Chuck Hage: Time, The Stuff Of Life

Editor’s Note:  This is the second of four columns Chuck Hage is writing on his experience as a Cooperstown village trustee.  His second topic:  Time.

Time is money.  In so many ways. 
The more time that is required by the mayor to “fight fires” and take corrective actions, the longer financial planning is postponed and the future of the community is diminished. 
The more time that is spent by trustees on administrative minutiae, the more opportunities are lost to develop good policy. 
The more some people in positions of responsibility create dissension and chaos that are self-serving, instead of carrying out their duties, the harder it is to govern. 
The more arrogance pushes aside competence, the more time and money are wasted.  The more we tolerate an anemic culture of decision-making, the more we will discourage community talent from serving the public.
Case in point.  Main Street is not parking.  Main Street is vital to everyone, but is short on vitality, especially in winter. 
One key to vitality is development of apartments in upper floors of downtown buildings, a subject addressed in workshops attended by several local people.  The elements of an action plan include tax incentives for development and parking spaces leased by the village to building owners.
The economic and social benefits of successful development should put this subject at the top of any list of project priorities.  But what occupies the discussion?  Revenue from paid parking. 
Is it our goal to live in a village that is half dead for lack of vitality? Why do we waste years on a partial problem and ignore the need for a larger solution?  We are not small-minded; we simply need teamwork. 
This past summer, the mayor held a public hearing to stimulate thinking on the vitality of Main Street.  We should all focus on this larger issue and treat parking as one aspect of it.  Time spent that way will pay off.
Second case in point.  Public service is not a platform.  If the mayor and board spend long hours dealing with personnel, they will have little time to plan improvements.  If they must constantly respond to contentiousness by a few, their capacity to govern is diminished. 
It’s painful to everyone who must deal with poor behavior, and it’s hard for the mayor to govern when individuals demand so much attention at the expense of the community.  We pay for service time, not for time out.
Third case in point.  The Gateway is not a welcome center.  It’s a parking lot and a road.  Jurisdictions, regulations and strings attached to federal funds all complicate the management of who does what when, but site design and construction do not involve any rocket science.  There is no excuse for being six years down the path with the end in doubt. 
Village officials with no expertise in project management should not presume to be in control, fail to perform due diligence, and neglect to report to the community on a timely and responsible basis.  Those six years have cost a million dollars and counting.  Time is money.
Fourth case in point.  Policy is not politics.  Attacks on the mayor have been made on the false premise of payback that favors merchants who supported him and punishes employees who did not. 
Attacks on the president of Cooperstown Youth Baseball and his wife, a member of the Planning Board of the Town of Otsego, have been made on the false premise of conflict of interest. 
In a twisted logic that can be extended to shut down village government, the suggestion was made that three trustees recuse themselves from the topic of paid parking because they own businesses in the village.  All this insidious nonsense diverts the mayor and the board away from serving the public and undermines the leadership and teamwork we voted for.  What a waste of time and money.
On a more systematic note, due process has been long absent from the functioning of our village government.  The large staff and many committees are occupied by individuals who mostly are given no authority and consequently assume no responsibility. 
The designation of a committee for every function, intended to cover all bases, creates a high degree of churn with a low level of yield.  The trustees constantly deal in board meetings with issues that have not been prepared for presentation by the appropriate department or committee, making the worst of trustee time.
The board even rejected the notion that due diligence should precede a purchasing decision involving a large amount; the decision was not urgent and time could have been taken to save considerable money.  A special problem is that committees have not exercised their separate and opposite responsibilities for advocacy and gate-keeping. 
If the water department needs a new pump, the case for it should be made by that department, not the finance chair or treasurer, who should qualify the request and make it compete with other requests.  Due process takes staff time, but it makes the most of management time and saves taxpayer money.