The Monroe County Legislature, What’s Going On?
For your sake I hope that you do not find 
yourself in the same position I do. I hope that your county representative is a competent, knowledgeable, and progressive leader that has a knack of setting a vision for his district, acting on this vision, and subsequently accomplishing it. However, the numbers today would seem to indicate that your situation is more likely than not similar to mine. Despite Democrats holding a substantial countrywide majority in terms of registered voters Republicans maintain a stranglehold on the county legislature representation. Why is this important?
The Monroe County Legislature is to the Federal Congress as Maggie Brooks is to George Bush. In order for the Democrats to truly start to hold Maggie accountable for her actions we need to take back the legislature. In 2006 we had the 50 state strategy nationally, today I propose the 14 LD strategy (I would like to have it been the 29 LD strategy, but there are only 14 open seats!) As of this morning the Democrats had selected 10 candidates, which leaves 4 still open. I do however, have it on good authority that at least one of those selections will be made very shortly.
So what does your County Legislator do for you? Again, if you are like me then not much, that is of course unless you count letting Maggie do her best impersonation of The Queen (cue RT’s fantastic artwork). Over the past week I have done the best I can to actually come up with some accomplishments from Dan Quatro, the Republican representative in
the 15th LD (Brighton, Penfield, and Webster) and I have come up with virtually nothing. In fact, if one is to believe the meeting minutes that are posted on the Monroe County Legislature web-site then one is to believe that the greatest assets that Mr. Quatro brings to the legislature is breathing and showing up. Go ahead and check them out for yourself and I’m sure you will be amazed on how little you can find about what he has done.
So it brings me to this, if you are a resident of the 5th, 9th, or 12th then I strongly urge you to consider running against your respective representative. The best argument that you can make to anyone who challenges your desire to help your community is “do you honestly believe that the current Government has the best interests of ALL residents of Monroe in mind?†And follow up with, “Don’t you think that Monroe deserves to be better, don’t you think it can be better? I will make it better.â€
Related posts:
- The Monroe County Legislature - where technology goes to die
- Check out the outdated Monroe County Legislature Website
- Monroe County Legislature Public hearing on Maggie’s Tax intercept - It is easier to find Waldo than a Republican in an open forum
- Emerging themes in County Legislature Races. What’s missing?
- Reduce Monroe County Legislature size? Good or bad idea?
Check out the D&C’s new editorial blog “Desperately Seeking Susan” on this topic. One post said that the Dems are purposely not running so that Maggie sinks and the Dems then take control.
http://www.democratandchronicle.com/blogs/editorial/
Seeing Quatro’s picture, I….I…feel compelled to buy insurance from him. Must…put…wallet…away…
There’s an interesting tidbit about Quatro and the Water Authority here.
Good one, bythepeople.
In my best Young Frankenstein voice:
“Insurance goooood. Slick salesmen baaaad…”
Your article about Dan Quatro is so true. He has done zero since winning election, unopposed by the way, two years ago. From what I was told he never even bothered to show up to his committee’s nominating convention. He’s a robot controlled by Steve Minarik and there are a number of voters, including Republicans, that would love to see this person leave. The only thing he does in the legislature is take up space.
If the Democrats want to win control of the County Legislature then they need to run a full slate of candidates. At their recent convention there were a few seats left vacent. The Democrats only need to capture three seats to become the majority party. The party really needs to find qualified people if they expect to win. I hate to see Republicans in some district go unopposed this fall.
[...] been blogging on the 15th LD for some time now and I have noticed that there are at least a few interested individuals that [...]