy traffic.

And the cost of roads, and materials for roads, and the cost of employees... I don't think it would be that different. I understand the idea that you don't need so many levels of government, and in fact with schools I can make a stronger argument. SOme states have school districts that are county size. And there, there really is less administration. So you may save on top level personnel. And that might also happen at the county level if you didn't have so many sub units of leadership. But that's a small percentage of the total employee work force, so I don't think whoever said this had thought it through hard or looked at numbers.

So yes, theoretically you could. But the County would have to take on something it doesn't have right now. In New York State it doesn't have land use control. We don't give building permits and so forth. We have a planning department, we have a comprehensive plan. We have really excellent staff, but with a few exceptions we don't make land use decisions.

We would need more local offices of county government. If you had county government you couldn't expect everyone to trek to one place. You'd have to have outposts for the convenience of people, just like post offices are everywhere. I don't think you would have to add many people, but I don't think there would be that much savings.

However, if you were to cut anything in New York State I think the hardest things to cut would be cities and villages, because that's where the people cluster. Then you have a choice between towns and counties. Towns do what villages and cities do, but they don't do at all what counties do, human services and health things. So it's towns that we could probably do most without. Have the pockets of densest population represented by villages and cities within a county. That's probably the easiest change for New york State to make if it ever were to do so.

LS: Would you consider that a desirable thing to do or undesirable?

DK: I obviously don't feel strongly enough about it that I am working toward it. It might be desirable in the long run, but I'm not sure it would save that much. I would have to think about it. I would have to try to do some financial analyses beyond what I just gave you.

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

DK: Better than I feared. I was very concerned about it. I think we are doing remarkably well having gotten a second airline to come in. It's another troubled airline, which most are. I'm a little concerned that there seem to be some business people who feel that the County shouldn't run the airport, that is should be spun off with its own board of directors.

I can understand that businessmen like the idea of doing that. The argument that I've heard is that county government can't be nimble enough to act quickly if an opportunity comes along. But that's exactly what we did do. We met and said, "Yes, we want to negotiate this contract with this other airline." I think it's a legitimate thing for the County to be in the business of.

I think it's important, but I think it's more important to businesses and Cornell and Ithaca College than it is to the county residents in general. It's very nice to have a closer place to go to to hop on a plane, but ordinary people, I think, don't fly that often. It's business people who do. So it's the people who need it the most who should probably be helping support it more. And that's what's happening at the moment. Cornell has put in a certain guarantee, and the County put in a certain guarantee, and businesses. So that's been a nice public/private approach to keeping an airport here, and I think that's an appropriate thing to do.

LS: And I have heard that Northwest is doing well enough that the guarantee doesn't have to be forwarded to them.

DK: So far, yes. The ridership that they have gotten has been very good.

LS: Public Safety. Do you think the Sheriff's Office and D.A.'s office are adequately supported?

DK: Yes. In trying to balance everything it would be lovely to have more staff in both of them, but I can say that literally about every department we have. When I mentioned earlier that road patrol is not a required service that counties provide, I can't imagine us doing away with it. There are counties in New York State that do not have sheriffs. That's been true for a number of years. And not surprisingly State Police have more people in those areas, because historically that's who is supposed to be doing it.

You could not do away with County Sheriff road patrol now, because the State Police numbers are way down and our state can't afford to fill in. Once upon a time that's what used to happen and we missed the boat on that. So it would be lovely to have more Sheriff's deputies. I think they are adequately supported relative to all our departments.

We have a Sheriff who models his road patrol organization on the State Police. I may have this wrong: I think the county is divided into four sectors, and that means you have to have four cars on the road at a time to patrol it all. To my simple mind I said, "Suppose we divide the town into three sectors? Each car would have to cover more ground, but you'd have one fewer staff person. And maybe you could have better coverage if you reconfigured your areas that way."

Our Sheriff does not want to deviate from the State Police organization model. There is no reason they have to be the same. They operate on the "closest car" concept, and that would still be true. So as long as he doesn't seem willing to look at other ways to answer needs I'm not real enthusiastic about giving him more people to fill the number of sectors he feels he needs. It's kind of a wash there.

The D.A.'s office... When the city closed down one of their court functions, the County was obligated to take it on. It was always optional for the city. And George (Dentes) made, I thought, a good presentation on how he needed additional people for that. My colleagues cut him more than I thought should be cut and I helped restore a half a D.A. That was the best I could do.

I think there is probably adequate staff. But the interesting thing about the D.A.'s office is what cases one chooses to pursue.

LS: What about that?

DK: Well, it's not up to me. It's up to the public. Are they satisfied with what he chooses to pursue?

LS: The library's budget woes have been in the news this year.

DK: Always.

LS: What action can or should the County take to address that?

DK: This goes back so far! I think the library is one of the most important services for residents, and I hear that from people everywhere, not just in my villages. People seem to like it. I was enthusiastic about them becoming a county-wide district library, and they were shot down at the state level by the Department of Education.

LS: What would that have meant to them?

DK: It would have meant that they'd have taken their budget to the voters separately from the County. It's what happens with the Groton library now. There are a few libraries whose budgets are voted on by their service district. It's complicated because there are overlapping service districts. We have a county-wide library and it encompasses the territory that is part of the Groton library, part of the Dryden library, and Trumansburg. I think Newfield is entirely within it. So when that wasn't possible I know the library board of trustees were very discouraged.

I'm going to go back in time so you can understand my position. Our old library across from Dewitt Park, that building was unsatisfactory in many regards, and we needed to do something. We had hired an architectural firm to tell us how we could enlarge it and improve it. And then we were suddenly gifted with the Woolworth building by Mrs. Park.

Now, I have no problem with that location, but I have a lot of problems with the fact that it's a one story building. It makes no sense to have one story buildings in the heart of the city. It was built so that it could have had an additional story on it, but the terms of her gift were that we could not demolish it and we could not add stories.

So it was too much, you couldn't turn down a gift like this. So we moved the library there. I think I was the only person opposed to it, because I thought it did not make good city planning sense at all. As part of this, we knew it was going to be on one floor and we knew that staffing requirements would change. It was very predictable that usage would go up, and it has gone up as predicted. We had a several year plan to increase the staff for the library and it's new situation, and we have not lived up to that.

So my gut is that we knew what we were getting into and we owe it to them still. Each year, as time has passed, I work hard to improve what we give to them. And that's still my position. Maybe if I had just come on the board more recently I wouldn't feel that way, but I know what we did, I know what we told them, what we promised. But politicians should never promise things. But it seemed like a commitment to me.

I will look at their needs, but I'll have to balance it with the needs of all the other departments, and I don't know what I'm going to do.

LS: Recycling. Has this been a success for the County?

DK: Yes. Do you have any doubt about it?

When we took over solid waste from the municipalities a number of years ago (just like we took over assessment even longer ago), and I think it's an appropriate thing to have that happen at the county level. Although we don't have a land fill any more, we do have the recycling and solid waste center. It's well used. We added a household hazardous waste depot, and that was a very important addition.

I never thought it was laid out particularly well and it's gotten to be quite a problem.

LS: Because of the traffic...

DK: Yes, the traffic pattern in there is less than wonderful. We hired a very good company, KRINC, to run it. They process and market the recyclables and they do a good job. We get 70% of the revenue and they get 30% so it's in their interest to gather and market very well. And I think it's been a very successful thing.

There's a burn barrel question in the County that some of our rural reps, George Totman for example says, "I always burn stuff. My neighbors burn stuff. They bring it over to me , I burn it." (laughs) He doesn't seem to understand that burning plastics is nasty business. Coatings on lots of things should not be burned or breathed. Some of what gets burned are plastics that could be recycled, so that relates to the recycling center.

But we do not have markets for all of the many varieties of plastic that exists. We can only take a few of the numbers.

LS: Sure. It's one through three, isn't it?

DK: Yes. Other places you can recycle up through number eight and we should really be there. I wish our department would find us some outlets for the others. It's nice to be able to answer "yes" to a question. (laughs) Has anybody answered no to that?

LS: Nobody has. What unique benefits will you bring to the County as a representative of Lansing?

DK: I have now twelve years of experience on the County legislature and I don't think my opponent has that. Beyond that I was on the Cayuga Heights Village Board, and a decade later I was on the Ithaca Town Board, I've been on various county boards off and on over the years. When I haven't held elective office I've been very active in the League of Women Voters where I have studied and worked on public policy issues essentially all my adult life.

So when I first ran for office what inspired me to run, and still is important to me, besides my -- golly -- it must be more than 30 years with the League of Women Voters... I bring an environmental perspective. I ran initially for the County legislature to bring an environmental perspective to decision making, because it was just absent. And I continue to do that.

So it's sort of a good government/open government environmental filter that I look at issues through. And I don't think anybody else on the legislature has that particular background. I don't know what you know about me.

LS: Just what I read.

DK: On that? (referring to a printout of her web page on the Tompkins County web site) Did that mention our land policy? Once upon a time the County didn't have a land policy. We would foreclose on property no matter what was on it. Some of that would bring horrible liability problems. Also we sold land when people wanted it without looking at its possible value to the public. So now we have a land policy that looks at what we own, and it looks at what we might own before we acquire it.

That wouldn't have happened if I hadn't been there, because that was something I thought was terribly important. We look at both the bad aspects, pollution, and we look at the good aspects. So I have an environmental filter.

So it's experience. And I'm independent. Some of my colleagues get very frustrated with me, because I just can't vote for stuff that I don't believe in. Just because you go along to get along, you know, or you wash my hand, or whatever the phrase is... I just can't. So if I don't get elected, for me it's not the end of the world. I am who I am and I do what I do and I'm not going to pander.

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

DK: (Lists a number of issues.) I'm not sure that, other than public transportation they would be of interest to Lansing.

LS: Well what about public transportation?

DK: It's expensive. It only exists with subsidies. I was ver sorry that TCAT has become a not-for-profit, which means that it's not a governmental agency any more. I was sorry to see it go in that direction. We can get money from the State and pass it on to them, which we do. I'm going to talk as an environmentalist now. I understand that to get started one buys other communities' large older busses, which is why we originally had so many large diesels that didn't last so long. But we continue to buy 40 foot diesel busses, and I have asked for years to have us please go to (laughs) anything else. Hybrid busses, propane, compressed natural gas, other fuel sources. And that's been very slow coming.

And I've worked with the man who runs the taxi business to have our bus system work with cabs. In my view you can't run busses everywhere, but you can have standard pickup stops. And cabs can be called on demand to bring people to bus stops. To have a jitney service that would work with busses. I really like that idea. That's really the only way, I think, that we're going to get better public transportation out to our rural communities. Our County system serves Cornell extremely well, and serves the city very well. That's where all the population is. But the people who need it also live elsewhere. That's something I would think Lansing would care about, but I don't hear about it. Tom never talks about it.